Brunswick Shellfish Committee Reopens McQuaid, Bunganuck After Algae Bloom

[0:07] Lisa Trombley: Good evening, and welcome to the October 6th, 2026 Showfish Committee. We will start with introductions. I don't remember where I went last month, but we'll start over here, I guess. [0:20] Dan Devereaux: Dan Devereaux, Coastal Resource Manager. [0:23] Jason Serinello: Jason Serinello, Residential Harvester, or Commercial Harvester, rather. [0:32] Laura DiBiase: Laura DiBiase, Resident Non-Licensed. Fran Smith town clerk and just you know, we do have a new sound system So you're gonna sound a little bit different a little clearer tonight [0:44] Lisa Trombley: Lisa Trombley resident non-licensed [0:47] Crisper Western: crisper Western a shellfish warden [0:50] Marco Melinda: Marco Melinda resident non-licensed holder [0:53] Max Bird: Max bird is commercial harvester [0:57] Lisa Trombley: Fran has the medium and properly notice. Oh, I'm sorry Poor Kathy. She's right there in my face, too. Hi, Kathy. And that's perfectly okay. I'm just a rep to the council. Yep. Well, we welcome you, and thank you for being here. Yep. [1:13] Laura DiBiase: And yes, the meeting has been properly noticed. All right. Awesome. [1:16] Lisa Trombley: So before we start the agenda tonight, we don't have as many people in as attendance, but I did write up a little thing just so that we can try to keep our meeting moving smoothly. or smoothly, correct me. So before we begin the agenda, I just want to remind everybody the rules that we do offer three minutes for non-agenda items, but you must come up and speak at the podium. Separately, each person can speak for up to three minutes on agenda items, again, at the podium. And once a motion has been established, no comments from the audience. It is now in the committee's hands. And finally, if attendees continue to speak from the audience, you could possibly be asked to leave, we just put these rules in place so that all are heard and recorded for public record, and so that we can maintain order to get through the town's business. First, Dan and his coastal resource report. [2:12] Dan Devereaux: Perfect. Thank you, Chair Trombley. Pretty much this last month, we've been dealing with the Carinia, trying to keep an eye on it and gather all the environmental data that we can. I have a quick presentation. Larry, can you cue that up? It's in the sort of an update on where we are. And this is, I think, the third update I've given. You can see this is McCoy Bay, but you can see the brown film over it. That's the cranium bloom breaking down, we believe. We've taken samples, and they're being sent off for DNA analysis and eDNA analysis to try to make that connection. So this was taken late last week. So the bloom started to die, and then we started to see essentially the bloom collapses, and then you have the oxygen that follows because it requires oxygen and the decomposition process. So along with the bloom dying there and the clams as well, it dropped the oxygen pretty good in McQuaid Bay, and I suspect some other areas. But it seems to be that McQuaid Bay was likely hit the hardest. Next slide, Larry. So here you can see McCoy Bay. The picture on the left there is just sulfur-oxidizing bacteria, the white stuff at the top mixed with some clam shells. You can see the clam seed up on the upper right that is washed ashore. This was the seed that had popped out where we made the emergency closure to try not to disturb it. I would say 80% of that is dead. and then you can see something that i 've i've not familiar with and i've never seen it before which is that thin layer on top of the mud it's almost like a skin we suspect that 's the like i said the carinia bloom kind of dying out and settling right on the flats likely smothering everything underneath it next slide this is thomas point beach thomas point Beach was affected, not as bad as McQuaid Bay, but certainly there are significant impacts behind the breakwater. DMR did do an impact survey outside of the breakwater, and they said there was about 40 percent loss outside of the breakwater. And I think it's a little bit more inside just because the density of the clams is much, different. But you can see the clams at the top. You can see the decomposition process in the lower left-hand corner. And then, of course, the smaller clams at the top. And then the next hanging out up on the very top left. Next slide. Harpswell Cove. Harpswell Cove was unique. It didn't have a robust resource to begin with. It really impacted the marine worms there. Those are sand worms on the left, and they were just covered over the entire flat when we were out there. We did see surviving seed on top of the flats. If you look close in those pictures and you zoom in, you'll see even smaller seed, but the seed up top is maybe half the size of a dime. And then we also noticed impacts to other species as well, green crabs, ribbon worms. Eels, things like that. Next slide, Larry. Middle Bay, at least the Brunswick side, seemed to be the less impacted than the Harpswell side of Middle Bay. Hey, Dan. Yeah, with this new mic system, [6:28] Lisa Trombley: I think you need to back up a little bit. My drowning myself. Okay. So, [6:36] Dan Devereaux: Obviously, one of our observations was that it impacted immediate impacts to soft-shell clams. We don't know what the impacts are to quahogs long-term. We'll talk about that later. But the quahogs seem to be surviving, but the soft-shell clams in that area don't seem to be as impacted as McQuite. But still, there is some impacts. Next slide, Larry. So this was October 3rd. This was the bloom that was offshore. It was identified as Carinia. We had fishermen picking samples up off of Bald Head in Phippsburg and out past Seguin in the real hot areas. So it's really interesting. NOAA has a program where they do fluorescence from Sentinel-3 satellite. They have a satellite that's dedicated to environmental monitoring,, particularly of phytoplankton and chlorophyll, and you can see, if you look at Portland, you can see where Casco Bay is and you can see far up in the northeastern portions of Casco and northwestern portions of Casco Bay, McCoy and Muir Point, those areas are clearing out. In earlier satellite imagery, those areas were as red as it was on the outside. Side when we did test the outside next slide so Larry the water has a little if you hover over it you can push play oh you got to take the curve yeah so that's about three miles out actually about two miles out off Bald Head we did test that and if you slide over to the next slide Larry. There you go. I think that if you hover over it, doesn't do anything. Only let me move one. But in that water, there was 50 million cells of those. Oops. Can you go back to that slide if possible? Maybe not. Not a chance, huh? Well, you just had the water, and then you had the microscope image, and then you had the thing in the middle. That thing in the middle was what? That was our pain in the neck. And it's a unique type of phytoplankton that it's ubiquitous in the environment up here, I think, throughout the summertime. Small cell counts. We've put together different information. Oh, there you go. There you go. You see all those nice little buggers sliding around in there? That was taken out of that. That brown water that you're looking at was offshore. Next slide, Larry. So what the data indicates is that the bloom has collapsed. You can see in the upper left, that's McCoy Bay and that's the bloom starting, that's that skinny, that skin type stuff that we were finding earlier that has started to break up. But then you look down at the green line, and that's the dissolved oxygen saturation rate over time. And you can see how that dipped way down low. That was probably resulted in a lot of mortality in McCoy Bay when that dissolved oxygen dipped that low, below 50% saturation in some areas. And then the graphs on the far right are the McQuaid Bay, Middle Bay, and Thomas Point Beach Carinia graphs. We did do samples in all three bays today, and we did not detect any live cells of Carinia. We did detect collapsing cells of Carinia, but no live cells, so that's good. So now we'll pay a little bit attention to the dissolved oxygen which we do have real-time meters out there so the bloom has collapsed now we wait for a week or so to get out and try to do some assessments and see how it looks out there we've done some and McQuaid Bay does not fair well at all. Harvesters are still harvesting in Middle Bay along Catwin Shore, I believe, right, Chris? And it's still a decent take out of there, I believe, anywhere between three to five bushels out of that area. It's pretty robust, but there are some symptoms that area is seeing that we saw in McCoy, but we know the bloom is over at this point, so the cell currents aren't there. So we're positive that the impacts aren't going to be more in that area, the immediate impacts. So that's good news. But that's pretty much it in a nutshell. The Carinia phytoplankton is really unique. I've learned the last month and a half more about the crinia processes and how it lives and how it uptakes nitrogen and all of that stuff than I ever wanted to ever learn about. It's an interesting type of phytoplankton, and there are some unique oceanic circumstances that existed this year. This year was an upwelling event in Casco Bay. It's the first time we've had one in a while, according to the Friends of Casco Bay. Also, we had some unique winds in August and September. August, September, yeah, mostly August, that sort of led to the bloom kind of being pushed up in this area. And then we had some changing winds. And so nailing down the circumstances for why it happened is very difficult. There's so many variables that come into play when this stuff blooms. So we'll stay on it. We'll try to assess the impacts and move our way through it. But it's not all lost, but a lot of it is. [13:32] Lisa Trombley: Thank you for that, Dan. The agenda here is a little out of order. It's okay. No, this is here, coastal resource officer updates covered under number 60, which was down here. So before we want to move on to 61, I just want to make sure that we have an opportunity to have our public comment time and can just kind of do it together, non-agenda or agenda items, and then we can move on having discussion, if everybody's okay with that? I'm going to disapprove, yes. So is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak tonight? They're going to take it easy on us [14:15] Max Bird: tonight. Chair Trombley, I had a question on this item. Go ahead. I worry a little bit about the offshore bloom, too. Could we get another round of Carinia in our bays? [14:33] Lisa Trombley: We saw it come back once. [14:35] Max Bird: Yeah. Do you think it could still come back again? No, [14:45] Dan Devereaux: it's hard knowing, not telling. Hard telling, not knowing, however that statement goes. We just don't