Mar 4, 2009 5:29 pm US/Eastern
Tax Dollars Help Watermen Make Ends Meet
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) ―
It was financial help before the word "bailout" emerged. As winter winds down, it's helped hundreds of Maryland watermen make ends meet.
Alex DeMetrick shows where state tax dollars are going.
Watermen don't normally work the Severn River. Pollution put oysters off limits there 40 years ago.
But 20 workboats were dredging Wednesday, pulling up the empty shells of dead reefs. They are moving those shells up river to dump overboard.
"What we're trying to do is combine all the shells into one big area, so it makes a substantial reef," said Stephan Abel, Oyster Recovery Partnership.
That's where new oysters will be planted this summer.
Up to 600 watermen are being paid by Maryland to do the work.
"A lot of guys need the money and need the work, so this is a good program," said waterman JR Gross.
Heavy silt build-up under the bay is creating the jobs That runoff from land suffocated oyster reefs in the Severn.
About $2.5 million tax dollars are being spent to help ease lost income caused by new crabbing restrictions. Besides state money, a federal disaster declaration for the crab fishery also means $10 million will be coming to Maryland and Virginia to help cover losses and restore the crab population.
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Winter Storm Hits Maryland, Part 3
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