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Newburyport shellfish plant could close

NEWBURYPORT

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February 12, 2012|By Steven A. Rosenberg

Last July, in the hours before the state budget became official, legislators reached a last-minute agreement to keep the state’s Shellfish Purification Plant in Newburyport open. Now, less than a year later, Governor Deval Patrick seems unconvinced that it should remain open, and has targeted the plant for closure - estimating that the state could save $350,000 annually.

The plant, which is the country’s sole state-run facility that cleanses soft-shell clams of contaminants, has sat on a quiet stretch of Plum Island since 1928. For the 100 clammers who make their living digging in moderately polluted clam flats in Boston, Newburyport, Salisbury, Revere, Saugus, Winthrop, Hingham, Hull, Quincy, and Weymouth, the plant is central to keeping their industry alive. Clammers bring their bushels to the plant, where they are soaked in saltwater bath for two days and cleaned of contaminants. Once cleansed, they are sold to restaurants and seafood dealers.

For years, though, state officials have expressed concern about subsidizing an industry that generates about $1.3 million annually, a fraction of the state’s $25 million annual shellfish industry. And, over the last few decades, production at the plant is down, according to Mary Griffin, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Fish & Game. In 1997, 53,000 bushels of clams were treated at the plant; last year the number was 11,995 bushels, said Griffin, who attributed the reduction to a virus that has spread to clam flats in Boston and Winthrop, and a cleaner Boston Harbor, which has opened up more flats that are not polluted. She said $80,000 of the $350,000 operation comes from revenue derived from clam depuration.

“It’s being proposed just because of the general tough economic times we’re in; they need to reduce the budget,’’ said Griffin, who was asked by legislators last year to develop a management plan to reduce the plant’s operating costs.

Griffin said she would release that plan later this month and said one proposal is to open the plant up to uncontaminated clams that could be de-sanded to make them less gritty to eat. She declined to comment on any other recommendations or proposals that would be included in the report.

Griffin said if the plant closes then the state will close the conditionally restricted clam flats where the 100 clam diggers work. She said the closure would have to be enforced by environmental police, and other law enforcement.