know. We know the bloom has dissipated. Today's NOAA satellites show it. Not today's, yesterday's NOAA satellites show it really dissipated offshore. You don't see any of that red or green anymore. It's all just sort of a light blue. It's been sunny. The last few days, so you know, maybe it, maybe that sun, you know, activated the bloom even more and it just bloomed and then died off. That's sort of what I'm hoping for. It does look like it's moving like south towards Cape Cod, their fluorescence and in Cape Cod day has picked up significantly over the last couple days. So last week we spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Mass Marine Fisheries talking about the symptoms that we were seeing, trying to pass on information to those guys so that if they start seeing these things early on, not much they can do to mitigate it, but it's just nice to know what's going on. So hard telling, Max. [16:00] Max Bird: Okay, but there is still a risk that the offshore bloom might come in again? [16:09] Dan Devereaux: There's always that risk, yes. [16:14] Marco Melinda: I just have a question for Dan. How have the dissolved oxygen levels in the bays, have they recovered? [16:23] Dan Devereaux: Yeah, they haven't recovered fully yet, but last time we did McCoy last Friday, it was sitting at about 89% saturation rate over top of the flats. That's a big improvement. Yeah, I think it was below 30 at some point. It was really like the people that collected are like, whoa. They had to check their equipment to make sure that it wasn't reading bad. [16:48] Lisa Trombley: All right, so everybody, good for me to just take a pause, remember everything that we just heard from Dan. I just want to back up and get back on track with the agenda. The warden report says he did not have one, or did that change? [17:02] Crisper Western: I just have one quick thing. Okay, separate from the bloom, I know Dan's gonna hammer that home when he has all the information on that. Canoes, if you have canoes and they're left somewhere, make sure you tag them. We had an incident last week where the homeowner there on Simpsons Point called, one of the canoes removed, one of them was junk, the other two are in great shape. I wasn't sure who they belong to, they didn't have tags or anything on him. I ended up taking them, made a few phone calls, figured out who they belong to. Actually, Dan pointed Andre in my direction, it could, and now it's just been a pain in the butt organizing getting them back to the guys. So I have the Coast Guard stickers, so if I could have canoes, you need them, just slap them on the inside. It could have just been a phone call, it would have been over that day. That's my only thing. All right, thank. [17:52] Lisa Trombley: You, and town clerk says updates none, has that changed? The only thing I would say. [17:57] Laura DiBiase: It's just a reminder that reports are due for September, landing reports, even though I know. And this is really important to have the information so we can actually see what we're losing, too. [18:11] Lisa Trombley: Okay. And then, Dan, if we circle back under here, there's some meetings listed on here, the MEDMR and some aquaculture seminar. Do you want to touch on those real quick before we go to discussion of the bloom and how to move forward? [18:28] Dan Devereaux: Sure. There's just meetings that are coming up that this group and the Rivers and Coastals Waters group are interested in, so I make sure that people know that they're there. The DMR, Aquaculture Advisory Council, is October 26th. The Milford Aquaculture Seminar, which is really a shellfish seminar more than anything else. It's all about science and shellfish. It's in Connecticut, January 11th through the 13th. And then the bigger one that establishes all the rules that states have to operate under and clambers have to operate under is this Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference. And that's in Newport, Rhode Island. That's held all over the country and all over the participating countries that are involved in that pact. So it doesn't get up to New England very often. So if somebody ever wanted to experience how the federal laws are made, how they develop the National Shellfish Sanitation Plan, this is the place where the medal meets the meat, and they make those decisions. [19:46] Lisa Trombley: Are you attending any of those? [19:48] Dan Devereaux: I'm going to try to attend the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference in Newport. [19:56] Lisa Trombley: All right, thank you. Moving along to our minutes, we have four different minutes to look at. We had the July, the August, and the September minutes, and also the emergency meeting we had on September 16th. I don't know if you guys feel comfortable just passing those through under one vote. So if somebody wants to make a motion, we can discuss any omissions or errors individually. Sound all right? [20:24] Max Bird: I'll make a motion to approve the July, August, and September and the emergency meeting in September minutes. [20:33] Lisa Trombley: All right. Thank you, Jason. Anybody know any errors or omissions? [20:40] Marco Melinda: I have no errors or omissions, but I'll just state since I wasn't at the September 16th, meeting. I'll abstain from that one but approve the others. That was the last minute emergency meeting and by the time I read the email you guys were already here. [20:58] Lisa Trombley: We can do it separately. We could take a vote. Would you like to amend that, Max, to just approve those meetings and then we'll do the emergency one separate? [21:10] Max Bird: Yep. I'll make an amended motion to approve the August or no it was July August and September meetings without the emergency one and you still [21:25] Lisa Trombley: second it Jason I'll second it okay all those in favor anybody opposed all right that's a vote anybody want to make a motion for the emergency meeting minutes I'll make a motion to approve [21:39] Max Bird: the emergency meeting minutes from September and I'll second that okay [21:46] Lisa Trombley: anybody know take any errors or omissions on that one all right all those in favor closed all right we've come back around full circle so item number 61 on the agenda is the committee will consider taking action to continue you having McQuaid and Bunganuck closed. I know that I've had a couple of discussions with Dan over the recent weeks, and originally he had said there's no way that, you know, should we be ready to open October 6th, and we talked today, and he said things are looking a lot better, and he'd kind of thrown out the idea of maybe opening back up, but for quahogs only. He said that obvious reasons most guys probably wouldn't be out there digging clams anyway because it's not going to be worth their efforts, so we have the options of keeping it closed, opening it completely, or opening it with conditions. Is that correct? That is correct. [22:46] Dan Devereaux: And of course we have to run it by DMR. I did talk to DMR, so DMR is all set with all three of those options. They've been out there, they've looked at it, they've also have a monitoring buoy out there monitoring the environmental parameters, so they're all set. One of the things to think about when you decide to open it or keep it closed is cogs in oysters did not have an immediate effect. In other words, it wasn't like soft shell clams, the do dropped out and the clams essentially died because there was stress from carinia and everything else. Cogs just shut up, and they didn't eat. So if they're not eating during, and this was a pretty sustained bloom. When you go back and start looking at the data, the bloom probably started the first or second week of August, and we just didn't see it because clams were starting to pop out of the mud. We were seeing them in our surveys, and I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool. They don't like it here. They're moving somewhere else. And then we started to get pictures from the people on the shoreline. So there's an immediate impact on clams and not an immediate impact on quahogs or oysters, likely because they can close their shell completely and just sort of sequester and live off the glycogen that they've built up so far. So, I guess one thing to think about is that if the quahogs go into a long winter stressed from not being completely full like they normally are when they go into the winter, I suspect that spring mortality would be more just because they don't have the reserves to make it through one of Maine's long, especially if we have an extended long winter. So harvesting them sooner rather than later would, in my opinion, based on the observations, would be better. Because you risk a lot of loss in the spring. [25:01] Lisa Trombley: Does anybody have any recommendations? Maybe one of the harvesters? [25:09] Jason Serinello: I believe that we should reopen it. It might take some of the pressure off Middle Bay. And, like Dan just spoke about the quahogs not surviving the winter, we should try to get out. [25:20] Lisa Trombley: Is your recommendation to open it for soft shell and hard shell? [25:24] Jason Serinello: I think so, if it would just help take the pressure off Middle Bay. [25:28] Lisa Trombley: You've been out there, Dan. What does it look like? I mean, can somebody go out there and get a couple bushel? [25:33] Dan Devereaux: I don't know. Usually, Blaine comes up and talks on this. Kenny was out there Sunday. Sunday. So Kenny, Keith, and Dean, and myself went out Sunday and looked at it. I would guess that it's 80% loss. So when we did a check, just a couple drops, survey drops, with one square foot, we were picking out 16 legal clams that were dead and two live clams. So I'm not sure that people are going to rush to get back in there. [26:10] Lisa Trombley: So they may just choose to just leave it alone anyway. But if I want to just make sure everybody understands and that I understand that opening it completely you do not believe will be detrimental to the product. We are past that point. And then it will be up to the harvester whether or not they want to put the efforts in to grow and get the product that is there. [26:30] Dan Devereaux: Is that correct? That's my gut instinct, yes. [26:34] Lisa Trombley: All right, Lane, did you want to take that opportunity now? Not [26:41] Max Bird: really. I'll, I'll ask one follow-up question. Is the seed back in the mud? No, it's dead. