Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: Sewer Line Break Forces Suspension of Shellfish Harvesting

Mount Hope Bay and a river flowing into the bay are closed to shellfish harvesting because of a sewer line break and overflow.

January 31, 2018 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Mount Hope Bay and a river flowing into the bay are closed to shellfish harvesting because of a sewer line break and overflow.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management said Tuesday that Mount Hope Bay and the Kickemuit River will reopen Feb. 15, pending the outcome of tests for fecal coliform bacteria. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries closed Mount Hope Bay in Massachusetts.

The Bristol County Water Authority made emergency repairs to a water main near a sewer line on Jan. 5.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News and World Report

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Toxic algae outbreak halts shellfishing in Buzzards Bay, Mount Hope Bay

October 11, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The state’s Division of Marine Fisheries has banned shellfishing in the west side of Buzzards Bay and in Mount Hope Bay because of a breakout of toxic algae late last week.

The ban affects all SouthCoast towns and cities. “As a result of the closure, digging, harvesting, collecting and/or attempting to dig, harvest or collect shellfish, and the possession of shellfish, is prohibited in Bourne, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Falmouth, Gosnold, Marion, Mattapoisett, New Bedford, Swansea and Westport,” the state said in a press release.

The trouble concerns a toxic kind of phytoplankton termed Pseudo-Nitzschia.

This algae can produce domoic acid, a biotoxin that concentrates in filter-feeding shellfish.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times