The Waldoboro Board of Selectmen voted to approve increases in shellfish license fees following a public hearing on Feb. 22. At the recommendation of the Shellfish Committee, selectmen approved increases of $10 for resident commercial and $20 for non-resident commercial licenses.
Abden Simmons represented the committee at the selectmen’s meeting, and said the increase was to compensate for a 10-license reduction to the number of commercial licenses that will be offered this year.
When shellfish licenses become available in July, the town has 90 days to sell the resident licenses before they become available to non-residents, Simmons said. Last year, there were 17 licenses left over, and it took until the last two weeks to sell them to residents.
The ten-license reduction will help ensure that all the licenses go to residents, Simmons said.
“I’d just as soon have more non-residents,” Simmons said, “but I’m worried that if licenses start going to non-residents [diggers] are going to be hollering about why non-residents are getting them.”
About a dozen diggers attended the public hearing to protest the increase.
Those present said the economy makes it difficult for diggers to afford the fees. Many people have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet, diggers at the meeting said, and the increase to the license fees makes that even more difficult.
Simmons and board members said that most of the diggers support the increase, but “the ones that agree with it don’t show up to the meeting,” Simmons said.
Simmons also said that even with the increase, Waldoboro is still has one of the cheapest shellfish licenses in Maine. Diggers at the meeting pointed out that Waldoboro has cheap licenses because they sell more of them than most other towns.
The licensing fees support the efforts of the Shellfish Committee; 95 percent of the money collected from licenses goes to the Shellfish Warden’s salary, the other 5 percent supports conservation programs on the flats, Simmons said.
Those programs include seeding, testing for sources of pollution and working to ensure flats closed for contamination are re-opened as soon as possible, Simmons said.
