A meeting was held in Scituate to discuss the closure of recreational shellfishing areas near the North and South Rivers in Scituate and Marshfield.
WATD’s Lenny Rowe files this report.
The recreational areas have been closed since August of 2020.
The nearby Scituate and Cohasset Water Treatment plants pose an issue, according to Jeff Kennedy, a Regional Shellfish Supervisor from the Division of Marine Fisheries. They follow standards from the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.
“There are public health concerns. There are valid concerns of harvesting around wastewater treatment plants and those are the public health standards that have worked, and we know how to apply,” said Kennedy. “If you’re not going to apply NSSP standards, I don’t know what you would apply, because you’d need some standards. You need some state standards, you can’t just drop one standard and not have a replacement.”
Without modeled data or dye studies of the water, the Division of Marine Fisheries would have to create a closed safety zone.
Kennedy said they were confronted by the FDA that if they did not institute an immediate closure, the state would be in non-compliance for both recreational and commercial shellfishing.
“We were not prepared to subject all our commercial fisheries to non-compliance,” said Kennedy.
At the Scituate Library, it was a contentious meeting at times. Attendees of the meeting felt the water is safe. Many felt there was not a proper explanation for the abrupt closure.
“I don’t think anyone here has been sick from the local shellfishing beds,” Scituate State Representative Patrick Kearney told WATD. “We’ve been harvesting from these beds for over 50 years. The Department of Marine Fisheries hasn’t shown any evidence that it’s affected public health. We continue to encourage them to not apply commercial standards to recreational-only zoned areas.”
Kearney said there is not a clear timeline for the beds to reopen.
“As it was mentioned in the meeting, it’s of grave concern to the citizens that view this shellfishing bed as a fabric and a connection in our community,” said Kearney. “We don’t have a timeline as to when these shellfishing beds are going to be reopened, and it’s very concerning.”
Jeff Kennedy said the Division of Marine Fisheries put in a request to the FDA for dye testing, but that has stalled due to COVID-19 travel advisories. They hope that modeling can be done sooner through a partnership with the UMass-Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology.
Captain David Dauphinee said during the meeting he has been shellfishing in the area for over 50 years.
“It was the ability to go out and be outside, and be with our families, and be with our friends, and harvest shellfish, and come home and celebrate the meal, and thank God we live here. This is what’s getting taken away from us,” said Dauphinee. “I’ll tell you what and I’ll tell everybody in this room right now – I will quit shellfishing. But you’re gonna have to pry my [expletive] clam fork out of my hands… We need to fight this. We need to fight this regulation.”
Rep. Kearney and State Senator Patrick O’Connor said during the meeting that between $450,000-$550,000 is included in the state budget for an analysis of the North and South River recreational shellfishing area.
“I think a one-size fits all approach is not the correct way to go when it comes to shellfishing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said O’Connor.
O’Connor mentioned commercial shellfishing in Duxbury, which is for consumption and sale across the U.S. and the world.
“What we have here in Marshfield and in Scituate is a component where we have a couple hundred people who go out with their families, who have had these permits to shellfish in these beds for generations,” said O’Connor.
“Due to a USFDA Regulation that doesn’t specifically — it’s more of a recommendation – due to that… they’re closing the beds. They were closed last year, they’re more than likely going to be closed this year. We’re looking for solutions to try to remedy this because these beds should be open and these people should be able to shellfish. As of right now, the threat in my opinion is very minimal, if existent at all.”
The Scituate Shellfish Advisory Committee is planning on meeting in a month.
