The 2019 shellfish growing season in its final weeks and we will be planting our clams shortly.  It was an unusual year in that we had bay scallops for a while and we had some new seed size rules that required us to move our oysters three times as they grew beyond legal size.  We had no major power failures but MYC did have a breakage in the intake pipe twice.  Thanks to John McKelvey who discovered the second break we were able to move our clams to Cattus which luckily had room in their upweller since we had to remove the “illegal” oysters out.  Also fortunately the salinity at Cattus has been 20 for the last few weeks so our clams will be fine for the remaining days of this season.

 I have complied the data for the first eleven weeks and this is the how the upwellers on the northern barrier island grew their clams:  All three started the season with 66,666 clams that had a volume of 1200 ml. :

Trader’s Cove   End volume   27,500 ml. % of growth  2292. Weekly % 34    Salinity 25

Island Beach.   End volume.  20,500 ml.  % of growth 1708. Weekly % 31    Salinity 22

MYC.                End volume.  18,700 ml  % of growth 1558.  Weekly % 29.   Salinity 25

I want to thank all the members and volunteers who helped out this year and I hope to see you at the Waretown rake out and the end of the year pot luck dinner.

Frank Vives

FrankVives