Fishermen Worry Heavy Rains Could Affect Conowingo Dam Yet Again
BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) — Last month, Annapolis found itself choked with debris, following record rains in July.
A vast plume of trees, trash and sediment could be seen from space, as the Susquehanna River poured through the Conowingo Dam into the bay.
Rob Newberry with the Delmarva Fisheries Association, is worried it could happen again.
"The concern now is with the remains of Hurricane Florence going up the western shore and going up into Pennsylvania, there's going to be another big spill coming from Conowingo Dam," Newberry said.
The last one pushed crab pots and crabs south. According to Blair Baltus with the Baltimore County Watermen's Association
"It pretty much flushed everything away that we had. Where they ended up, I have no idea," Baltus said.
Since then, debris has been piling up again behind the Conowingo Dam. And at a second dam further up river, debris is said to stretch for miles. If enough rain falls over Pennsylvania and the bay takes another hit.
"We've had the environmental impact, now the economic's going to be coming. Guys who rely on net fishing, guys who rely on crabs, the clammers; that's thirty plus clammers that aren't working now," Newberry said.
How much worse that impact becomes, depends on how much rain falls on the Susquehanna watershed in the days ahead.
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