Stimulus Money Pays Fishermen To Snare Lost Nets

When commercial diver Kenny Woodside takes to the depths, he enters a world of murky low light and dangerous currents.

Until recently Woodside and about 100 hundred other divers searched Puget Sound for sea cucumbers and urchins to sell to buyers in Asia, where the items are considered delicacies.

But demand for the fishermen's catch dried up with the worldwide economic crisis and left many of these divers without a reason to go out on the water.

"The fishing industry has slowed from a full-time job to just a couple months a year," said Doug Monk, the captain of the boat from which Woodside dives. "The red sea urchin market is almost non-existent."

But thanks to a small piece of the federal stimulus recovery plan, Monk, Woodside and about 40 other fishermen will get back to work hauling in a very different catch: lost fishing nets.

While many stimulus projects have come under fire as pork barrel spending, backers of the nets program say it is a model for helping those battered by the economic downturn while completing needed public works.