The
National Aquarium in Baltimore is seeking an Urban National Marine Sanctuary designation for the Baltimore Canyon off the coast of Ocean City, MD. The Baltimore Canyon is a 28-mile-long, five-mile-wide major submarine canyon situated less than 70 miles off the coast of Maryland, along the edge of the Mid-Atlantic continental shelf. Within its depths, an entire ecosystem thrives based upon fragile corals and biological phenomena rarely seen anywhere in the world.
According to the
National Aquarium:
The proximity of the Baltimore Canyon to Baltimore City, an up-and-coming tech hub, presents a unique opportunity to connect an urban population to a deep-sea ecological treasure via cutting edge technology. A virtual, high-tech pipeline could carry discoveries from researchers in the Canyon back to scientists, students and institutions for compilation and translation, sparking additional tech investments in Baltimore, providing urban students with STEM career pathways, and accelerating public access to the findings uncovered within this mysterious, dark world."
But with this announcement came fears from the sportfishing community; fears of losing more and more fertile fishing grounds. The National Aquarium quickly tried to allay those fears. According to spokesperson Corrine Weaver, “The Baltimore Canyon supports a wide variety of fish populations, which are both economically and recreationally important and presents exceptional opportunities for sportfishing, diving, boating and other activities, bringing in millions of dollars to Maryland’s economy annually,” she said. “These and other uses, in keeping with ecologically-friendly practices, will be not only allowed but encouraged.”
According to the
Dispatch, what will not be allowed, should the Baltimore Canyon earn the designation, is offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. The federal government had included a vast section of ocean off the mid-Atlantic coast as a potential lease area for private sector offshore drilling, but backed off that proposal last year.
Representatives from the sportfishing community met with National Aquarium officials and Senator Jim Mathias prior to the Aquarium's announcement, and while they were assured fishing in the canyon would not be affected, there is no written provision in the proposal expressly guaranteeing access to the canyon would not be limited somehow in the future. The fear among the fishing community is that fishing in the canyon could be "taken away by degrees over time."
For more on this story, click to
mdcoastdispatch.com and
aqua.org/baltimorecanyon.