"Struggling commercial fishers and environmentalists say the White House is exploiting COVID-19 to privatize the ocean."
"Kindra Arnesen still had her baby teeth when she started working on the docks in Plaquemine Parish, a spindrift of land kicked southeastward off the Louisiana boot tip into the Gulf of Mexico.
Family troubles made home an unwelcome place. But with fishermen, many of whom had hauled shrimp and almaco jack from the Gulf for generations, she found safety and income, earning hundreds of dollars a week shucking oysters in the sticky summer heat.
“These guys took me in and brought me up,” Arnesen said. “They showed me this is a good way of life.”
Making a living has been getting harder for her and others in the business. Tight regulations, pollution from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and competition from charter boats and amateur anglers were already driving would-be fourth- or fifth-generation fishers in the region to take up other professions. Then came the novel coronavirus pandemic. ...
So when President Donald Trump ordered the Commerce Department to roll back regulations on commercial fishing earlier this month, Arnesen expected some relief. But her stomach dropped as she read the May 7 executive order. The main thrust of the presidential fiat set in motion a process to open federal waters, the stretch of ocean between three to 200 miles off most U.S. coastlines, to private companies farming fish in giant pens."
Alexander C. Kaufman reports for HuffPost May 25, 2020.
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