Worcester County Commissioners Working to Protect West OC Commercial Harbor
The Worcester County Commissioners are looking to protect the West Ocean City commercial harbor in an effort to protect the County’s historic commercial and sport fishing industries. The Commission has launched efforts to purchase two properties at the harbor, which house the only two commercial seafood wholesalers where watermen can offload and sell their catches are the Southern Connection Seafood and the Martin Fish Company properties. The County plans to develop a long-term lease with the existing owners to allow them to continue serving the needs of the commercial fishing industry. It’s hoped they can stop Renexia SpA – a foreign-owned construction company – and parent company to US Wind – from purchasing the same properties.
More information from the Worcester County Commissioners:
The goal of US Wind is to tear down the existing fish houses and develop an operations and maintenance facility to support its proposed offshore wind project. The proposed project would obliterate commercial fishing operations and reduce navigability on land and the bays in and around the WOC commercial maritime harbor.
Maintaining the harbor is a critical component of the county’s economy and benefits the public in countless ways.
“None of our actions today have been entered into lightly,” Commissioner President Ted Elder said. “Over the past year or so, we have spoken out at every opportunity to Governor Moore, to state legislators, to the Maryland Public Service Commission, to Sussex County where wind turbine cables would come ashore, and to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), warning that Worcester County’s commercial and sport fishing industries would be destroyed if US Wind is permitted to close down the fish houses. They have turned a deaf ear to us.”
The WOC harbor is home to the commercial fishing fleet. The commercial fishing boats have federal fishery catch quotas that require their harvest to be landed in a Maryland port. Their catches, which are processed and sold by Southern Connection Seafood and Martin Fish Company, have an
annual market value in excess of $3.7 million. In addition to commercial fishing operations, the Martin Fish Company handles humane horseshoe crab bleed operations for the testing of vaccines by the biotech industries in Maryland and worldwide. These crabs are caught, humanely bled, and safely returned to their sanctuary off the coast within the vicinity of the BOEM offshore wind lease area.
Within a stone’s throw of the WOC harbor is the world’s largest billfish tournament, the White Marlin Open. In 2023, this annual tournament generated 130 jobs, attracted 3,500 anglers, and awarded roughly $10.5 million in prize money.
Worcester County’s commercial and sport fishing industries depend on the commercial marine support provided in and around the WOC harbor, the only harbor in Maryland with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean.
“If there ever was a worthy use of eminent domain, this is it,” Chief Administrative Officer Weston Young said. “There is support for the actions being taken today by the Worcester County Commissioners, the Ocean City Mayor and Council, and area stakeholders, as well as an
overwhelming majority of residents, businesses, and property owners, who are against US Wind destroying our commercial harbor and the resort’s viewshed.”
Commercial fishing is such a vital part of the socio-economic fabric of the community that in 1999 the Worcester County Commissioners established the Commercial Marine District to protect the commercial fishing industry in perpetuity.
To learn more about efforts to protect Maryland’s Coast from ocean industrialization, visit saveoceancity.org and stopoffshorewind.com.