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, all [26:53] Dan Devereaux: the classes are, I mean, not all dead. We did find some, but it's not, it's, it's tragic. Yeah. [27:01] Max Bird: Yeah. I guess my, inclination then would be to open it. The other concern that I have is this next algae bloom. If there's any product, I mean, there's a chance, if there's a chance that it can come back in, it makes sense that we would, we would try to get what we can while we can. I mean, the winter is also stressful for, soft shell clams too. There's not as much food in the water and if they haven't been eating they might have a tough time making it through the winter too just the way the quahogs have been or will maybe not as because it's a little bit more adapted to a colder climate but yeah I'd be concerned about all the soft shell making it through the winter too because this is the time of year where they are packing on stores for winter where there's not going to be as much food. Yeah, I think we all agree that [27:56] Lisa Trombley: Spring is not going to be great. But in consideration if this if this bloom were to circle back, I mean we do always have the option of coming back and discussing it again. We can call another emergency meeting if necessary. Just keep our fingers crossed that it continues down the path that's on now. Before I take a motion we'll hear from Blaine. I [28:21] Speaker H (unidentified): Just want us I just want to state I've said it multiple times. If there's one lesson that was learned here, when we have soft-shell clams, give us our night tides. Look how much money was lost. Eighty percent of McQuaid Bay. Is Bungie included in that, or is that just McQuaid? Bungie? Okay. Eighty percent. So that's 45,000 bushels gone. I could have made money off that. I'm a town-paying resident. I pay property taxes in this town. We had the clams. There was plenty of clams that people could have been harvesting, and we just lost 45,000 bushel that a bunch of people could have made money on. Hopefully in the future, if we have clams like this again, we make a motion to get our night tides back. We've watched these soft-shell clams die time over time over time over time. When they're here, we've got to dig them, and I say open McQuaid. I mean, people are going to dig it or they're not. They're going to go out and they're going to say, geez, it's not worth it. Then it sits. That's kind of how the harvesting goes. Nobody's going to sit there if they can't make a good paycheck. That's my opinion. [29:40] Lisa Trombley: So, Jason, you were the first one that brought up the recommendation to open it for both soft shell and hard shell. Would you like to make that a formal? [29:49] Jason Serinello: Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to open up McCoy and Bunganock to soft shell and quahogs. [29:56] Max Bird: I'll second that motion. Okay. [29:58] Lisa Trombley: Anyone want to have any other discussion on that? [30:02] Dan Devereaux: Just a point of clarity, Chair. So we have to still get DMR's approval. So I don't know if we can put tonight, put a date on it, maybe just make the motion as soon as practical, once approved by the Department of Marine Resources. [30:19] Lisa Trombley: Right. When I talked to them, they said that it could be a week to two weeks. So as long as the harvesters understand that it's not effective immediately, should we go ahead and do that? You know, we do have to make sure that they're on board. But you said they sound like they would be. It's just a matter of the formality and making the public notices and dotting the I's and crossing the T's and then putting opening date out there. Correct, yes. Any other discussion? Are we ready to vote? All those in favor? Oppose. All right, it's a vote and then you'll you'll go ahead and spread the paperwork tomorrow. [31:01] Marco Melinda: Chair yes condition as question. I don't know if Dan or anybody else wants to do a back of the napkin calculation. But 45,000 lost bushel. Estimate as to what that market value is lost. [31:16] Lisa Trombley: So, I mean it depends on when it's harvested in but I think you know the $150 mark is somewhere in the middle. In the wintertime, they sometimes see the $100 a bushel amount. In the summertime, it's $200 plus. So if you did an average of $125 to $150, you could come up with a ballpark of the lost revenue of the product. Did you already figure it out, Dan? [31:39] Dan Devereaux: No, but at $100, it's $4.5 million. Right. Yeah, so $200 is mine, right? Right, so half of that, around six. Yes, and these instances are really important, the numbers that we have. We have the most accurate numbers in the state. Now, with the landings reports, hopefully people were honest on those reports, we can match it up to see, actually put a dollar value on that. And we have already been in contact with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute's economists and the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association in terms of looking at that dollar amount once we can establish the impacts. When I say 80%, I'm saying that just based off my experience and what I see out there. We haven't actually went out and did that. And DMR has agreed to come out and help us with that because it's going to be a big task. [32:48] Lisa Trombley: All right, so we can move on to item number 62. The committee will discuss possible conservation closure. Now, Dan, is that in reference to the bloom and possible conservation for other areas, or is that tied to something else? [33:04] Dan Devereaux: I wanted to bring this up to talk about if harvesters start to get sequestered down into an area, you know, in the past, the committee has conserved areas. They either close them for a month or close them for a couple months, depending on how much resource is there. I wanted to just make sure that the committee is aware that is an option. So say if you got in Chris maybe Chris has a good estimate on like how many harvesters are actually harvesting on Catlin Shore. I mean I think probably over 30 and when we were out there [33:44] Crisper Western: at least right close to it. Yeah it's it's not quite as many as McCoy used to average but it's [33:49] Dan Devereaux: Close 20, I would say, is the average per tide, and in Catlin Shore is about a third of the size of McCoy Bay. So you know, if you continue to put that many guys in an area, how long is that area going to last? So whether or not the committee wants to look at conserving that or not, and I don't have any recommendation one way or the other than the fact that there's a little bit of fear about what the spring is going to look like after winter. So one side of my brain says, well, the getting's good. And my other side says, oh, my goodness, if you dig it all out, what's going to be left? [34:41] Lisa Trombley: Winter will probably slow them down a little bit too. [34:45] Dan Devereaux: They're coming. This is the time of the year where your harvest times get shrunk down, right? The light, you lose light, you lose the tides. So there's going to be a little bit of Mother Nature's conservation in a way. So I'm not promoting closing anything or saying to close anything. I just want you to know that option is available. We'll continue to monitor Catlin Shore, continue to go back in there and look at it. We've been there twice since the boom. And we'll continue to go back and give monthly reports, and if we see like something that's like devastating or there's nothing left or these guys start saying that it's you know we've cleaned it out, then maybe we should start talking about conservation in that area. This is a committee. [35:37] Lisa Trombley: Think maybe we just table it until next meeting and monitor from month to month for a little bit and see how it goes, just kind of leave it open. I'm sure these guys would like to try to make some money before winter and put some oil in their tanks, but at the same time, you're right, we need to have something for spring, we need to have something to spawn. What is everybody's thoughts? [35:58] Max Bird: I, 'm worried about the, you know, like if we do close and conserve right now, I mean, I know it won't, I don't think it'll, what's out there on Catlett Shore will make it all the way through with the, if the pressure is consistent like it is, and so I think it'll get pretty well smoked, which doesn't leave much for the spring or next season. But you know, I couldn't imagine, you know, if this algae bloom comes back through and we, you know, we're trying to save stuff for next spring and then lose it and then Yeah, and then lose it. Like I just couldn't support a closure like that at this time. So I think, yeah, maybe we could revisit it. Yeah, I think that makes sense, you know, with an update on the bloom and to see what the risks are to that product. Yeah, maybe table it for [36:56] Lisa Trombley: now. So everybody else on the committee okay with that option? Okay, Blaine, Dan, [37:03] Speaker H (unidentified): do you talk to any other towns with like Freeport or Bath, you know, if we could get other towns on board and maybe if we shut weekends down, if we could get some other guys, other towns to do the same so everybody is kind of affected equally on it. Because normally when we conserve, prices always go up or just something stupid. That just seems to be how it goes. Every time we try to do something, somebody wreaks the benefit of it. I don't know if you have any relationships with any of them to see. [37:36] Dan Devereaux: We do, we work with, working really close with the town of Harpsville right now. Darcy's been a godsend with her microbiologist mind on this phytoplankton bloom, so there's daily contact with them and then weekly contact with the Freeport wardens about their areas and how they're faring. So we do have that, we do have that line of communication available. I can talk to them over the next couple weeks and see what their game plan is for the winter, and then come back and talk to the committee. I certainly understand your market concerns. When Brunswick shuts down, it takes a lot of clams off the market. So, yeah, the price goes up, and then our guys can't access the bulk of the clams because it's closed for some reason. So I totally get that. But I will contact them. I don't know what Harpswell is going to do. Harpswell did close their half of Middle Bay, similar to how we did. So I don't know what Harpswell is going to do with that. I suspect that they'll probably follow suit with us if there's really nothing left there. So I'll reach out and ask that question, and I'll have that back here at the next meeting. [38:57] Speaker H (unidentified): I don't really know the best option in this scenario. I feel like we're coming into the fall. Everybody wants to make what they can make for the winter. We freeze for four months. But then a piece of me thinks in my head that if they weren't working hard through the summer, it's kind of a little bit of their own fault, too, when we did have the product. So that's my thought. [39:21] Lisa Trombley: So I also had a note on here about how the other towns are dealing with this. Kind of on the flip side, Blaine had a different perspective. Are they on board for closing with us? But I was wondering about whether or not they had done any closures, and you mentioned Harpswell had done half of Middle Bay. What about Freeport? Doesn't sound like they were