Keeping clam-flats open depends on acceptable water quality.
Mid-October sampling in the Kennebec Estuary stream corridor, an area that includes the Sasanoa and Sheepscot watersheds, showed moderately elevated scores of fecal contamination. “Some (samples) came back looking pretty good,” said Anna Bourakovsky, shellfish growing area classification program manager for the Dept. of Marine Resources (DMR).
For the first time last winter, according to Bourakovsky’s records, readings at multiple stations in the bays didn’t meet standards and in the spring they had to be closed to shellfish harvesting.
Last April, said Alison Sirois, DMR marine programs volunteer coordinator based in Boothbay, the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust brought together soil and water conservation districts, Sheepscot River Watershed Council, Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association, DMR representatives, and shellfish harvesters and wardens “to talk about what was going on in the (downstream) estuary, how the closure was affecting the diggers.”
Once it was decided that the issue, with its economic ramifications, needed to be addressed, “it snowballed,” she said, with such agencies as the State Planning Office and Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) getting involved. “It became bigger than we knew what to do with.”
Meetings followed with a wide variety of interested parties. Among the six projects identified, “all short-term, that we could tackle,” said Sirois, was the stream corridor survey that took place Oct. 15. This first, good faith effort focusing on healthy water quality and of joining forces with a variety of volunteers added up to what Sirois called “a good job.”
She said the point was not to emphasize the enforcement aspect of faulty septic systems leaking fecal bacteria, for example, or to target individuals as polluters. Foremost is cooperation from people. “If we do find enforcement issues, that’s a separate (matter) for the DEP to look at,” she said.
“Frankly we didn’t see high scores” from the stream samplings, Sirois reported. “We do know there are (bacterial pollution) issues in some of the locations but the towns of Wiscasset and Woolwich are working on it.”
Priority survey areas were Chewonki Creek, Montsweag Brook, and streams entering Brookings Bay, Sirois said. Many different factors, including the presence of a marina and the Wiscasset Water District, made Ward Brook “a more complicated thing.” The other water bodies “have good resources for clam digging,” she added.
Bourakovsky said potential sources of fecal concentrations are human or animal, “any warm-blooded mammals or malfunctioning septic system.” Her work entails collecting data throughout the entire year from the shellfish sampling stations. “At the end of our field work, we evaluate all scores to see if water quality is improving or staying the same. If they show improvement, we can make a case for opening all or most of the areas,” she said.
Stream surveying and other sample gathering offer the potential to close an area impacted by the stream draining into it, she said. “We can make the size of the (shellfish growing area) closure appropriate for the size of the area polluted by the stream.”
Sirois said there are other estuary health concerns besides shellfish to address, such as agricultural runoff and other land use impacts.
A full report of the stream survey findings and scores is being prepared.
Sirois also said the name Kennebec Estuary Stream Corridor Survey may be temporary. “We’re trying to figure out what to call ourselves.”
The Kennebec Estuary, which begins in Augusta, is the largest tidal estuary on the east coast north of the Hudson River.
