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DMR outlines sealed third‑party grading for on‑bottom oyster lease applications amid fishermen protests
Summary
The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources said it has sent 61 on‑bottom lease applications to a third‑party grader with applicant names redacted; commercial fishermen at the meeting objected to private leasing of historic public reef bottoms and sought legislative remedies.
Director Joe Spraggins, director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, told commissioners on Feb. 12 that the agency has moved to a third‑party scoring process for on‑bottom (historic natural bottom) oyster lease applications and that applicant identities were redacted before review.
Spraggins said the Department received 61 applications and is negotiating a contract with a group in Jackson to grade the submissions. "They're sealed ... and they're going to grade it with the names redacted," Spraggins said, explaining the agency’s intent to avoid any appearance of favoritism. "I did that on purpose because I don't want to know." He added that if graders have follow‑up questions they will be asked by a different team within the contractor and returned to the graders for scoring.
The director described grading criteria that will evaluate applicants’ past cultivation and financial ability to operate on the bottoms, and said the Department separated financial review from technical scoring: an outside accounting…
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