hit anywhere near as hard. [39:47] Dan Devereaux: Recompense was wiped out, so that was a big cover theirs. They had some issues. Shoes in Flying Point, the Flying Point area as well, and Wolf's Neck. So they got hit. I don't think they got hit as hard as we did. I'm not sure any area in the state got hit as hard as McCoy Bay because the densities were just incredible out there. [40:18] Lisa Trombley: All right, so we'll go ahead and table that until next month, and we will go ahead and move on to agenda item number 63, which is the committee will discuss draft ordinance changes and make recommendations for the Town Council. Everybody do their homework. [40:39] Laura DiBiase: I'd like to do a quick review of what I put together. [40:43] Lisa Trombley: That would be great. Fran gave us a cheat sheet. [40:46] Laura DiBiase: Yeah, these are the ones that we had put together, and you know, just kind of going through each of them, and I know Dan added something this evening to discuss, but I'll quickly go through some of them. I think are pretty simple, some of them may be a little bit more of a discussion point, but and I have put sections and page numbers if you want to see the actual language. I'm just going to actually just read what they are. The first one was a change to the annual change from annual harvesting days to harvestable tides when creating the numbers or doing the calculations for the number of licenses, which I believe Dan's going to comment that. He's probably not going to be supportive of that. So if you wanted to comment now, or do you want me to just go through all the changes and go back? [41:30] Dan Devereaux: You can go through all of them, and then we'll just go back and talk about them. [41:34] Laura DiBiase: The next one is, again, if you apply as an apprentice and there's not a mentor, you would be able to be also considered for a student category. That just opens up the possibility of the fact that if somebody puts in for that and we don't have somebody who's willing to be the mentor, it allows that person to go back and get the student license. I think that kind of makes just logical sense. The next one is applicants for commercial license must be at least 14 years of age, which is consistent when you can start doing work permits. [42:07] Lisa Trombley: Fran, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was noticing that this, I think you did a double-sided, and things got out of order, and Chris's is also out of order. So if you have a very organized list of this, we might need you to... [42:23] Laura DiBiase: There should have been a memo that has that, and then has the sections. You did. Okay. I'm still looking. I don't have an extra one because I'm reading from mine. There it is. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. I try to conserve paper. Maybe I shouldn't have, huh? It's okay. Okay. And okay, there was another one. I don't know why I got indented, but accidentally did. Changing the requirement to qualify for a bushel license to be 60 and have held a license at least once in the past 10 years. What kind of, this came up from the conversation that Lisa and I had. Well, we had a person, and the way it works currently with the Bushel license is that you have to obtain the age of 60, but you also have had to, I believe it's eight or nine of the last ten years, you have had to hold a license. What this does is it opens up to maybe somebody who has reached that age, maybe only had their license for a couple of years and wants to, you know, kind of dial it back, and that would provide that opportunity, which then would provide that license to another potential person in the lottery if it came to that. So just a thought to think about to open that restriction up a little bit. So it's kind of a senior license in a way, but not really calling it a senior license per se. Then the next one is to remove the requirement for students and apprentices to report in the month that they do not have to harvest. Student licenses are only for the summer months, so there should be no harvesting logs that should come in those other times just because they're not harvesting. Then the discussion of the percentage of the fee designated for the program, and this must be approved by the town manager. This came, again, from a discussion. I'm not sure who recommended it. It may have actually been someone from the audience that suggested that we currently the only amount of funds that go directly to support any part of the program is a conservation fee that people pay, which is $50. That amount is put in a conservation fund, which can be used for seeding, other things of that measure. You know, there's always been a desire to potentially increase that amount. So there's more of a direct benefit from the licenses going into the cost of the program. I will say that it has to get approved by the manager. I would think that might be a hard sell. Only reason I say that is pretty much any funds that we get, if I take in for licenses, if I take it, if someone takes in for building permits, all that goes to the general fund, and then just kind of all come pours back. But certainly you folks can make a recommendation and I can take it to the manager and then where she lands is where the committee can land. I don't necessarily see a super benefit in this unless it was just to be a higher percentage to go into the conservation part of it. I think that might be an easier sell than just to put back toward the program. So I would need some direction from the committee on that one. The next one, this came again, I think it was a person in the audience made the suggestion. We happen to have a lot of students here this evening and they seem to be in support of it. Instead of having a per tide limit for students when they harvest, it would be a per week limit. On what that would mean is if somebody, and I would have to draft the language if the committee supported, I have to think a little bit about it, but let's say for example now they get, let's just say they're allowed one bushel or two bushel a tide. Over the course of the week, that would be, let's say, 14 bushel, right, if you could do it all week. And instead of having to go and get two, because a lot of these students are able to harvest more than that, they could go and get four one day, maybe if they have that capability, or three another day. And the students seemed to be supportive because a lot of them had other things going, and it was kind of like, we're waiting to see, or they go out there, they can get their two-bushel or their bushel. I think it was a bushel and a half this year. So they could get that pretty quickly. So maybe they supported the idea of, yeah, let's look at a weekly average. And it would just be figuring out how we're going to calculate that. And the reason I say that is obviously in summer there are double tides. So you couldn't just simply say there's seven days, so we'll take whatever the limit is and double it. But we can do that calculation. I just would need direction if that's what the committee wanted, or I should say Emily will help me provide that information. The next one actually was recommended by the coastal resources manager, and that's changing, expanding the aiding and abetting section to include violations of this ordinance. I think currently is only, and Dan, you want to just comment quickly on that. It's on page. Yeah, I got it. [47:23] Dan Devereaux: It's section 11-142, and it's, it's essentially one sentence. I think this just clarifies it more than anything else. It doesn't change much, but it just clarifies it. It currently reads, a harvester holding a commercial license or bushel license who aids or abets the harvest of shellfish in violation of this article slash ordinance shall be subject to the same penalties as the person they have assisted. The way it reads, the word harvest, it almost is applies to like a aiding and abetting during the harvest of shellfish. When you, when we talk to the legal folks, they were like, well, what if it's another violation of the ordinance with, they're still aiding and abetting the harvest of shellfish if they're ate. So to clear it up, all I wanted to change it to was to include and take out harvest of shellfish and just in violation, in the violation of the ordinance. So I don't think it, I don't think it changes the content, just makes it a little bit more clear on what that section applies to. [48:44] Laura DiBiase: The next one is, again, kind of based on some discussions that were had, is to allow night harvesting in July and August. Again, that's something that the committee needs to discuss because I think there's different positions on that. And one that isn't included in here, so I apologize, I re-read my notes and were able to find this out, is, again, Lisa and I had a conversation. if somebody were to surrender their license within 30 days of purchasing it could go to the next person on the list a little history of that it used to be quite a few years back now if somebody surrendered their license whether they moved out of town whether they passed whether they were you know just didn't want to do it realized oh my gosh I don't like this I don't really they want to do it could go to the next person on the list you know at the harvesters that we had unfortunately we had a Harvester who passed and we and he and his family was upset that we then issued his license and we did wait a period of time but still I understand to the next person on the list which of course we didn't have an option to do so we made that change so this is language that I would have to go, I would probably just go back to pre-that change and find out what the language was at that point if the committee wants to do that. I don't really have a feeling one way or the other. I just, again, was trying to be responsive. Those are the formal ones that I have. And then, Dan, you want to talk about the one that you provided this evening? And I don't know what section that's in, so you'll have to give that to me if the committee wants to move forward. What? [50:25] Dan Devereaux: If you go back to section, I believe it's 111. Yep. Or is it 112? It's 111 and 112. Yeah. It applies to 112. Yeah. So I handed out this sheet of paper because I'm thinking about Lisa and I had a little bit of a conversation about this today. They and I look through the ordinance and there's no way to exempt or set aside right now the shelf annual shellfish surveys and determining the number of licenses in this situation. Situation, I think what you would want to do be just because the amount of work that's going to be required by staff to get out there and do this. We would want to set this license period aside and start in the spring versus not that we wouldn't do work in the fall of this year we do impact assessment work we'd probably do some inventory surveys but we were halfway through our inventory surveys and there's