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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 12
August 2009
ME slammed by red tide; thousands out of work
WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME – In mid-July, the coast of Maine was experiencing a staggering outbreak of red tide that forced the shutdown of nearly all of the state’s shellfish beds and threw approximately 3,000 harvesters and certified dealers out of work.
One person reportedly got sick after digging clams from a closed area and consuming them. There also were unusual reports of sturgeon and eider duck deaths linked to consumption of contaminated shellfish. Altogether, these incidents illustrated the extreme levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxicity being produced by this year’s Alexandrium algal bloom.
Until now, the worst PSP season anyone could remember was in 2005. This year’s outbreak likely will dwarf that event.
“We’re already exceeding those benchmarks,” said Darcie Couture, director of biotoxin monitoring for the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) on July 21. “About 75% of the coast has been closed for the last six weeks and, over the last several weeks, 95% has been closed.”
There was no sign the closures would be lifted anytime soon. Couture said scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) had been taking samples offshore. While they saw indications that the bloom was “slacking off,” the toxicity scores from tests of shellfish taken from around the Maine coast were still extremely high.
“It will take weeks to clear out,” Couture said.
Among the commercially important species affected by the closures are soft-shell clams, mahogany clams, and mussels, though PSP toxins accumulate in all shellfish. Lobster meat is safe to eat because the toxins accumulate only in the tomalley, which consumers are advised not to eat.
What’s the cause?
Couture said she doesn’t think there is any single factor responsible for the massive bloom or its impact on the Maine coast.
“I think it’s probably caused by a combination of things,” she said.
For one, Alexandrium “tends to do better in overcast, nonsunny conditions,” Couture observed. That is just the kind of weather Maine has had this spring and summer along the coast and offshore.
There also have been onshore winds this season to blow the algae onto shellfish beds. And heavy rains this spring and summer not only triggered bacterial contamination closures of shellfish areas but also provided plenty of nutrients for the Alexandrium algae to feed on.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. The state’s shellfish industry generates $40-$50 million annually in economic value, most of it between the months of April and August.
As of mid-July, New Hampshire and Massachusetts had been spared the extreme red tide levels seen in Maine and reported having a more typical year of limited time and area closures.
Research requested
On July 16, US Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) sent a letter to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Jane Lubchenco.
In it, the senator urged Lubchenco to reallocate a minimum of $500,000 in federal funding to pay for immediate additional research in the Gulf of Maine to determine the extent of the algal bloom.
Calling the research “one of the critical and time-sensitive” actions that NOAA could undertake, Snowe said determining the size and boundaries of the offshore bloom, collecting Alexandrium cell counts, and determining conditions of the cells would provide the DMR with vital information about the possible duration of the bloom.
Disaster aid
On July 17, Gov. John Baldacci sent a letter to the members of Maine’s congressional delegation asking them to request federal emergency aid to help people cope with the disaster.
“The shellfish industry is one of the backbones of our economy,” the governor said. “Earlier severe rains combined with historically high levels of red tide are having a catastrophic impact on the industry.”
Baldacci said his office and the DMR had been fielding calls from residents who harvested shellfish for a living and had no idea how they were going to pay their bills.
“I urge you to work closely with your colleagues to help find funds needed to bring some emergency financial relief to our affected citizens,” he said.
Relief distribution
The need for disaster aid is becoming almost routine. The 2005 red tide outbreak closed shellfish beds in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts for weeks and prompted the federal government to pony up $5 million in disaster assistance. That money wasn’t distributed to harvesters in some cases until early 2007.
The feds authorized sending another $5 million to the three states for outbreaks in 2008, and NOAA approved state spending plans to distribute that money back in May.
The urgent question now is why these outbreaks have been so severe. While some of the $5 million in relief funds will be distributed by Massachusetts to harvesters affected by the 2008 outbreak, much of the money will be used to fund research and outreach.
According to NOAA, the states plan to collaborate on a number of cross-state and independent research initiatives. Among them are:
• Continued support to WHOI to map the extent and location of the Alexandrium cyst bed in the western Gulf of Maine for use as a predictive tool for state program managers;
• The production of outreach materials to educate the public on the dangers of harmful algal blooms;
• A cooperative project between Maine and New Hampshire to explore alternative methods for detecting and monitoring shellfish biotoxins and investigating PSP in lobster tomalley; and
• An expansion by Maine of the buoy arrays it uses to monitor PSP.
Complete Maine red tide information is available on the DMR web site at <www.maine.gov/dmr>. Click on the “Health & Safety” link on the left-hand side of the page and then on “Red Tide and Shellfish Sanitation Hotline” for the latest closure announcements.
Lorelei Stevens
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