Biologists, businessmen and shellfishermen packed the Annisquam River Marine Fisheries field station in Gloucester to air their grievances and raise questions to the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries and their audience, the shellfish industry stakeholders.
The goals of the meeting, according to state Sen. Bruce Tarr who hosted and introduced the session, were to present more information to the shellfishermen about the $2 million in federal grant money that was given to Massachusetts for red tide, an algae that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, the reason behind the closure of local flats this year from May 22 to May 28, as well as about the numerous rainfall closures that have kept many North Shore shellfishermen out of business this summer.
The $2 million in disaster relief will be distributed to two outlets: $1.2 million will go to the shellfishermen who apply to get back the money they lost in the red tide closures from 2008, and $800,000 will go to ongoing red tide monitoring systems and research. And most of the shellfishermen were not pleased to hear about the large chunk going to more research.