no way that we can even count on those now we have to go back and redo all of those so I put a number six in there which is this document right here it's an exigent circumstances clause and it says essentially notwithstanding the requirements of the sections above in 112 the town council may upon recommendation of the shellfish committee and the coastal resource office temporarily suspend application of annual commercial license calculations required by the section when the council determines that exigent circumstances have substantially affected the town's shellfish resources or have prevented the town from obtaining sufficient and reliable information necessary to complete the annual shellfish inventory license calculation within the time required to establish license for the upcoming licensing year. For the purposes of this subsection, exigent circumstances may include but not limited to significant shellfish mortality events, harmful algal blooms, disease or pathogen outbreaks, prolonged water quality or pollution closures, severe storms, flooding, extreme temperatures or other unusual environmental conditions, substantial predator related mortality or other natural human caused events that materially affect the shellfish abundance distribution and harvestable standing crop, access to the town growing areas or the town's ability to conduct a representative population surveys. When invoking this subsection the Town Council may establish the number of commercial licenses for the upcoming licensing year using the best available information including prior years population surveys, current or partial resource assessments, historical harvest and landing data, documented mortality observations, available Maine Department of Marine resource data, conservation needs, and recommendations of the Shellfish Committee. Any action pursuant to the subsection shall apply only to the licensing year for which the accidents and Circumstances affect the town's ability to conduct the assessment required by this section. The normal survey and license allocation requirements of this section shall resume for the following license year unless the town council makes a new determination that exigence Circumstances continue to exist. So essentially what that is saying is that by ordinance, by the town law ordinance, we have to do annual surveys to establish licenses. This gives the town a way around that so that you don't have to do those surveys. You can freeze licenses where they are and move forward so you have a better understanding of what your inventory is available the following year. To point, to make a point, like some, I think it was Blaine said in the audience, if the clams aren't there, the clam diggers aren't going to dig them. They don't go out and turn bud just because they want a good workout. They go out and turn to make a living. So I think that, you know, having this clause in there allows the town council to say, okay, OK, pause. We need to get a better idea of what's going on before we issue any licenses or take any licenses away. Because if we go out and do the surveys now, it's likely that we will probably end up in the A's based on what I'm seeing. So that's 10 out of 10. It's 10 out of 10. So I think the best thing to do right now is to freeze it. And this is a conversation for two months. Lisa and I talked about this today. We didn't want to get into this conversation. But I read the ordinance, and I'm like, we better get these ordinances straightened out before we move forward, or else we're going to be doing this in January, and we don't want to do it in January. [55:51] Lisa Trombley: So I think I'm going to ask for some clarification. I was going to say, okay, we'll address that at the bottom of this list. But since we're right knee-deep in this, we might as well tackle it. Is the survey and the formula and the allocation of licenses, is that a town requirement or is it a DMR requirement? Because I remember a few years back where the town requested a change in licenses and we were all told, sorry, DMR said no go. [56:27] Dan Devereaux: It is not a DMR requirement. What DMR does is they do review the data, and if the data doesn't support, say you're loaded down with clams and you want to reduce the number of licenses, DMR is not going to let you do that. It's just, I think that was one of the situations here, was when DMR said no way, because your data shows that you have this many, this much standing crop. [56:57] Lisa Trombley: Up so DMR doesn't dictate it by a percentage it would be more of a judgmental I don't think you have your numbers right and we're not going to support it is that what I'm hearing yes all right so I think maybe the best way to tackle this so that we can get down through all these items here is to open this up for public discussion and allow the harvesters to speak on any of these. Any of these ones that were just mentioned, any proposed changes to the ordinance? [57:34] Marco Melinda: Chair Tremblay, before we move on to that, can I just ask a follow-up question to Fran? As I was following through along, I'm not sure, I might have missed it, but I'm not sure we landed on 11-143, which is expiration. I think we're also trying to include provisional licenses in the expiration definition, along with commercial and bushel licenses. [58:00] Laura DiBiase: Is that right? I'm sorry. The provisional license, we just don't have an expiration date like we do for the students and we do for the commercial. So the provisional license, because it is an annual license, it would fall under the same expiration periods as the regular commercial, not the student, because the student is just a summer. So that was – I'm sorry. I apologize. I missed that one. [58:23] Marco Melinda: No. I just wanted to make sure we landed on it before we – Offer it up to – Right. [58:30] Speaker H (unidentified): Okay. Go ahead, Blaine. I'm trying to find it. I guess I have a lot to discuss. Us we'll start with as Dan said about licenses, you know, everything was looking good and dandy. I felt confident, you know, coming up with that student thing, but as we're all sitting here right now and Dan speaking that we'd probably be all the way down to Class A licenses, you know, what do we do now? It looked good. Do we pass through this with the students? Are we even going to have a student program? What's the outlook? How do we now pass things that we are completely decimated on? I don't know if there's a way in wording to pass what we talked about and subject to change somehow or something like that. [59:30] Laura DiBiase: I would just simply say that this is what the current language would just be a calculation based on a week. So let's say currently we have a percentage that has to go to student licenses, but the council can range from one to three bushel as to what they could do for a minimum for a student. So if they went to one bushel, that calculation for a week would be reduced to one times whatever the calculation was. So I think that would be how that would be addressed. And certainly if there's such a cutback on licenses, that would also affect the number of student licenses that were issued. So I think they're not necessarily not interchangeable. If the program is reduced, it's going to be reduced in the amount that they harvest. They'll just have to do it. [1:00:17] Lisa Trombley: So it doesn't reduce the amount of student harvesters. It would just reduce the amount that they can harvest. Is that correct? [1:00:24] Laura DiBiase: Or is that can it can both be changed? Yes, the count two things, the program when the council sets the licenses, that's there's a percentage of licenses, and again Dan is probably quicker to tell the answer of how many have to go to the student program that's set in ordinance that is separate from how much a student can harvest per tide. So this is, this is looking at what a student would harvest per tide, and instead of having it per tide, it would be calculated as a full amount that they could do in a week. So if it went from one it could be seven bushel a week, or it could [1:00:59] Lisa Trombley: be if it was three it would be 21 bushel a week. I think I'm talking something different, but okay. Oh no, I understand about the proposed and how we had originally discussed students being able to adjust the way they do it. I thought we were talking, and maybe I'm wrong, I thought Blaine was talking about, because he mentioned would there even be a student program, and I think that's a discussion to have with, if we approve this one that Dan just said here where it gives the town council a little more flexibility that it could be discussed at that time. So I thought that's what we were talking about, whether or not there was the option to remove the entire student program, or if there's something that says a certain percentage of licenses must go to students regardless of our surveys, and with that then have we, have the ability to reduce their daily [1:01:53] Laura DiBiase: harvest. I mean, Dan, would you agree that we could possibly add language into what you're proposing that in fact if we had a situation like that we could suspend the program that year, if it, I don't know, because I think unless right now, and again correct me if I'm wrong Dan, that is a percent of how many total licenses that are sold. So if this was, this is kind of like an emergency situation, right, what that also, would we want to include language, and I think that [1:02:22] Lisa Trombley: would be important. Yeah, at least it doesn't say that it will be removed, but it simply says that upon further investigation should we decide that needs, but it would be a mechanism that we would have a tool that we could use. Okay, yeah, I just wanted that clarification. Is this a state protocol [1:02:39] Speaker H (unidentified): that we have to sell or so many student licenses to? That's a town one, that's a town, because they say there's no other towns that have this language like we do, so that's what I'm kind of confused about, like, I mean, this was language that [1:02:53] Laura DiBiase: Came out of the task force what, now three years ago I think, so that was the language that came out of that. So I think it's probably the third we've done. [1:03:02] Dan Devereaux: At least most towns have student licenses, right? It's just most towns do. [1:03:09] Speaker H (unidentified): 50, 60 percent maybe, right around there. Not every town has it, but I mean it's not a bad thing to have. We all know that, we all, a lot of us have come up through it. I could see two people, it's not, it's not a terrible thing to have, but the problem is with what we have going on right now. I mean, as Dan was just saying, that you know it could possibly, could potentially be cut all the way to Class A licenses. So what are we going to do to keep the harvesters working? I mean, a student license, you know, their livelihoods ain't like ours. Oh, I