Maryland’s House of Delegates voted 96-43 to override Governor Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill that would permanently bar harvesting oysters in five waterways in the Chesapeake Bay.
Friday’s debate in the House was passionate, with delegates who support Hogan’s veto, including House Minority Whip Delegate Kathy Szeliga, protesting that the people most affected by the decision — Eastern shore residents and watermen who make their living from the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay — had been ignored with the passage of the bill. “Who cares about the Chesapeake Bay more than the people who live there? More than the people who make their living there?” she asked.
Delegate April Rose, a Republican from Carroll County, said she also supported sustaining the governor’s veto. She added that she wanted to stand up for the watermen of Maryland.
“We really feel like in the rural areas that our voices are not only not heard, they’re just not even considered,” said Rose.
Delegate Kathleen Dumais, a Democrat from Montgomery County responded to Rose’s comment saying, “I do listen to you, and I have heard you” but, Dumais said, “We do have to protect the Bay, and this is the way that we believe to move forward.”
The legislation would permanently bar harvesting oysters from Harris Creek, the Little Choptank River, the Tred Avon River, St Mary’s River and the Manokin River.
In a letter asking Governor Hogan to veto the bill, Ronald Fithian with the Clean Chesapeake Coalition and Capt. Robert Newberry with the Delmarva Fisheries Association said the bill would deliver what they called a “crushing blow” to the seafood industry.
In his veto letter, Gov. Hogan wrote the legislation “is bad policy, is bad for our watermen — and worst of all — is bad for the Chesapeake Bay”.
Environmentalists have argued that the state’s oyster population is at less than 1% of the levels that would have been found in the Bay before Europeans arrived in Maryland.
A study by UMCES, the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, calculated that there are 300, million market-size oysters found in the Bay — that’s half the amount found in the same area in 1999.
The Senate is expected to take up the issue, and a veto override is expected, but as of Friday afternoon, it was not clear when that vote would be taken. The Maryland General Assembly session ends Monday night.
If the governor’s veto is overridden, it will be the fourth time this session that lawmakers have voted to override a gubernatorial veto.
Other overrides included bills on the $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, the vote to strip the Comptroller of his regulatory authority over alcohol and tobacco sales, and the governor’s 2016 executive order requiring public schools to start classes after Labor Day and end classes by June 15th.
