100 MPH Process: Fisherman Dewey Hemilright of Wanchese, NC on Wind Energy

“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so entrenched in this stuff,” commercial longline fisherman Dewey Hemilright said. “It’s hard to turn my mind off.” Hemilright, who fishes out of the northern Outer Banks village of Wanchese, serves on the federal Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council as well as numerous advisory committees. Lately he has turned his attention to offshore wind energy and its potential impacts on fisheries, including commercial, recreational, and for-hire charter businesses. “I don’t think people understand the magnitude of these wind energy areas from Maine to South Carolina, a massive amount of acreage if you add it all up, and what a disruption to the seafood industry this could be,” he said. “And the leases are going for such huge amounts of money I worry that the commercial fishing industry will amount to a grain of sand on Jockey’s Ridge.” Hemilright calls the recent acceleration in ocean bottom leasing a “100 mile-per-hour process.” >click to read< 10:29

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