don't, I completely agree with that. So I don't know if that's a discussion coming up. It's a little off subject for the ordinance. [1:03:47] Lisa Trombley: So the license numbers are not being discussed tonight, so it's just, but we can, by bringing that up, we can write some language in here to put some student language in there, so that can be incorporated in this emergency ordinance that they would like to put in place that will allow some additional flexibility with those numbers. So we take that in consideration and you can discuss other ordinance changes that you [1:04:13] Speaker H (unidentified): might be concerned about. I wish we would have had a copy so I could have been looking at it while I was sitting there. What was it, the tides and days, it was? Is that one of the ones on there? I can't tell. [1:04:28] Max Bird: Yeah, that's the first one. [1:04:30] Lisa Trombley: Change the annual harvest days to harvestable tides. [1:04:35] Speaker H (unidentified): I don't even know what I'm looking at, if I'm looking at the right thing. But anyway, I do recommend strongly on that, because harvestable days is kind of a conflict versus tides, because some days have two tides, some days don't. Oh, that one's way different. Oh, right there. So, yeah, I would strongly try to get that pushed through because, unfortunately, it probably would change the license and numbers a little bit, but it's more accurate than days than it is the way it is. [1:05:16] Dan Devereaux: So just one point, Lisa, on the exigent circumstances language that I gave you. It does, when the council invokes that subsection, they are able to establish the number of commercial licenses. Students are considered commercial licenses because they're over a PEC, but we can certainly add student commercial licenses in there if it makes people feel a little bit more comfortable. [1:05:46] Lisa Trombley: I think it might be good to say commercial harvesters and student harvesters. I mean, I know they do harvest commercially. I understand that. But it is a subsection of the program. And I'd hate to see some legal term come in and be like, you know, that can't work. So I think everybody would feel a little more comfortable if the entire program could be scrutinized versus just one entity. [1:06:14] Dan Devereaux: Yeah. Yeah, we can absolutely do that. We'd probably just change it to shellfish licenses, and then it covers everything. What else was I going to say? So in the past, what we've done with student programs, if the resource, like when the green crab inundation was around 11 and 12, I think Ray might have even been the chair. I was. We kept the student program in place, but we just didn't issue any licenses that year. So, the, so the structure was still there. We didn't remove it completely. We kept it in place, but this exigent circumstances language allows the council to be able to do that. Right now, we don't have that ability. We have to match 10%. So even if there's, say there's 20 licenses is available next year, if you do the surveys, you'd have two [1:07:12] Lisa Trombley: student licenses. And then you'd have commercial harvesters coming along. Exactly. But this, just so everybody understands, this that he is recommending needs to go before the town council long before the survey numbers would come to the forefront to establish license numbers because of their calendar and the way that they vote on things and everything this kind of needs to go to them first asap right and then we have the winner to look at this we have part of the spring for additional surveys and then another discussion about it before anything's done it's not saying anything's being done it just allows something to be done should we feel the need to have it done yes okay i just want to comment one [1:08:00] Laura DiBiase: more thing that there is an additional step once we come up what we think the language is going to be we do usually pre-run it by dmr so that they'll be supportive of it because obviously if they're not going to be supportive of it our council can pass something and they can veto it and secondly we would always run anything by our town attorney also just to make sure again go to law school so [1:08:24] Lisa Trombley: blaine you was all set and you're you're passing the torch okay. [1:08:29] Ray Trombley: Let's go back in history a little bit, Dan. [1:08:32] Dan Devereaux: I'd love to, Ray. [1:08:34] Ray Trombley: 2017, we had an algae bloom. Wiped out McQuaid Bay. Back up. [1:08:39] Lisa Trombley: Everybody here in the room knows you, but not everybody out there knows you. [1:08:43] Ray Trombley: Ray Trombley, harvester. [1:08:45] Dan Devereaux: I didn't wipe out McQuaid Bay. I'll argue that point. Well. Long enough. [1:08:51] Ray Trombley: All right, so it was 21 then, four years later, from 17 or whatever. We never took any license away. We all stuck to it. We survived it. And that was single-mile harvesters now, except we didn't have as many students back then. So why change the numbers of diggers out there? [1:09:18] Dan Devereaux: That's not what I'm recommending. I'm recommending pausing it where it is right now, pausing it and allowing us to be able to pausing the licenses where they are right now and allowing us the next eight months to be able to get do the correct the surveys do the [1:09:38] Lisa Trombley: impact assessments the way the way it's set right now if we go by the surveys that are produced there's not going to be many licenses left this is this is protecting the commercial [1:09:51] Ray Trombley: harvester by putting this wording in I don't see it that way I if there's a percentage out there [1:09:59] Lisa Trombley: we only dug what eight percent no so if he does if he does the surveys and it shows that we had half of what we had last year it could come back and it could recommend half the harvesters whatever that formula says so you're going to have 30 something harvesters that could lose their license he's asking to put this in here so that we have the ability to freeze licenses and keep licenses, because the way it is currently written, it says percentage-based. I mean, they're gone. This committee has [1:10:28] Ray Trombley: no control over this. All right. Dan, what percentage was dug already out of Bunganot and McQuaid? I wish I had those [1:10:36] Dan Devereaux: numbers. I mean, I can come up with something, but we, you know... [1:10:40] Ray Trombley: Rough idea. I mean, you guys must have seen the data. 5,000 [1:10:44] Dan Devereaux: maybe. 5,000. Bushels out of McQuaid. [1:10:47] Ray Trombley: You said there were 65,000 bushels? [1:10:50] Dan Devereaux: There were 65,000 bushels, and Emily told me today that's including quahogs. [1:10:54] Ray Trombley: Including quahogs, okay. So there's still another 20% to 30% out there. [1:11:01] Lisa Trombley: Right. So, Ray, I'm going to stop you right here, because tonight is about putting the ordinance changes through. It's not about coming up with any numbers. We're not talking licenses. We're not talking surveys tonight. This is we are months away from this And we can have that discussion at this time, but right now we'd like to get through proposed ordinance changes [1:11:25] Dan Devereaux: We need this in place so that we can make those decisions down the road or make the at least those [1:11:32] Lisa Trombley: Recommendations to the council. It also doesn't mean that anything will change. It just allows a tool to change them if needed. [1:11:45] Speaker H (unidentified): I just I just have one thing on the you're putting into ordinance that will be able to make it so you can pause the license hold, which I get that, but you know I don't want to see licenses lost, but if there's not enough product for how many licenses we have, what do we do, we just wipe [1:12:04] Lisa Trombley: it out more so how do we manage to do let's see again that's not saying it's freezing it 's It's just a tool that allows them that opportunity, allows it to be frozen versus following the formula. Nothing says that it will be frozen. Licenses still could be reduced. [1:12:24] Speaker H (unidentified): How can the town have the rights to do that when we have to run off DMR's regulations to do that? Because don't we have a set standard that has to be given to DMR each year to be able to do the licenses? [1:12:38] Dan Devereaux: Yeah, that's our ordinance that facilitates that. So this would allow us to step aside from that standard protocol and the way that we determine the licenses for the following year if we don't have enough information. [1:13:00] Lisa Trombley: I think what he's trying to say is that when the numbers were high and we were recommending less licenses, DMR said no way. I think his concern is if we come in with very low surveys but say we want to keep our licenses the same, he's insinuating that DMR may not agree with us. But again, these are all conversations we can have another night. So I'd really like to start working on this ordinance change proposal. [1:13:27] Speaker H (unidentified): Yes and no, because if this ordinance seems, if it's pointless to do, because we have to operate off state guidelines. guidelines so i'm i'm trying to figure out how this ordinance works because it's confusing me i thought we had to run off state guidelines how can we freeze take a year and freeze licenses [1:13:45] Lisa Trombley: but the point is if we put it in we don't have to use it okay we don't have to use it and it can all this can be sorted out before licenses so i understand you have any but that state has [1:13:56] Speaker H (unidentified): guidelines that have to be reported yearly so how can we override that so again this is going [1:14:03] Laura DiBiase: going to have to be approved by dmr that's where we do the pre-approval so they're going to point out any faults that they think that are insufficiencies and what's being proposed and they bring up concerns like that and if they don't support what's being proposed trying to do i got [1:14:17] Dan Devereaux: You okay? That was simple answer. We also have landing data now where we didn't have landing data before. So you can see how many people are harvesting, you know, and it's not 67 people. So, you know, it's the standard probably around 40 people that are actually reporting any type of landing. So, you know, there's that to take into consideration, too, when you're talking to DMR. So now we have that data to show DMR. We have our survey data to show DMR, and we can explain exactly what we want to do. And I can't imagine that they would say that, you know, no, you guys are, you know, they've been out there. They've been right attached to the hip with us, haven't they, Chris? We've had the pathologist out there. We've had the biologist out there. We've had the baykeeper out there. We've had every researcher from Bigelow pretty much. So, you know, I mean, people know what's happening. Yeah, that's good. [1:15:23] Speaker H (unidentified): I was