Doing Business in Westport Cockenoe Flats in regulatory riptide Westport’s claim to clams is disputed By ALEXANDER SOULE

Doing Business in Westport
Cockenoe Flats in regulatory riptide
Westport’s claim to clams is disputed
By ALEXANDER SOULE

Even as diggers anticipate new local rules for a large clam bed off Westport, the shellfish industry nationally is still sifting through the silt of new federal rules meant to increase production in the industry.

In late May, the state returned jurisdiction of Cockenoe Flats to Westport, more than a decade after the Connecticut Supreme Court stripped the town of its oversight in the shallow waters surrounding Cockenoe Island at the mouth of the Saugatuck River.

Measuring more than 700 acres at low tide, Cockenoe Flats is the largest recreational clamming ground in the state, according to the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research.

Westport first asserted jurisdiction over the flats after purchasing Cockenoe Island in the late 1960s. Until 1994, the town seeded the bottom with clams and limited harvests to recreational diggers, who paid fees to dig and were limited in their catches to less than a bushel. That year, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled the state, and not Westport, was the regulatory authority for clamming at Cockenoe Flats. Plaintiffs in the case included the Connecticut Saltwater Sportsmen’s Protective Association Inc. and the Fairfield County League of Sportsmen’s Clubs Inc.

More than a decade later, fears have resurfaced that Westport will impose unreasonable fees on clam diggers from other towns.

“Westport is attempting to control sections of one of the state’s best clamming areas,” said Stratford Rep. Larry Miller. “The town of Westport has no right to seek jurisdiction over these state lands, and that has been established by the courts.”

If the legislative Battle of Cockenoe Flats won’t affect prices at restaurants like Mansion Clam House, a Westport eatery a few miles distant, not so for a new national directive from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the primary regulator of activities affecting the sea floor.

This spring, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created a nationwide permit designed to minimize paperwork and delay in establishing aquaculture farms that raise fish and shellfish, rather than disrupting wild stocks.

The industry is still uncertain what impact the changes will have.

In 2005, U.S. commercial fisheries harvested 106 million pounds of clams, down 12 percent from 2004, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, though higher market prices led to a 4 percent rise in total revenue of $174 million.

After oysters were hit by MSX and Dermo diseases in the late 1990s, production plunged from more than a million bushels annually to less than 200,000 bushels, according to Tessa Getchis, a researcher with the UConn Sea Grant program. In 2000, clams surpassed oysters as the top shellfish product harvested in Connecticut.

As shellfish populations decline, more emphasis is being put into aquaculture as a way to meet demand. Despite significant advances in spawning and nurturing shellfish, however, aquaculture has been slow to root in Long Island Sound due to resistance from coastal homeowners and recreational boaters, Getchis indicated.

The U.S. aquaculture industry is dominated by catfish production, which accounts for 41 percent of the better than 1 billion pounds of farmed seafood annually. While catfish production rose just 6 percent between 2000 and 2004, however, farmed clams and oysters spurted 40 percent.

While the eastern part of the state has significant shellfish aquaculture resources, with Groton home to both the University of Connecticut’s Sea Grant research program and the Noank Aquaculture Cooperative, the Fairfield County region has also quietly become a leader in shellfish aquaculture.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Milford Laboratory is a national leader in hatchery techniques, not just for oysters and clams but bay scallops and winter flounder.

In 1993, the Bridgeport Regional Vocational Aquaculture School opened at Captain’s Cove, built using $8 million in state funding. Besides aquaculture and pathology laboratories, the school maintains a 56-foot research vessel.

Today, while Connecticut accounts for just 3 percent of New England’s total seafood production, it trails only Maine in total aquaculture production. Commercial shellfish harvesters lease more than 70,000 acres of Long Island Sound bottoms through competitive bids, and the state’s aquaculture industry generates more than $12 million in revenue annually, according to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture.

In addition, annual oyster festivals in Norwalk and Milford draw thousands of visitors to the cities each summer, benefiting other local businesses.

Still, even as the Army Corps of Engineers new rules churn up regulatory muck and obscure the outlook, positive or negative, the industry sees short-term challenges both from individuals and the state despite the recent gains.

The Mansion Clam House in Westport.

After receiving five proposals in a short span for aquaculture installations, Rhode Island chose to cap its available acreage for lease, despite fish farms there producing more than $1 million in revenue last year. And a shellfish grower on Cape Cod drew opposition from a homeowner there who tired of the industry trappings namely floats obscuring the house’s view.

“We are seriously outgunned if this guy decides to invest in a broader battle,” said Robert Rheault, president of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association and owner of Moonstone Oysters in Wakefield, R.I. “It would be nice if we could just work on the farm and not have to worry about federal and state regulators crushing our business, but it seems that every year we are faced with issues that threaten our livelihoods.”

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