Waldoboro clam diggers are in a tough spot. Between the rocks, regulations and pollution, the men and women who scrape a living from the shores in this coastal town are facing increasing challenges that are putting them out of business.
The Waldoboro Shellfish Committee came together with Dept. of Marine Resources biologist Denis Nault, Sen. David Trahan, Medomak Valley Land Trust director Liz Petruska and a room full of clam diggers March 5 to hear news from the DMR and to find out what help can be had from the state to open the mud flats in the Medomak River.
“The town dumps snow from plowing into the town landing,” said local clam digger Ron Carter outside the door of the meeting. “It ruins the clam beds.”
Carter said he and other diggers have been doing their conservation work, reseeding and looking after the clam flats as part of safeguarding the ground upon which they depend. The difficulty is pollution and the many sources from which it comes.
Carter said he thinks there should be some sort of deposit on the blue gloves they use. The gloves, when left in the mud, deteriorate and turn the mud black.
“You can’t come into Waldoboro and dig like you used to,” added fellow digger Donald Boynton in a conversation implying that laws and regulations make their work more difficult with each passing year.
The DMR wants to help clam diggers get back to work, Nault assured the attentive crowd in the Waldoboro town office meeting room. Nault’s remarks touched on what the state agency could do, its limits and how the local community could help.
“I am committed to resolving these issues,” he said.
This dialog between Nault and clam diggers opened up a path of reconciliation in an effort to accomplish a shared goal. They talked about possible solutions to the clam flat closure quandary that includes depuration and reseeding techniques in addition to water testing.
Waldoboro Shellfish Conservation Committee chairman Abden Simmons said during a previous interview the clam harvest for Waldoboro amounted to roughly 1.1 million pounds in 2003. 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 in this area closed in large part to heavy rainfall during the summer and fall months last year.
Biologists working for the DMR test water six times per year at each sample station along the Medomak River and all up and down the coast of Maine. According to DMR biologists in earlier reports, they compare these samples with samples taken in the previous four years. Biologists then have 30 pieces of information to come up with water quality classifications for each area.
According to some harvesters and committee members, checking and locating sources of pollution such as leaky septic systems or water runoff from shoreline farms could open up portions along the shore to shellfish harvesting if those pollution problems are solved.
Nault said staffing is an issue as there are just six members to survey 7000 miles of shoreline, but he assured the crowd, the DMR would work with diggers to get the flats back open.
“I want to look at a program employing a large number of guys,” Nault said. “You are all positioned on my bulls-eye.”
He encouraged local citizens and diggers to do some of the work in cooperation with the DMR. In response to a question about the local clam diggers funding the work it takes to monitor flats, Nault said he hated to see them pay more for their licenses.
“Anything the community can do to manage the flats is good,” he added. “I’m a firm believer in you guys managing your resources. Any way you can find and fix these issues is great.”
The conversation between Nault, diggers and committee members revealed that the DMR is committed to help change the rainfall conditions in the Medomak River. Diggers also learned the water testing program stemmed from testing for the gulf coast oyster. Biologists use this national standard to test the water clams pump instead of the clam itself.
Nault said he wanted to help Waldoboro clam diggers make green clams for their pockets, but they have to be careful and conduct tests. Simmons told Nault they lost roughly one mile of shoreline due to the closures, to which Nault said, “that stinks.”
All natural resources in the state are roughly three percent of the budget, Nault said, and the DMR is just a drop in the bucket. However, he said some people in state government are starting to understand that a small investment in the program would result in bigger yields.
Trahan mirrored comments made by Nault in that he wants to help clam diggers get back to work. However, he said stimulus funding from the state would not go toward this work.
“I’m not willing to give up on solving this program long term,” Trahan said.
Trahan outlined his plan to obtain funding for the industry. He has drafted a bill, co-sponsored by state Rep. Dianne Tilton (R. -Harrington) and with bi-partisan support, which would reinforce and provide funding for the DMR water-testing program.
“I don’t think it’s fair to ask clammers to put up funding to clean flats polluted by the population,” he said.
His proposed bill would create a $2 per year surcharge on municipal sewer expenses. Money would also be pulled from overboard discharge fines and 50 percent of future increases on shellfish licenses. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, he said, but the yield would come to $467,000 per year, which would go toward reducing coastal water pollution.
Medomak Valley Land Trust director Liz Petruska updated the Committee and members of the audience surrounding the possibility of obtaining grant funding for water testing.
She also mentioned the University of Maine Cooperative Extension as another project partner. Diggers would not have to front money out their own pockets to match funds for the grants, she said. Volunteer time could act in the same capacity.
Diggers already conduct conservation work. Some diggers commented outside the doors of the meeting that while this work is important, it is complicated by pollution.
