Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Claims Over Shellfish Fuel a Battle in the Bay

June 30, 2017 — The bounteous shellfish here in this hamlet on the North Shore of Long Island are so iconic, they were extolled by Cole Porter in his song “Let’s Do It,’’ with its line about oysters down in Oyster Bay doing it.

While the lyric connotes cozy relations between the famously fertile shellfish of this bivalve capital, feelings among shellfishermen themselves are decidedly less friendly.

Locals describe them as the clam wars, with two sides waging a public battle for decades over rights and practices in Oyster Bay Harbor, which remains the most productive shellfishing habitat in New York State.

The dispute pits the baymen who hand-rake for clams against the Frank M. Flower & Sons shellfish company, which uses dredge boats to mechanically harvest the clams and oysters it farms on a swath of 1,800 acres leased from the Town of Oyster Bay.

Each side accuses the other of intimidation and harassment, in a battle that has included lawsuits and letter-writing campaigns, as well as arrests and police reports for episodes that include vandalism, assault and poaching.

The baymen have raised numerous challenges — in court, in public protests and with governmental agencies — about the legitimacy of the company’s lease of the town’s prime shellfishing area, and its dredging, which the baymen claim threatens their livelihoods by damaging clam populations on nonleased areas.

The company has long called its dredging harmless, but now federal and state officials, responding to baymen’s complaints, are reviewing the company’s permits. That process is being watched by the Town of Oyster Bay officials who administer the lease, though they would not comment any further about the dispute.

The Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency conducting the review, would not provide details on the matter. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation officials said in a statement that the review would examine Flower’s permits and compliance with harvesting rules and then arrive at a decision “on any changes or limits needed to the company’s permit to ensure that Oyster Bay remains protected from overharvesting and environmental damage.”

Read the full story at the New York Times

NEW JERSEY: Money and Sand: Will There Be Enough for New Jersey’s Beaches?

September 29, 2016 — Beach replenishment is costly and exacts a heavy toll on the environment, depleting underwater ridges that are home to a broad variety of sea life

Even before hurricane Hermine threatened to strip New Jersey’s beaches yet again late last summer, skeptics questioned how the state and Army Corps of Engineers can commit to spending nearly $2 billion in beach replenishment through the mid 21st century.

“This project is another important component of the Christie administration’s plan to bring engineered beaches and dunes to the entire coast,” state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said September 2, as he announced work would start soon on a new project, pumping another 3.8 million cubic yards of sand from the sea floor onto eight miles of beach from Atlantic City to Longport.

Mercifully, Hermine headed farther east over the Atlantic Ocean, sparing New Jersey’s beach replenishment program another price increase.

But the question of whether the program is misguided, due to its high price on both the taxpayers and the environment remains. It will need continual rejuvenation as even the best-engineered beaches lose sand frequently regardless of storms.

As sand becomes increasingly valuable, fisherman expect underwater ridges to be depleted, despite being home to large schools of fish and other sea life. And with an expected sea-level rise, there’s no telling how the ecosystem will adjust or how much sand will be required. The only certainty is that local underwater sand hills will be exhausted before century’s end.

Read the full story at NJ Spotlight

Maryland aquaculture leasing streamlined

August 19, 2016 — Federal regulators unveiled this week a new, “more streamlined” process by which Maryland oyster farmers can lease places in the Chesapeake Bay for raising their shellfish.

The revised permitting procedures announced by the Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers come in response to long-voiced complaints from oyster farmers – backed up by Maryland’s U.S. senators – about delays and red tape in obtaining aquaculture leases.

The Corps said it is replacing a regional general permit, which it issued in 2011, with what it calls a Nationwide permit, which the agency says provides a “more streamlined” way to authorize new aquaculture activities.

The new process, which took effect Aug. 15, includes allowing unlimited acreage to be leased, and speeding up handling of proposed aquaculture projects by having federal and state officials review plans at the same time rather than sequentially.

Until now, oyster farmers were limited to leasing 50 acres if raising shellfish loose on the bottom, five acres if rearing them in cages and three acres if keeping them in floats near the water surface. If a grower wanted more, he or she had to apply for an individual permit, which required more review, more public notice and a hearing.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Maryland Wants to Take shells for oyster project from prime fishing reef

MARYLAND – March 22, 2016 — Seeking to counter a shortage of oyster habitat in the Chesapeake Bay, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is renewing a controversial bid to dredge old shells that have built up over centuries from an ancient reef southeast of Baltimore. Reviving a plan abandoned in 2009, the DNR has applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to take 5 million bushels of shells from Man-O-War shoal just beyond the mouth of the Patapsco River. Ultimately, though, the state wants to barge away 30 million bushels, or about a third of the 456-acre reef.

The shells are needed to replace or augment oyster reefs worn down by harvesting and buried under an accumulation of silt, the DNR said. State officials said they would use much of the dredged shell in future large-scale, restoration projects. Some would also go to help the public fishery, though and to assist oyster farmers growing bivalves on leased plots of the Bay and its tributaries.

But the DNR’s request is drawing flak from conservationists, fishermen and even some watermen who might benefit.

Read the full story at ODU Magazine.