just curious to how that ordinance could have been a thing without the state being involved in it. That's all. [1:15:30] Lisa Trombley: Okay, so in the interest of time and a list sitting in front of us, I'm gonna make a proposal and the proposal is going to be that I'm just gonna start with the first item on there, and I'm gonna hope that my team here. He's gonna be willing to throw out some motions and once we get a motion on the board then we can have the discussion about it and hopefully move pretty quickly we'll find out if everybody did their homework. I would just [1:15:55] Laura DiBiase: make a run that there are the ones that, I mean, I think some of them were probably, are you proposing to go individually? Maybe just do a consensus and then just do a vote at the end? Would that make more sense? Or, it doesn't matter. We can do a motion on each of the points if you want, but however you want to handle it. But I do know, like, on the first one, for example, I know this is one that's probably a little bit more discussion, because I know Dan didn't support. I don't want [1:16:19] Dan Devereaux: to put... The tides versus I just don't support changing the process that we've used for 35, almost 40 years now. If you do it, then it tweaks the data a little bit, and you don't get the consistency over time with data. So it's not a big deal. We can do it based on trips versus days. It's not hard to figure out, but it's just it will tweak the data some. And it's really nice to have the longest data set in the entire probably New England region year after year. [1:16:57] Lisa Trombley: I'm going to make a recommendation. I'm going to say I don't think this is the year to be making this change with everything that's going on. Does everybody agree on that? So can I get a motion to leave the language for 11-1112 as it is? Wait one second there. All right, all those in favor? Opposed? You're opposed? Okay, so we got one that's opposed. [1:17:29] Dan Devereaux: Just to make a point, we can lay out a side-by-side comparison the next time we have our full inventories done with trips and with days so you guys can see what the difference may [1:17:41] Lisa Trombley: be and whether or not you want to look at that. Could we have that data? Let's not leave it until next year. I'd like to still see that data and we can bring it into our licensing conversation, but I don't think we're, we need to make a change in the ordinance at this time with everything that's in flux. Yep, okay, that sounds great, thank you. All right, moving along to this next one, section 11-132, if applied as an apprentice and not a mentor, applicant will be allowed to be considered in the student category. [1:18:18] Laura DiBiase: Applications, if we have an apprentice, if someone applies for an apprentice program, there's not a mentor, that application can be considered for a student license. So it would be kind of interchangeable. So I think it would encourage people to not have to pick one or the other beyond their control, right, if there's not a mentor. [1:18:38] Lisa Trombley: Anybody feel comfortable making a motion for or against on that one? Do we need more clarification? [1:18:46] Max Bird: I'll make the motion for the section 11-132 changes. [1:18:57] Lisa Trombley: Any discussion on the motion? Those in favor? Opposed? That's unanimous. Moving along to 11-133, applicants for commercial license must be at least 14 years of age. What is that right now? There is none. There's no age. All right, I'll make that motion then. I would like to make a motion that section 11-133a for commercial licenses, the harvester must be at least 14 years of age. I made the motion, you just go to second it. I second it rather. Okay, any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Closed. I don't know a lot of 14-year-olds that can go out there and dig too hard. We've seen a few try, but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I'm sure there is. Okay. Section 11-133 removes the requirement for students and apprentices to report the months they cannot harvest. I think it seems pretty reasonable, don't you? Anybody want to make it a formal motion? I'll go ahead. I'll second it. Any discussion? Those in favor? Opposed? I missed one. I'll back up. I'll back up. Okay, all right. So that one passes unanimously. And let me go back up to the second one. My apology. That's right, that's the one that you inset. But additional section 11-133, changing the requirement to qualify for bushel licenses to be 60 and have held a license at least once in the past 10 years. Do we want this to be longer than once? Okay. And right now it's 8 out of 10? [1:21:00] Laura DiBiase: I think it's either 8 or 9 out of 10. Okay. [1:21:03] Lisa Trombley: Okay. So we can, if we want to change that, we can choose any number. Does anybody feel strongly about changing this or are we all happy with the way it is? [1:21:17] Marco Melinda: I guess I'd be interested to hear from the harvesters. It seems like eight out of 10 is a high bar and going down to one. [1:21:25] Lisa Trombley: And you want to explain why it came up? [1:21:27] Laura DiBiase: Yeah. Again, I believe based on a conversation that you and I had, The interesting scenario that we had, it wouldn't qualify because the gentleman hadn't had his license for the last 10 years, but we had a person who had been a long-time harvester who wasn't able to do the bushel because he hadn't had a commercial license for several years. So he ended up going in the lottery, winning a full-on commercial license, and he would have been very happy to have a bushel license. So I think it just allows again for some flexibility because as we see older as people not everybody's going to get their license when they're 20 years old like Max said some of them are going to be you know 50 or 55 when they get it and that they can and they realize after five years they like don't maybe only go out for a you know a bushel so but again this is I'm I'm indifferent on it I just put this forward to maybe to open up an opportunity to you know [1:22:24] Lisa Trombley: Yeah, I was the one that actually brought it up. I said I thought that especially years that we have a robust survey and we want the harvesters out there getting the product, that was one less harvester that was going to be out there hammering it. So I will say that I'm in support of it. I do think the bar of eight is a little high. I'm thinking maybe five out of ten years, a 50% bar, but I will entertain any motion. [1:22:52] Crisper Western: I know I can't vote or make motions or do any fancy stuff, but I am also in support of it. I think we have one bushel of license currently, so I don't think it's going to make a huge difference. But I think to open that up to people of that age and that requirement, I think I'm in support of it. All right. [1:23:11] Lisa Trombley: Does anybody want to make a motion with a language including the number of years out of 10 that they would require? [1:23:19] Marco Melinda: Wire and so we had consensus that five years was, I don't know, that's just a number I threw out. [1:23:27] Lisa Trombley: I thought, you know, 50 of the time, if somebody's harvested five out of the, you know, five years out of the last 10, that they still have an interest in it, they haven't, haven't hung their boots up for too long, if you will, they might have skipped a year or two, six, but I mean, yeah, I mean, it could be six. I mean, you think five? Five. I'll make the motion. Five out of ten years. All right. I'll second. All right. Good enough. All those in favor? Opposed? Okay. Now I'm back on track here. Section 11-136, discussion of the percentage of the fee designated for the program. It must be approved to the town manager. I don't remember. I think it might have been Blaine that brought it up. So my question on this, before I would be willing to make a motion myself, would be when was the last time more money was allocated to that? Like, is this a fund that has been at this dollar amount for 20 years and it's only been a couple years? [1:24:39] Laura DiBiase: When we changed that, I want to say maybe three years ago now, yeah, we took away the conservation time that you had to earn, and we implemented a $50 fee for residents. I think it was $75 for non-residents. That was tacked on, so it went from an additional $50. That was Aramak specifically for conservation programs. I'm not sure. We haven't really spent a lot, so we must have some in there now. So it's just a question. And again, I would say, I would err on caution that I'm not sure that I can get the town manager to allocate more unless we're doing, you know, make a difference instead of saying, say the license I think is $450 now, having $375 go to the general fund and another, you know, $75 go to conservation. I just, again, was reacting, but having been here for a long time, it's a tough sell to have anybody designate specific funds because, again, building permits all go in the general fund. [1:25:45] Lisa Trombley: The only reason I had asked about that, I forgot it was relatively new. If it was something that had been 20 years, we might have looked at throwing some few hectare dollars in the pot because of inflation. But is it my understanding that regardless of how much money is in that particular year mark for our program should the need arise that we want to request [1:26:06] Laura DiBiase: money we can still do that from the general fund or we yeah as part of a budget process you can always request funds on i for example there could be a line for conservation or for a seed and we could increase that and if the count if the town council supports that then that money is ALLOCATED THAT WAY. THERE ARE MECHANISMS THROUGH THE NORMAL BUDGET PROCESS TO ALLOCATE FUNDS OR INCREASE FUNDS TO PROGRAMMING. I THINK WE SHOULD TABLE THIS [1:26:35] Lisa Trombley: ONE FOR NOW. I DON'T THINK IT'S NECESSARY. I WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO SAY BASED ON THE INFORMATION SHE JUST GAVE ME THAT WE CAN ASK FOR MORE FUNDS. I'M NOT SURE IT'S REALLY WORTHY OF IT. I'D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION THAT WE JUST DISMISS IT. WE CAN ALWAYS TAPE. IT CAN ALWAYS BE BROUGHT UP later on right next year all right all those in favor arco's not gonna abstain opposed i don't know do we have enough no okay in favor was just me and laura right oh and max three two okay three two okay all right moving along 11-140 changing the amount students can harvest based on a week versus per day. Again, I feel like this is one of those that maybe we should just leave alone because of our algae bloom. Do I have to make that an official motion? Okay. We're just not [1:27:33] Crisper Western: going to do it. I would want to know more about that anyway, because it would make things more difficult for me when it comes to tracking. I thought it was going to be comfortable, yeah. And I'm going to be out there checking kids and then having a call for Ann, and it's going to be- [1:27:45] Lisa Trombley: Yeah, we did talk about that and the complexity of it. [1:27:47] Crisper Western: I would want to know logistics more before we did anything with that. Yeah. All right. [1:27:51] Lisa Trombley: Well, you don't have to worry about it this year. Did you have something for him? Oh, I saw you move. Sorry. 