BOSTON (AP) – The red tide bloom that shut down shellfish beds from Maine to Buzzards Bay may finally be ending, as state officials reopen active clam, mussel and oyster beds in two large areas.

Flats from the New Hampshire border to the Gloucester-Manchester line and from Point Allerton in Hull to the Marshfield-Duxbury line were to reopen on Wednesday morning, The Boston Globe reported.

About 1.2 million acres of shellfish beds in Massachusetts were shut down beginning in mid-May in what was called the worst bloom of the red tide algae in state history. The tide has cost shellfishermen between $3 million and $7 million in lost income, state officials estimated last week.

“The real public health emergency crunch is over,” said J. Michael Hickey, the state’s chief shellfish biologist.

Hickey’s office opened beds off Cape Cod, the islands and the South Shore earlier this month.

There are restrictions. No one can catch surf clams, ocean quahogs, carnivorous snails, or whole scallops, which take longer to discharge red tide poison from their meat.

Officials emphasize that the shellfish on the market are safe, given the extensive safeguards in place.

Some shellfish reached levels of toxicity so high that even a fraction of a meal could have been fatal, according to Don Anderson, a red tide expert from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod.