The towns of Bremen and Waldoboro are searching for the culprit behind recent shellfish harvesting closures.
On July 2, the Department of Marine Resources determined there were high enough counts of the bacteria E. coli to conditionally shut down clam harvesting in parts of the two towns.
Bremen Select Board member Boe Marsh said his town is “going into full action” to find the cause and resolve the issue.
“We’re really trying to strategize what the next step is … to forensically get to the bottom of this,” he said.
The affected areas include portions of Broad Cove, Bug Tussle, and the Medomak River’s Waldoboro inlet. According to related documentation from the department, closure criteria in these areas range from absolute to seasonal or rainfall-dependent.
Bristol mudflats near Hog Island and Louds Island are also completely closed to harvesters. Bristol Town Clerk Jess Bourne said she has not received testing results from DMR, and therefore isn’t sure what bacterial issue is affecting Bristol.
The DMR closure has been longstanding, she said, but the affected waterways have grown over time. She said the closure is not an urgent matter in Bristol at this time. The town’s shellfish committee will likely discuss it at its meeting in September.
Bremen is also no stranger to DMR closures. In 2022, the town worked with Midcoast Conservancy to pinpoint the source of local bacterial pollution, which ended up being a leaking septic system.
After the remediation process, the town had maintained “really good” water quality up until now, Marsh said.
“This is a big shock for us,” he said. “We were on a really good trajectory and then suddenly out of nowhere we get this problem.”
In Bremen’s affected waters, Marsh said the bacteria is spreading from some form of animal waste. Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust, consulting company FB Environmental, and the town’s code enforcement officer will help determine the pollutant and prevent contamination from spreading.
“You’ve got to find the source and you got to stop it,” Marsh said. “There’s no other way to mitigate that kind of infection.”
State House Rep. Abden Simmons, R-Waldoboro, leads the Waldoboro Shellfish Conservation Committee. During a phone interview on Aug. 11, Simmons said Waldoboro’s code enforcement officer is surveying septic systems to resolve closures there.
Bryant Lewis, a DMR marine resource scientist overseeing water quality, said municipalities alone handle remediation, as the state department is not responsible for resolving contamination issues.
The department reevaluates water quality statistics annually. Lewis said DMR will reconsider every region of Maine, including Bremen and Waldoboro, next year. Solving contamination issues can be challenging, he said.
“There’s not always a smoking gun and an easy solution,” he said. “It’s something that can often take a lot of work and not always getting immediate answers.”
Once the contamination source is determined, Simmons said he will petition DMR to have the town’s waterways tested sooner.
As the reclassifications go into effect during the busiest season for seafood, Marsh said the closures in Bremen will hurt the town’s clam harvesters.
“What that does is basically cripple the industry in the summertime,” he said.
Simmons also said the DMR closures “put a bigger strain” on harvesters.
Waldoboro and Bremen want to fix their contamination problems as soon as possible, but Marsh said pollutant issues like these take extensive time and effort to rectify.
“This is kind of like the Grand Army of Napoleon,” Marsh said. “It’s a really huge job and it doesn’t happen right away.”
