DARIEN, Conn. — Roger Frate of Darien has a simple answer to improving the stock of lobster in Long Island Sound.
"We've got a bad situation here unless we can tell New York what to do," Frate told U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Tuesday. Frate wants New York State to curb pesticide use, which he said is responsible for the dramatic drop-off in the number of lobsters in the Sound.
Murphy stopped by Frate's Darien Seafood Market to speak with Frate and fellow commercial fisherman Tony Carlo of Norwalk about the state of the lobster stocks and to drum up support for a bill he is backing.
The Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Act would seek funding of $65 million for water quality and shore restoration programs. Murphy supports the bill, along with his fellow Connecticut Democrat U.S. Richard Blumenthal, and New York's two Democratic U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer.
Frate said it was pesticide used to combat the West Nile Virus in 1998 and 1999 that decimated the Sound's lobster population and sent it into a tailspin from which it has yet to recover.
Read the full story at the Darien Daily Voice >>
Read more about Northeast lobster >>
