Fishermen fear another tragedy in Tabusintac harbour

Liam McCarron is navigating the waters on Taboo Syntax Bay, a stretch of New Brunswick coastline teeming with lobster clams and oysters but also riddled with hazardous sandbars. In recent years, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has dredged the harbor, making the shallow channel near the sandbar safer to pass through. But days away from lobster season, it announced it will not be dredging. It’s very dangerous. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous every time you go in doubt. Weldon Harding has been lobster fishing at the Taboo Sintak Wharf for more than 40 years. He says the channel often becomes too dangerous to navigate. We lost 3 three guys already because of that gully where they drowned in it. And it is just that. It’s narrow and a shallow, and if you come in and if it’s rough you hit the bottom, the next wave takes you and sinks you. In 2013, three fishermen died after their boat ran into the sandbar and capsized. The community fought for the channel to be dredged before the tragedy. 9 days later, Fisheries and Oceans Canada started to clear it. DFO says. Dredging in taboos intact and point sapping has been postponed to a later year. In a statement, it says it dredges dozens of harbors across Canada each spring and must prioritize the funds available to maximize the operational capacity of as many harbors as possible. They say they don’t. They don’t want us on it, but we’re still using it. Taboo Cintac fishermen are also calling for repairs to their aging Wharf. I don’t know what what we’re going to do. And they told us our Wharf is not to be repaired, no dredging now that now they don’t want to send the survey vote. So it’s critical that work needs to be done here with the Maritime Fisherman’s Union says the Wharf in taboos intact is one of the worst he’s seen in the Maritimes. Well, the Wharf is falling apart, part of the wharfs are are completely closed. And we still have the same number of fishermen fishing out of this world. We’re close to 40 fishermen here, including some members of Escanaba dish First Nation. So I mean, if they don’t have a spot to park their trucks or put their traps or unload their fish, well then we have a serious issue. We’re going to fish, We’re going to fish this year and we’re going to stay here. There’s there’s no place for us at the neighbor Wharf. We need something done or. Going to be another tragedy happen.