CHAPTER 398
STATE OF DELAWARE
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, the oyster industry within the waters of the Delaware Bay, Indian River and Rehoboth Bay and within various rivers is a valuable, important and food producing industry of this State; and
WHEREAS, the State in recognition of its importance has appropriated funds for the production of seed oysters, and to encourage the growth of this industry; and
WHEREAS, this industry in the planting, production and processing of oysters has been a source of employment and revenue to this State and its people; and
WHEREAS, within the past nine months the mortality of oysters has practically destroyed the oysters in the waters of the Delaware Bay and in recent months spread to Rehoboth Bay and adjacent waters; and
WHEREAS, this important industry as a result of the mortality of oysters has been practically destroyed; and
WHEREAS, the decline of this important industry is a source of unemployment and great financial loss; and
WHEREAS, it is hoped and believed that the mortality of oysters may be checked and the industry sustained and revived; and
WHEREAS, the widespread nature of the disease causing the mortality of the oysters has proven difficult to determine and to control:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, J. Caleb Boggs, Governor of the State of Delaware do proclaim and declare the Delaware Bay, within the limits of the State of Delaware, the rivers emptying from our State, and the Rehoboth Bay, the Indian River and such other areas in which oysters are produced within this State and the appropriate adjacent land areas concerned with this industry, a disaster area and direct all appropriate State Agencies and request interested private concerns and the Federal Government to combine their efforts to prevent the further spreading of the mortality of oysters and to develop a program of sustaining and revitalizing the oyster industry, and to render such further assistance as is permissible under the law.
IN WITNESS, WHEREOF, I, J. Caleb Boggs, Governor of the State of Delaware, have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the said State to be hereunto affixed at Dover this twenty-first day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine and of the Independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and eighty-third.
(GREAT SEAL)
J. CALEB BOGGS, Governor
GEORGE J. SCHULZ, Secretary of State