Ways to revive clam beds explored
HAMPTON, N.H. -- Declining clam populations, clam mortality rates, and shellfish bed closures in Hampton/Seabrook Harbor will be the focus of a forum on the status of New Hampshire's shellfish tonight in Hampton.
The forum is being sponsored by New Hampshire Sea Grant, the New Hampshire Estuaries Program, Great Bay Coast Watch and other groups concerned about the impact of growth and other issues on the state's natural ocean resources.
Candace Dolan, coordinator of the Great Bay Coast Watch phytoplankton monitoring program, said the state's shellfish beds get closed routinely for reasons ranging from sewage plant overflows to red tide.
The state recently reopened much of the coast to shellfishing after closing them Sept. 1 due to high levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning known as red tide in blue mussels off the Isles of Shoals.
But despite the lifting of the red tide alert, New Hampshire's most popular soft-shell clam harvesting area -- the clam flats at Hampton/Seabrook Harbor -- will stay closed until after Nov. 1 due to the risk of bacterial water pollution, not red tide, state officials say.
Chris Nash, manager of the shellfish program for the state Department of Environmental Services and a speaker at tonight's forum, said he will focus on the Hampton/Seabrook estuary "because that's where most people like to go clamming."
Nash said he will not talk about red tide "because we do not close that area for red tide -- we close it very frequently for rainfall-related reasons."
"Red tide is not due to coastal pollution," added Nash. "Red tide is caused by naturally occuring microscopic algae living in the offshore environment."
Nash blamed the closure of the Hampton/Seabrook Harbor clam flats on "a lack of predictable water quality."
Why? "That's the million-dollar question. We speculate that there are a lot more people down there, boating down there, and we hear anecdotal evidence of people dumping sewage legally or illegally" from boats, he said. "Some of this is wildlife, gulls, domestic pets. Some people take their dog [waste] and throw it down storm drains and that's what we see -- a little human, animal, wildlife."
Clean water activists want more curbs to coastal pollution to keep clam beds clean.
"Every time we have a big rainstorm, we get a big influx of untreated sewage into waterways," said Doug Bogen, New Hampshire program director for Clean Water Action in Portsmouth. "Between boating and summer homes with septic systems that need to be upgraded or pumped out, it's an ongoing problem."
Bruce Smith, a marine biologist for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, said 90 percent of clamming in New Hampshire takes place in Hampton/Seabrook Harbor.
Clam populations rebounded there after the area was completely closed to shellfishing in the late 1980s due to water pollution. But the harvest has since gone down.
In 1991, the state sold about 250 clamming license s a year. State clamming license sales jumped to 2,940 in 1994, when the clam flats reopened, then dropped to 1,085 in 2003, Smith said.
The free public seminar will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Ashworth Hotel on Ashworth Avenue in Hampton Beach. For information, call 603-749-1565.
