Shore access tightens for diggers

By Anne Berleant GOULDSBORO — Clambake anyone? First you need clams, preferably freshly harvested softshells from the local mudflats, brought to daylight by clammers and served with boiled salt potatoes and cobbed corn.

But increasingly, clam flats are closed to diggers coming by land to the intertidal zone, which legally is open to all — if you can get there.

“How do the people who need [access], get it?” asked Pauline Angione, a volunteer with the Gouldsboro Shore project, a town initiative focusing on infrastructure, shellfish resilience and shore access.

While newcomers arrive in Maine with images of lobster boats bobbing along a pristine coastline with perhaps a picturesque pier and clam shack, the fact is that not all working waterfronts have a wharf and not all fishermen helm boats.

With 3,458 intertidal acres of mudflats and 1,964 acres of clam habitat, Gouldsboro has the 10th most mudflats in the state. But all it takes is a new housing development and suddenly a mudflat is out of reach, Angione said.

Softshell clams are Maine’s second most valuable commercial fishery after lobster, bringing in $16.6 million in 2022. But while many diggers arrive at their digging spots by skiff or even canoe, many, by necessity or choice, go by land, hauling their load — whether clams, mussels or worms — back to the road by vehicle.

But those “working waterfronts” are increasingly hard to access as shorefront homes change hands to new and often out-of-state owners who close off access that once was taken for granted. In 2020, bolstered by pandemic flight, 30 percent of homes sold in Maine went to out-of-state buyers, according to the Maine Association of Realtors.

In Lubec, there are about 1,300 residences, and close to 150 change hands each year, deputy shellfish warden and clammer Amanda Lyons said. She works with new landowners who blocked local diggers from accessing mudflats through their properties, often flats where for years the previous owners had no issue with clammers coming through their land.

“Most of the accesses that were lost were handshake agreements,” Lyons said. “So, every year you have new landowners. You‘re constantly repeating the exact same things.”

Lubec boasts 93 miles of shorefront, 2,900 acres of active clam flats and over 60 diggers. Lyons said that while most understand that landowners want to know who passes through their land, not all diggers do. Compounding the issue, she noted, is that out-of-state owners don’t spend enough time in Lubec to know the community they now vacation in.

Gouldsboro and Lubec both started events that bring landowners and harvesters together, connected to Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Landowner Appreciation Day program that began in 2013 as a cleanup event. Last October, Gouldsboro held a community clam dig.

“We’re trying to educate them,” said Gouldsboro Harbormaster Mike Pinkham. “We had two diggers explain what they do and let the folks try it. That helped a lot, I think.”

The town also created a short trail to access the Gouldsboro Harbor shore on property Maine Coast Heritage Trust acquired last year, an example of how local organizations work with towns and landowners to secure easements and property for shore access. Frenchman Bay Conservancy, for example, helped keep mudflats open in Taft Point in Gouldsboro, and Tidal Falls in Hancock, both traditional harvest areas. Frenchman Bay Partners and Maine Sea Grant have coastal community resiliency programs, while the Island Institute and Land For Maine’s Future both have working waterfront programs. Additionally, the state Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Coastal Program provides grants for coastal planning, stewardship and marine projects.

But the funding pales in comparison to the value the softshell clam harvest, bloodworms and other wild harvest species brings to Maine. For example, the DMR’s Coastal Communities Grant Program had $175,000 to distribute in 2022, according to a 2021 Island Institute report, against hundreds of millions the state takes in in landings value.

And while the state budget includes $4 million for a Working Waterfront Access Protection Program, the Island Institute estimates that the need is much greater “and the solution will require a variety of structures beyond WWAPP to respond adequately to the diversity and complexity of at-risk properties and communities.”

The solution for seven towns on or near Frenchman Bay — Ellsworth, Franklin, Hancock, Lamoine, Sorrento, Sullivan and Trenton — was to form a regional shellfish commission to manage the mudflats for clammers and mussel harvesters. It also gives harvesters access to the flats in all towns, which are on a rotating closure schedule. It also helps maintain access for diggers.

“Our program has helped a lot,” said harvester and Hancock resident Joe Porada. “We’re spread out, people know us, we’ve worked to keep the shores clean and to be amenable.”

That familiarity between diggers and landowners is vital for harvester access because many landowners only want to know who is traversing through their property and maybe get a telephone call beforehand, Angione said.

It takes knocking on doors to talk to landowners about the issue and try for compromise. In Lubec, oftentimes it works but not always, Lyons noted.

Landowners may grant “foot permission,” she said, but that doesn’t help the clammer who has 70 to 100 pounds to lug the three-quarters of a mile back to the public parking lot.

“They kept our accesses, but they made them useless to us,” Lyons said.

Another issue arises from the diggers themselves, or the very few diggers who don’t play nice.

“I feel I have diggers who feel entitled that they can clam wherever they want,” Lyons said. “I’m trying to find compromises on two sides that don’t want to compromise.”

Porada noted this too. “Most of us who are fairly serious have boats, and there are places you can launch from. But we work keeping [diggers] respectful … We have a couple of jerks.”

It only takes one “jerk” to lose an access point, he noted. “Personal relationships are huge.”

Gouldsboro Harbormaster Mike Pinkham and Gouldsboro Shore project volunteer Pauline Angione worked to create a short access path to open access for clammers and other wild species harvesters.

ELLSWORTH AMERICAN PHOTO BY ANNE BERLEANT

Gouldsboro Harbormaster Mike Pinkham and Hunter Clement, at the time a Sumner Memorial High School student, remove nets protecting clams in Jones Cove in 2017. Increasingly, diggers are losing land access to local mudflats.

PAULINE ANGIONE PHOTO