Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Here we go again. The winter crab dredgers want to dredge crabs again. For the past four years they have been stopped from dredging. They were paid $300 a day for the whole season for not dredging. That’s your tax dollars spent for nothing.

Why do they want to dredge? They can make $2,000 a day dredging. When they stopped, the crab population came back strongly. The crabs caught were mostly impregnated female crabs. Now they want to do a study and allow four dredgers the right to catch 40 bushels a day. This is almost like letting the fox in the hen house again. One crab dredging boat going five miles an hour for eight hours can destroy 40 miles of the bottom grass beds and growth. The grass beds take in carbon dioxide and nitrogen, which is pollution, and give the bay oxygen. The upper half of the bay is oxygen starved. We cannot allow any more winter crab dredging if we want to preserve the bay for our children and grandchildren.

You can help save the bay by writing a to the Governor of Virginia not to allow any more dredging in the Chesapeake Bay.

Dr. John B. Lapetina Sr.

Port Haywood, Va.

Former Vice Chairman of

Fishery Management Committee, VMRC