PORTLAND (AP) – Intensive monitoring and good luck may share the credit for Maine’s ability so far to dodge the red-tide-caused economic damage sustained along the coast during the summer of 2005.
Toxic algae has already prompted curbs on shellfish harvesting and more red tide could still blow in.
But an intensified monitoring effort has kept more Down East clam diggers working this time and state officials hope the preparations also will help the shellfish industry in southern Maine if red tide surges.
“It’s still sitting out there, and we’re only halfway through the season,” said Darcie Couture, head of the Biotoxin Monitoring Program for the Maine Department of Marine Resources.
Red tide is a microscopic algae that produces a potentially deadly neurotoxin. The toxin does not harm mussels, clams or oysters, but can poison people who eat them.
Maine keeps toxic shellfish out of the market by shutting down shellfish beds whenever red tide appears.
Officials collect shellfish from various parts of the coast, grind up the meat and inject the juices into laboratory mice. If red tide is present, the mice quickly die.
The state is using a federally-funded network of buoys to detect blooms of red tide and serve as an early warning system. It also is using $143,000 in federal disaster aid from the 2005 red tide bloom to triple the size of its monitoring staff so that 12 people can visit the state’s harbors and bays to collect samples of clams and mussels.
The state has been able to shut down shellfish beds tainted by the algae while keeping open bays or rivers that have escaped contamination.
“In eastern Maine, even though they’re having a record-breaking year, they still have areas that are open to digging,” said Couture. “Cobscook Bay would have been completely closed to digging more than a month ago” without the advances in monitoring.
Even with the monitoring, southern Maine would have been much harder hit had there been some strong onshore winds in the past month.
“We’re kind of coasting along being very lucky,” Couture said.
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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com
AP-ES-06-29-08 1220EDT
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