During a meeting at the Waldoboro municipal building Dec. 4 the Maine Clammers Association asked the clam diggers of Waldoboro to work together to open the flats and to keep them open.
Chad and Walter Coffin, President and Vice President of the MCA respectively, addressed the crowd of diggers, selectmen and representatives of local and state government in an appeal to work together to keep the Medomak open for clam harvesting.
“It really boils down to the Maine way of life,” Chad Coffin said. “Clean water is what it’s all about.”
In 2003, Coffin said the harvest of Waldoboro clams along the Medomak added up to $6 million. In 2005, the harvest dropped to $2.5 million. Waldoboro Shellfish Conservation Committee chairman Abden Simmons later confirmed that in 2003, the clam harvest for Waldoboro amounted to roughly 1.1 million pounds. In 2005, the harvest dropped to about 500,000 pounds due to rainfall closures.
Simmons said that the upper region of the Medomak River closes following storms amounting to one inch of rainfall. Clam flats have been closed in large part to heavy rainfall during the summer and fall months this year.
According to Ron Aho, a regional biologist for the Dept. of Marine Resources, water quality testing for each designated area requires five years’ worth of information. Biologists working for the D.M.R. test water six times per year at each sample station along the Medomak River and up and down the coast of Maine. They compare these samples with samples taken in the previous four years.
Aho said that this gives biologists 30 pieces of information to come up with water quality classifications for each area.
He said that rainfall conditional areas, such as the upper Medomak River, need a rain gauge. The water quality is generally pretty good except when the rainfall is greater than one inch, he said.
Checking and locating sources of pollution such as leaky septic systems or water runoff from shoreline farms could increase the rain gauge and open up portions along the shore to shellfish harvesting if those pollution problems are solved, according to Chad Coffin. Coffin strongly suggested clam diggers go out and conduct shoreline surveys. Doing so could quicken the time it takes to open flats.
“You have a huge amount of manpower available to you,” Coffin said.
Coffin suggested local clam diggers use some of the hours required for seeding the flats with baby clams, also known as “conservation hours” to conduct shoreline surveys.
“We want to work with you guys,” Coffin said, adding that it will take the strength of many to get the job done. “It’s not a quick fix,” he said.
Coffin said that the monitoring of the flats takes time, but implied that persistent and consistent testing will favor clammers and the local community with prosperous outcomes. Monitoring of flats by conducting shoreline surveys also invests diggers more in their profession and livelihood.
The MCA president also suggested that local diggers could use their conservation hours for fund raising. He said that the clam diggers in the Freeport area used some of their conservation hours to dig clams and host a fundraiser clam bake.
“You’ve got to get the whole community involved,” he said.
During the meeting, it was determined that it would take $12,500 to conduct testing for 10 rainfall events. The MCA brought local clammers, and representatives from the Medomak Valley Land Trust, Waldoboro board of selectmen and the Lincoln County Economic Development Office together to apply for a grant to help with the cost of water testing.
Amy Winston, Director of the Lincoln County Economic Development Office and representative from Coastal Enterprises, Inc., took feedback from Coffin, Simmons and others regarding the criteria required for the grant application.
“What I’m trying to do is make an argument for a special project,” Winston said.
She said that the committee might need matching funds in order to qualify for the grant. The limit for this program amounts to $15,000. The committee, in working with Winston, must prove that there will be a loss of jobs in the area and that the grant funding will help in preventing that from happening.
Coffin said that the D.M.R. is conducting a pilot program that allows water testing independent of the government agency. While that may be a goal for the future, the pressing issue for the town of Waldoboro is to conduct preliminary surveys, Coffin said.
Anyone who is willing can conduct these surveys, he said. It might take initial training, but surveys would simply require people to walk out along the shore and look for pollution sources, such as sewer pipes or water runoff from coastal farms.
There was some discussion of the consolidation and movement of responsibility among governmental departments. The work of the committee, non-profit organizations and shellfish harvesters will only be further compounded if budget cuts at the state level eliminate jobs at the D.M.R. State agencies are scrambling to find a solution to possible cuts in response to a significant budget shortfall and while consolidation of government agencies hasn’t happened, it is under discussion.
Coffin said that if people seek out and find pollution sources along the shore, those areas in which pollution is found would be eligible for accelerated water sampling.
“It’s really critical to find pollution sources,” he said.
Waldoboro selectman Ted Wooster asked Coffin if he would comment on wildlife pollution. Coffin responded first by saying that it was a difficult solution, but added that when people are out seeking pollution sources they find areas polluted by wildlife such as beavers. While some shellfish areas are populated by flocks of birds during certain times of year, Coffin said that monitoring seasonal closures would be better than what harvesters have now.
“The more stuff you find, the better,” he said. “The more documentation you have, the better.”
“The modern clam digger is the steward of the ocean,” Coffin later said. “He’s the canary in the coal mine.”