SOUTH POINT — A controversial aquaculture lease for a vast oyster cultivating operation off South Point appears to be closer to reality this week after an appeals court confirmed an earlier ruling approving the application.
Since 2009, the battle over a proposed lease of three, 16-acre areas in the coastal bays near South Point has been waged at nearly every level and the application has been approved and denied at different times over the last six years. The applicant, Don Marsh, has been seeking approval to start an oyster cultivating operation including as many as 500 wire mesh cages suspended about six inches off the bottom in the shallow waters off the coast of South Point.
However, several residents in the South Point area, along with a handful of commercial fishermen, have fought the application, asserting adding 500 wire mesh oyster cages to the bottom of an area that is already challenging because of narrow channels, sandbars and shoals and crab pots would limit their use of the area for recreational and commercial purposes and create public safety hazards.
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