March 18, 2013 — Superstorm Sandy inflicted up to $121 million in uninsured damages to New Jersey’s fishing industry, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that’s sure to reopen political wounds from the debate over federal aid.
Damages were estimated between $78 million and $121 milllion in New Jersey and $77 million in New York state, the agency said in a summary letter it included with the report sent to New Jersey members of Congress Friday.
Recreational fishing support businesses like marinas and harborside tackle shops took the biggest hits, an estimated $62 million to $105 million in New Jersey and $58 million in New York, the agency says. Damages to the commercial seafood sector was estimated at $14 million in New Jersey and $19 million in New York. The Belford Seafood Cooperative in Middletown suffered a 100 percent loss of its shoreside structure. But that does not include state-licensed boats that work close to shore — like the northern Monmouth County clamming fleet, hit hard by the loss of boats and the continuing closure of Raritan Bay shellfish areas.
Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., D-N.J., on Friday said the report proves Congress was wrong to reject a $150 million fisheries disaster aid package that would have been shared not only with fishermen hit by Sandy, but the industry in New England, the South and Alaska. The $60 billion Sandy relief package wound up with just $5 million in directed aid to the fisheries, after conservative factions in the House of Representatives and Tea Party activists decried the fisheries aid as pork.
Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press