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The Dispatch/Maryland Coast Dispatch
May 10, 2013
Regional Digest
Salisbury Gets Grant
SALISBURY – U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin this week announced the Salisbury Fire Department has been awarded $187,389 in federal funding through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program which will be used to purchase lifesaving equipment. Mikulski and Cardin also announced this week the West Side Volunteer Fire Department will also receive an AFG award of $60,804. The Salisbury Fire Department will use the competitive award to purchase 55 portable radios to replace outdated radios. The new radios will have interoperability functionality and will improve the department’s efficiency when responding to emergencies. The West Side Volunteer Fire Department will use its grant award to purchase new rescue tools to aid in vehicle extractions including “jaws of life” spreaders and an emergency generator. The new tools will replace outdated tools and enhance the West Side Department’s mutual aid capabilities. “I know how important this funding is to Maryland communities – often it’s the difference between life and death,” said Mikulski. “First responders protect our homes and communities, and the federal government has a responsibility to protect them by providing them with the tools they need to do their jobs safer and smarter.”
Ghost Crab Pot Recovery Effort Looks To Continue
Mini-Grant Sought To Carry On Annual Retrieval
By JOANNE SHRINER
STAFF WRITER
Local Gun Turn-In Sites Announced
BERLIN – Attorney General Doug Gansler this week announced his agency is partnering with the Maryland State Police and local law enforcement in an inaugural statewide gun turn-in day tomorrow, Saturday, May 11, to provide residents with an opportunity to safely and voluntarily dispose of their unwanted firearms. State and local law enforcement agencies will be on hand at multiple gun turn-in locations across Maryland including the Lower Shore to accept handguns, rifles and shotguns for safe disposal. No personal identification is required and no advance appointment is necessary. “Any Marylander who has a gun that is no longer wanted will be able to get rid of it safely with no questions asked,” said Gansler. “Our goal is to provide a simple means for families to make their homes and communities safer.” In Worcester County, the gun turn-in site will be the Pocomoke Police Department and the hours for tomorrow are set from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. In Wicomico County, the Salisbury Police Department has been chosen as the site for the gun turn-in SEE NEXT PAGE
OCEAN CITY – In an effort to stabilize the local diamond back terrapin population, Maryland Coastal Bays Program (MCBP) is working with a local waterman to remove abandoned crab pots in the watershed. The MCBP and local waterman Jamie Steele are asking for assistance with a mini-grant to be awarded to Steele to continue the effort to remove “ghost crab pots” from the local waterways. Last December, Steele was awarded a mini-grant from MCBP to recover crab pots that sink and remain on the floor of the bays. Steele ended up removing 82 pots last year in the Assawoman Bay, Isle of Wight Bay, Sinepuxent Bay and Newport Bay. Ghost crab pots claim the lives of several different marine life species, especially the beloved state reptile, the diamond back terrapin. MCBP’s Sandi Smith explained commercial crab pots are not required to have turtle excluders but privately owned ones are, and most of the time the pots that have buoys removed and sink are commercial. “Turtles are attracted to them because they have bait in there,” Smith said. “They get in there just like crabs do and can’t get back out again, and turtles obviously need to breathe … so they basically drown and you lose a lot of turtles, and other aquatic life … it is really devastating on the terrapin population.” MCBP has mini-grant programs available to citizens that want to steward the bays, such as was the case with Steele who has taken advantage of the program to remove ghost crab pots. “The grant that he took advantage of was for the year 20122013, he obviously performed his in 2012 but I don’t have the funding to give him a new one in No-
A commercial crab pot is pictured with the remains of turtles, which suffocate because they cannot exit the pots as crabs can. Submitted Photo
vember,” Smith said. “He would have to wait until the next grant cycle, which comes out in July.” Steele explained a grant is required to legally recover commercial crab pots from the floor of the local bays. He feels if he were to be awarded the grant by the end of the crab season in mid-October he would be able to recover a greater number of pots beginning in November than in December. “Last year the grant was so late by the time I got out there it was freezing cold, so obviously I was out there for only so long,” Steele said. “Also, my point to them [MCBP] is if we got the grant earlier enough when I could get out there in November and there are different methods I could use to try to recover crab pots.” The mini-grant will allow Steele five days to explore the areas of the Assawoman Bay, Isle of Wight Bay, Sinepuxent Bay and Newport Bay to remove ghost crab pots. Being a local waterman he tends to keep track of the crab pots throughout the crabbing season and knows where to look for those that have been abandoned. “Once the crab pots begin to grow barnacles, the buoy becomes heavy, and they will sink or somebody can ride by at night and
cut the buoy and the pot will sink,” he said. Not only are ghost crab pots a death trap for marine life, they also become a safety hazard for watermen and boaters. “As a waterman, there are a lot of people that will cut our buoys off. We have had plenty of people pull our pots and steal crabs out of them … please don’t tamper with other people’s pots,” Steele said. “It sounds minor, but you wouldn’t believe how many people steal each year.” If interested in assisting MCBP to award a mini grant to recover ghost crab pots or to participate in the third annual terrapin count May 29-June 1, contact Smith at sandis@mdcoastalbays.org. MCBP exists to protect and conserve the waters and surrounding watershed of Maryland's five coastal bays located behind Ocean City and Assateague Island. The watershed includes more than 189,000 acres of land, 71,000 acres of water, 248 miles of shoreline, and nearly 35,000 acres of wetlands. Living within its boundaries is a variety of wildlife, including 360 different types of birds, as well as more than 108 rare, endangered and threatened species.
Resort Authorizes Higher Emergency Service Fees
By JOANNE SHRINER
STAFF WRITER
OCEAN CITY – The Mayor and City Council voted unanimously this week to pass a resolution instating higher ambulance service charges and transport fees. Finance Administrator Martha Bennett explained Ocean City has not increased ambulance service fees since 2009. The resolution authorizes an increase that will match standard fees charged by various Maryland ambulance services. It also creates a single-rate schedule for both in-town and outof-town ambulance transports as Medicare and insurance regula-
tions will not pay the additional out-of-town cost. “This proposal sets our fees as the same rate as all other ambulance carriers in Worcester County, and also allows us to receive the maximum reimbursement allowed by Medicare and insurance companies in Maryland,” Bennett said. “We are only allowed to receive from them the amount that they permit for an ambulance call, and that is typically about 48 percent of the charge, so we were not getting the full amount allowed from Medicare in Maryland because our fee was too low. So we set these fees to allow us to maximize that revenue.”
The new ambulance service charges and transport fees are as follows; Advanced Life Support (ALS) Level I rate of $600, ALS Level II rate of $650, Basic Life Support rate of $425, a Medicaid charge of $100, mileage is increasing from $8 to $15 per mile and a bad check charge of $35. The rates are increasing by about a third and will result an estimated increase in revenue of about $300,000. “There is still a large subsidy by the taxpayer for the EMS services of about $5 million, but this does go a little bit further in covering a portion of the charge for EMS service in Ocean City,” Bennett said.
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