Sites for watermen mulled

For several years now, the Middle Peninsula Regional Planning District Commission (PDC) has been working to establish better sites for commercial fishermen to use throughout the Middle Peninsula.

Through a study by VHB, it was determined that Stampers Bay on the Piankatank River near Hartfield, Mill Creek (Carlton’s Landing) in Wake and Whitings Creek in Locust Hill, both on the Rappahannock River, were the best Middlesex locations for commercial improvement to accommodate commercial fishermen.

Officials of the Virginia Watermen’s Association have for years warned that suitable onshore commercial fishing locations in the region where watermen can off-load payload into trucks and for other maritime activities, such as locations for marine building companies to off-load piling and other equipment, are rapidly being encroached upon by residential development.

The PDC is also looking at locations in Mathews, Gloucester, and Essex counties, as well as in the Town of Tappahannock, as sites for building infrastructure to support commercial fishermen.

At the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors meeting on Sept. 9, supervisors voted unanimously to participate in the grant process to improve basic infrastructure at three sites, but for supervisors to have input in the specific uses at the sites.