{"id":305,"date":"2002-03-01T11:13:00","date_gmt":"2002-03-01T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=305"},"modified":"2024-06-20T12:17:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T16:17:57","slug":"shellfish-closures-troubled-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/shellfish-closures-troubled-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Shellfish Closures: Signs of Troubled Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Raymond Graham’s history in shellfishing runs as deep as the currents of the Newport River that flows past his home in Mill Creek. As a shellfish dealer, Graham carries on a family tradition that goes back at least to his grandfather. But in his lifetime, much has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At water’s edge stands the oyster-shucking house his family operated for 50 years. It is silent now \u2014 filled with dusty artifacts of a once-thriving independent shellfishing trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each Friday, Graham roasts chickens on a hand-made covered grill. The cookout is a weekly ritual for shellfishers who sell him oysters and clams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A while back, a graduate student joined the men at Graham’s picnic table to share lunch and ideas about the state of shellfishing. Angela Corridore, then studying coastal management at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, was focusing her master’s project on the impacts of pollution-related shellfish closures on the people who shellfish for a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her study, funded by the N.C. Fishery Resource Grant Program (FRG), reveals a culture and heritage little known or understood in higher, drier regions of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Certain areas of water are closed to shellfishing temporarily when the potential for pollution is great, as when a certain amount of rain falls within 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If water doesn’t meet the standards for its intended use,” Corridore says, “it violates the Clean Water Act,” a 1977 amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. Because the Newport River was once a productive shellfishing area, being closed to shellfishing means it is not meeting clean water standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike Marshall, central district manager of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), says that closures generally have followed coastal development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The most recent fairly large-scale closures have been around the Pamlico Sound. More closures have been in the southern areas in the past,” he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Development decreases the permeable land surfaces that absorb and filter rainwater. Without such filtering, runoff from storms carries microorganisms from human and animal waste \u2014 collectively known as fecal coliform bacteria \u2014 into waterways. These bacteria and certain viruses are associated with illnesses like typhoid, cholera, gastroenteritis, salmonella and hepatitis A, according to Corridore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shellfish closures, therefore, are environmental actions intended to protect public health. But Corridore sees social implications as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Environmental issues aren’t affecting just the environment itself, but people,” she says. “The human component gets ignored.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of her FRG project, Corridore used a survey and personal interviews to discover how shellfish closures affect people who work on the water. FRG, which provides funding for research carried out by those involved in coastal or seafood-related industries, also funds projects such as Corridore’s that include significant participation from the fishing community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Corridore, the project was more than an academic exercise. Unsatisfied with a superficial understanding, she went out with shellfisher Charlie Antwine to experience tonging for oysters herself. “It was hard work,” she says emphatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men around Raymond Graham’s picnic table are as likely to talk about temporary shellfish openings as closures. So common are closures, Graham says, that shellfishing is no longer a dependable way to make a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Most people working here now are retired,” he says. “Anybody with a family can’t make a living out there. They have to do something besides shellfishing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to limited accessibility to shellfish waters, shellfishers have seen a dramatic decline in oyster populations. Parasitic diseases like Dermo, which became a problem in the late 1980s, and MSX have contributed to this decline. And then there were detrimental effects from hurricanes in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n