STORM can’t handle the sunshine
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A Galveston Judge is being hailed a hero again tonight by fisherman along the Texas coast.
Judge Lonnie Cox of the 56th District Court had already stopped a greedy Chambers County oyster company from interfering with oyster fisherman making their living in one of the nation’s best oyster harvesting areas. Now he has stopped the attempt to move the legal battle out of Galveston County and back to Chambers County, denying a motion to change venue.
“It has been clear from the beginning that oyster fisherman wouldn’t find justice in Chambers County, where this smelly political deal was hatched”, says Lisa Halili of Prestige Oysters. “Judge Cox has restored our faith and has saved the public oyster season. Attorneys for the oyster fisherman proved STORM was interfering with state approved oyster leases in Galveston County.”
A company called S.T.O.R.M wanted to stop any fisherman from entering 23,000 acres of Galveston Bay so they would have a virtual monopoly on the lucrative bay oyster crop. S.T.O.R.M got a sweetheart deal last year from the Chambers Liberty County Navigation District giving them a long lease on the bay bottom for 1.50 an acre, and then they tried to keep other oyster fisherman out. The fight has been on ever since to knock some sense into Anahuac politicians that the Parks and Wildlife Department oversees natural resources, not some appointed bureaucrats in Anahuac who don’t know much about oysters.
The State of Texas has filed a lawsuit against S.T.O.R.M and the Chambers Liberty County Navigation District, calling their whole deal illegal. Judges in Austin and Galveston have refused to allow the case to be tried in Chambers County, where this deal was S.T.O.R.M. has a fancy name, Sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management, and they want the public to believe they are on an
environmental crusade to save oysters, but the guys behind it are simply the operators of Jeri’s Seafood in Smith Point.
“This may be about the color green, but it doesn’t have a darn thing to do with the environment,” says Wayne Dolcefino, President of Dolcefino Consulting. “These are public waters. Period. Taxpayers are going to get cheated on this deal and hardworking fisherman are having to fight for their survival, all so a Chambers County Judge and his kinfolk can start counting their money. Nice try, but it’s not going to happen.”
After the latest court rulings, the navigation district should call a special meeting and quit while they are behind.
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