Three Middlesex sites eyed for commercial fishing

Three public boat landings in the eastern end of Middlesex County have been marked as potential sites for developing commercial fishing and maritime waterfront areas.

Stamper’s Bay Landing on the Piankatank River, located near Hartfield, Whiting’s Creek Landing on the Rappahannock River near Locust Hill, and Mill Creek Public Landing on the Rappahannock River in Wake, are being considered for the development of infrastructure to encourage commercial fishing/maritime waterfront activities.

For those living near those sites, or on the roads leading to the sites and others interested in having a voice in the decision, a “public engagement meeting” is set for 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4, at the Glenns Campus Lecture Hall at Rappahannock Community College in Glenns. The meeting is sponsored by the Middle Peninsula Regional Planning District Commission.

Due to the Middle Peninsula’s waterfront residential land boom, which elevated in the 1970s and has since exploded, commercial waterfront locations where commercial watermen off-load catch and on-load gear, etc., and where other maritime businesses, such as dredge companies, maritime construction businesses, and waterfront commercial sites, have gone away to the residential market.

“We are trying to find ways to keep the commercial fisheries and other commercial maritime ventures viable on the Middle Peninsula,” said Ricky Wiatt of the engineering and design firm of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin to the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors at a meeting in September. VHB has been hired to look at 60 sites on the Middle Peninsula and to come up with a dozen suitable ones.