The following is a letter from The Billfish Foundation's Ellen Peel:
Next week Ray Mabus, former governor of Mississippi and currently the Secretary of the Navy, who has been appointed by the President to lead the development of the Gulf Coast Restoration Plan, which is to be complete within 30 days, will be in your area to hold town hall meetings next week - August 2- 5 (3 days only). The purpose is to receive input from citizens of the Gulf Coast on what interests are important when the Restoration Plan is drawn up. No doubt there are thousands of interests to be included, the one we do not want overlooked is our recreational fishing and boating community.
It will be very important for a large attendance be made by our community at these meetings and to provide input as to the importance of recreational fishing and boating to the Gulf coast and the diverse mix of businesses which comprise our industry. The American Sportfishing Association's survey indicated that 300,000 jobs are associated with the recreational fishing and boating interests in the Gulf region and recreational fishing and boating generate an economic stimulus of $41 billion on average a year.
What decision makers, environmentalists and most others do not understand about our very diverse industry is that responsible recreational fishing provides the link between fish alive in the water and sustained economic enterprise. The recreational fishing industry in the Gulf provides decision makers with an alternative to overfishing. This is fundamentally important to conservation and strong economies in the Gulf coast.
Recreational fishing and boating comprise a strong industry on the Gulf Coast and attracts millions of visitors and locals each year to the region. It is time to out this industry and include prominently in the Gulf Coast Restoration Plan. The recreational fishing and boating industry will recovery and with our collective help the Gulf Will Rise Again!
I plan on attending some of these meetings - the full schedule is below:
Theodore Town Hall Meeting
County Commission Senior Citizen Building Theodore, AL
August 2, 2010
11:30AM - 1:00PM
Robertsdale Town Hall Meeting
County Commission Annex
Robertsdale, AL
August 2, 2010
6:00PM - 7:30PM
Panama City Town Hall Meeting
Panama City, FL
August 3, 2010
11:30AM - 1:00PM
St. Petersburg Town Hall Meeting
St. Petersburg, FL
August 3, 2010
6:00PM - 7:30PM
Waveland Town Hall Meeting
Waveland, MS
August 4, 2010
11:30AM - 1:00PM
Ocean Springs Town Hall Meeting
Ocean Springs, MS
August 4, 2010
6:30PM - 8:00PM
Plaquemines Parish Town Hall Meeting
Venice or Port Sulphur, LA
August 5, 2010
11:30PM - 1:00PM
Terrebonne Parish Town Hall Meeting
Cocodrie, LA
August 5, 2010
6:00PM - 7:30PM
Galveston Town Hall Meeting
Galveston, TX
August 6, 2010
11:30AM - 1:30PM