11-142, expanding the aiding and abetting section to include any violation of the ordinance. And Dan mentioned that he just wanted to basically change the wording from harvester versus violation so that it was a little clearer. [1:28:11] Laura DiBiase: Make a motion to approve. [1:28:13] Lisa Trombley: I'll second that one. Any discussion? You're looking confused, Marco. Did you need Dan to explain it to you again? [1:28:21] Marco Melinda: I'm surprised we just skipped over one as opposed to voted down. Well, the... [1:28:26] Lisa Trombley: You're right. I didn't follow the exact... I kind of looked at Fran and said, did we really need to? But I'm happy to make it a formal motion. I mean, I still... [1:28:33] Marco Melinda: I can back up. The whole idea was that this would open up nights just for July and August, was that it? Okay, I thought... Okay, that's why I was like, we just skipped that. Okay, never mind. [1:28:46] Dan Devereaux: So the motion on the floor is to... [1:28:49] Lisa Trombley: To expand the aiding and abetting. Yes, I just need a second for that. [1:28:53] Dan Devereaux: No, it's the same thing. All it does is omit harvest out of that section and just say in violation of this ordinance. [1:29:03] Lisa Trombley: All right, so all those in favor? Opposed? Yes, Chris, we're going to let you vote tonight. And we had one. Marco, was you against that one? Was you opposed to the expanding and aiding? [1:29:17] Marco Melinda: No, I'm in favor of that. [1:29:19] Lisa Trombley: Okay, so that's unanimous. Okay, so then it brings us to section 11-143, which adds an expiration date for provisional licenses. And that was, I don't know. That one, when you and I brought it up, it seemed like a great idea until we started talking about the logistics and the problems that we had with some of them being sold. No,, no. [1:29:41] Laura DiBiase: The provisional licenses is the one after you go through the apprenticeship program, And then you can get the provisional license and we just didn't have an expiration in there And it should be consistent with the commercial regular commercial because they can harvest all year They're just at the limit of the student license [1:30:00] Marco Melinda: All right more housekeeping that's housekeeping so this is kind of a staff request then yeah [1:30:08] Lisa Trombley: All right, so I'll make a motion to appease the staff and add an expiration date for the provisional license Okay, all those in favor Those opposed. All right, that's passes. This is the one you talk about right Marco 11-164 allows a night harvesting in July and August [1:30:25] Marco Melinda: Is that the one? Yep. Yep. I just gotta well myself well [1:30:30] Lisa Trombley: Then would you like to entertain a motion or ask for additional information there? [1:30:35] Marco Melinda: I just it seems like the it seems like things have changed [1:30:41] Lisa Trombley: My recommendation was going to be, and I'm not to cut Laura off, I'll go right to you in just a second, was that this would be the third one on the list that we don't entertain this year due to the algae bloom. Is that what you're going to say? All those three potential changes were when we thought we had bushels and bushels and bushels of clams out there, right, and now that's not the case. So, my motion, Laura's second, that we do not entertain looking at night harvesting right now, which we had also been told by staff was going to be a logistical nightmare and not strongly supported. So, I'd like to just take a vote on that, see if everybody's in support of it, all those in favor of keeping things as is. Jason wants night harvesting. Marco, do you want night harvesting? Yes, I do. You do? I do. [1:31:35] Marco Melinda: For me, this is about harvesting a product at a time where you're not in the heat of the day, which I think has got benefits. And also, not just for the harvest, but then also, you know, it's a workplace safety thing on really hot days, like we had some blistering days this year, for people to be able to work outside of those heat windows, I think is important. [1:31:56] Lisa Trombley: And I had also thought of that as well. It doesn't mean that they won't still harvest in the heat unless we were to write something that says, you know, if it's above 90 degrees then you can only harvest at night or something along those nights. I think that becomes too complicated, Massachusetts laws, I mean heat laws, did I, it did pass three to two I think, but I'm, I am willing to have this mini-discussion about this. I think this is the biggest one on here, because I think it might be something to look at another year. [1:32:31] Laura DiBiase: I just think with everything that's going on right now, [1:32:33] Marco Melinda: I think we should just leave it alone. [1:32:36] Lisa Trombley: Because it would be potentially adding additional tides to this. [1:32:41] Marco Melinda: I guess I would rather see conservation separated from worker safety and product safety. [1:32:48] Lisa Trombley: Instead of using this as a tool for conservation, which you're saying. Dan, would you take just a minute and just refresh what you saw the issues of this being? I mean, obviously, Chris would probably be one of these, too, is that it's going to become a shift in responsibilities for the town staff, for one. [1:33:07] Dan Devereaux: Yeah, I mean, it really adds a burden to Chris's plate. I mean, right now, if somebody's seen out there at night and you get a call, you know that you're going to respond. Because, I mean, Chris probably has all his contacts around the shore and knows if he gets a call from somebody that's watching over McQuaid Bay, there's a headlight out there, he's probably going to come out. But in June or July, if it's open during June or July, then you risk losing that and you'll risk poaching more. But, I mean, it's a tradeoff with public health and worker safety. One of my concerns is the shellfish resources are a community resource. So every part of the community gives a little bit, even the coastal residents. So, you know, you fire up the airboat at 2 in the morning to race out to McQuay Bay to dig. You can guarantee that the PD is going to have some complaints. [1:34:17] Crisper Western: Every time. The guy who takes those calls, also as the guy with the loudest airboat, but as the guy who takes all of those calls, even when it's 7 a.m., I get the complaints. And it's always, you know, the harvesters have been here long before any of you have. But the middle of the night, now you're going to really start getting some people complaining. [1:34:36] Dan Devereaux: Yeah, because we've never, I mean, as far as long as I've been here, we've never had night harvesting before. [1:34:41] Marco Melinda: For so you mean like I complain about the night train whistles and the dumpster collections and stuff that just goes with living in a community sorry it there's there's some validity [1:34:53] Lisa Trombley: To both sides of it I agree that I don't think I want my clams sitting out there on the flats in 90 degree weather some will argue well we keep them in the mud but we did pass to you leave it alone. It was barely. It was three to two. I think in part we're feeling strongly one way or the other because of the algae bloom. So don't give up hope, Marco. I'm willing to have this conversation with you for another time. Alright, so I think I have followed this down properly and now that would bring us to Dan's new... [1:35:30] Laura DiBiase: That wasn't on there. Right, and that was just one that we had talked I hadn't prepared language, so I'm fine not leaving it as is this year and then just putting that as something to look at next year. I am too. [1:35:40] Lisa Trombley: I'm kind of the one that pushed it unless somebody else was a strong supporter of it that maybe we just leave that one alone. Everybody kind of shaking their head. Not a lot of meat to it. Okay, so we'll just not. You didn't write it down. It didn't happen. All right, so that brings us to the proposal that Dan had. That allows us for some emergency language in here. I feel comfortable with it, with the amended language to make sure it includes all harvesters. In fact, he said commercial, but you changed it to shellfish. So that would be so that we can look at everything. We can look at our bushel licenses. We can look at our peck licenses. We can look at the whole, I like that. You guys feel good about that, if he changes it? So I'll make a motion that we make this ordinance change if he changed his language to shellfish. Second. All right. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor? Oh, looks like it passes. We made it through. Did we get everything you need, Fran? Yeah. [1:36:56] Laura DiBiase: Okay. The next process is I will just leave the go to the council also to set a public hearing at the November meeting, which I'm not going to be at, so unless Dan can go, it may be, or it may even be, so it'll be, it'll be, a public hearing will be held either the second meeting in November or the first meeting in December, but I will let you folks know, obviously, in advance, so if you wish to attend, and I will let the harvesters know. [1:37:20] Lisa Trombley: All right, thank you. [1:37:22] Dan Devereaux: So, Fran, are we going to get them some firm final language prior to that? [1:37:27] Laura DiBiase: Yeah, well, yes. Yes, because what most likely will happen is I will firm up the language, we'll bring it back at our next meeting in November, just so that you can see what it looks like, give it to the council at their second meeting in November to set the public hearing for the first meeting in December to get approved. [1:37:44] Dan Devereaux: Okay, thank you. [1:37:47] Lisa Trombley: All right, so that brings us to new business. Does anybody have any new business that we'd like to discuss? Anything under old business we'd like to bring up? I think we just hashed it all out, didn't we? So that brings us to the final item, 66, setting the November meeting agenda. I just want to make sure that Fran has on there that we'd like to revisit the possibility of conservation. [1:38:09] Laura DiBiase: Okay. And I'll add that off the final item. Okay. [1:38:13] Lisa Trombley: Anything else anybody else would like to have added to that? That is all we have on our agenda. I could entertain a motion to dismiss. To quit. [1:38:24] Ray Trombley: To quit. Motion to adjourn. To adjourn. Second. That's it. Seconded. All right. Those in favor? Opposed? Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Kathy. We'll see you next time.