Tag Archives: Canaveral National Seashore
I dream of a federal government that doesn’t overreach
Most people associate Cape Canaveral with NASA and the Kennedy Space Center, but many licensed commercial fishermen and crabbers in Merritt Island rely on the waters of Florida’s “Space Coast” to earn a living and to support their way of life. Our friendly federal government has decided to threaten that way of life, for reasons that leave much to be desired. A trip down memory lane to the “Space Age” provides background for this ongoing story of government overreach. In 1961, NASA announced its plan to acquire Florida land for the “Space Race” with the Soviet Union, and NASA received a great deal of submerged land in the Space Coast area from the state, including a well-known fishing spot known as “Mosquito Lagoon.” The took charge, and the government then created Merritt Island National Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore. At that time, the federal government respected the right to earn a living and it did not interfere with those making a living fishing the waters in those parks. Not so anymore, of course. Read the rest here 09:11
Big Green Bureaucracy – Commercial fishermen fight to fish near NASA
George Sweetman must follow the crabs. This year, they lure him to the shallows surrounding NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where the beginnings of a blue crab revival crawl inside his steel traps. But a plan to phase out his trade from these remote waters could claw back a recent turnaround in the fortunes of Sweetman and others who fish the Mosquito Lagoon — the northernmost section of the Indian River Lagoon — killing off their unique heritage.But the feds say he and others who fish commercially must go because they clash with the government’s conservation mission. Read the rest here 20:10
