This company already catches 2/3rds of its quota in the Ocean. These are 300 foot ships. Boats much less that half that size routinely fish in the herring fishery up to a hundred miles off shore. The other menhaden purse seiners from NJ  fish 100% of the time in the US Atlantic and they are doing fine, catching their quota.  Menhaden is a near shore fishery because menhaden feed on nutrients flowing out of the bays and rivers. If you look at the MRC map of purse seine sets along the coast MRC attached to the response to the previous petitions for buffer areas and the MOU for buffer areas you will see that about 50%% of the sets are within 5 miles of shore and 95% with 8 miles of the coast in normally calm coastal waters. The predominant wind in the Summer is south west and the coastal area is sheltered in the lee of land. Any commercial fishing business is weather dependent. They could fish in the bay for 5,000 tons of menhaden on bad weather days. The claim of lost jobs or moving from VA is just a scare tactic...no other state on the Atlantic allows reduction fishing.

If the company just fished in the ocean then crews would spend more time on the boats and make more money. Possibly more crews would be added. Any extra fuel and service to the ships would be money spent in Virginia. Any extra expense could be taken out of the 37 million dollars worth of menhaden this company lands a year in Reedville that they are given by the people on Chesapeake bay. 37 million dollars but they refuse to turn over the data that shows what the caught in Chesapeake Bay in 2023 which is needed by the public to determine how much the intense fishing is damaging the bay ecology and they did not support the bill to have VIMS study menhaden in Virginia.