Calling Natural resources Police...
OK, so it's freezing out, or more accurately, below freezing, when we arrive at the South River Federation's office around 10 a.m. to ride around in an open boat for an upcoming story. Riverkeeper Drew Koslow, who graciously agreed to take us out, is dressed in more layers than an oysterman would wear - at least two fleece jackets and coveralls. I'm in the most expensive pair of pants I own - which, by the way, are SWEATPANTS, but really nice warm ones - and our ace photographer, Jed Kirschbaum, is waxing poetic about how this trip reminds him of when he was sent out to the St. Lawrence causeway in the mid-1990s to photograph an ornery postman. The temperature there? About 70 below zero.
Needless to say, we're not expecting to see anyone else out on the river, and for a long time we don't. Then we spot a small oyster boat with a patent dredge. Koslow sees it first, when the dredge is in the water. Immediately, he dials Natural Resources police on his cell phone. Patent tonging for oysters is not allowed in the river, period.
By the time I get a look at the boat, the dredge is not in the water anymore, but it's not something I see everyday so it would be hard to tell. Anyway, as it turns out, this boat is known to us; its owner has been cited many times for oyster infractions, such as using the wrong gear in the wrong areas.
The dispatcher at DNR takes Koslow's information but doesn't seem to understand what the problem is. Koslow has to keep telling him/her that the dredge is not allowed in the river, and that he shouldn't have the gear there even if he's not using it, because that makes enforcement tricky. Dispatcher said he'd look into it; they have officers near there inspecting for duck-hunting.
About an hour later, we see the oyster boat again, gillnetting. Koslow calls DNR back to report he's engaged in a legal activity and to give his location. So, all's well that ends well?
Not exactly. Why couldn't the police come in the hour between Koslow's calls and check it out? Or, because this guy is known to have a history of infractions, why not sit on the situation a bit and see what happens?
Because, Capt. Bob Davis said, the DNR police force is so short-staffed that it sometimes takes more than an hour to respond to calls, and when they do, the infractor is long gone. The police used to have a force of 280; now it's 230 - and there's no training academy for more officers.
"We're so shorthanded, and our units are so far apart, that to get from one river to another takes a lot of time," Davis said. "We're lucky enough to have enough people to do the job at all."
--Rona Kobell
I report on the environment and Chesapeake Bay. A native of West Virginia, I have focused mainly on Maryland's environment since moving here in 1983. Along the way, I've crewed aboard a skipjack in the bay, canoed under city streets up the Jones Fall from the Inner Harbor, and gone deep underground in a western Maryland coal mine. Recently, I have been covering the growth and development transforming the landscape. I love seafood, rambles in the country and good stories. I hope to share some here.
Comments
Yes, the current understaffing of Natural Resources Police has become a boon for the criminal element on our waters. As you witnessed, for these guys - it's open season on anything and everything.
Anyone who regularly spends time on the water, quickly learns the schedule of the NRP patrols - they come around like clockwork, errrrr.... make that "calendar-work". This is largely because the NRP is so grossly underfunded and required to cover so much territory, they end-up patrolling any given river system for only one or, at best, two days per week. And when "the cat" only makes his appearance every Wednesday, "the mice" learn to play Thursday through Tuesday.
Under these circumstances, phoning-in a violation, is likely an exercise in futility. The NRP patrol probably isn't anywhere remotely close to your location - and their response time would likely be measured in hours, not minutes. The NRP officers are frustrated by this state of affairs, too, because they understand the constraints under which they must operate - have largely rendered them impotent in squashing the criminal element operating on our waterways.
And before anyone says "What's the big deal? So we got a couple fellas trying to scrape a living out of bending a few laws" - consider that some of these lawbreakers wouldn't think twice about illegally taking oysters from waters explicitly closed to harvest by bacterial pollution. These oysters are unsafe for human consumption, but there's no way to distinguish them from safe oysters without a microscope. Instead, these oyster go to market along with the safe oysters produced by the law-abiding. You might even eat one at the raw bar tomorrow... It's a miracle nobody has been killed yet as a result of our laissez-faire policy of enforcement.
Yep, as you witnessed - it's open season for the lawbreakers. And Rona, I'll bet if you were to return to the South River in precisely one week from your last visit - you'll see the same fella, breaking the same law, at the same location.
Posted by: TheOysterGuy | January 16, 2008 9:00 AM