LUBEC — The Lubec Shellfish Committee met Monday night, its first meeting since Michael Scrivani stepped down as chair.
The well‑attended meeting was heated at times, but the committee was able to address ongoing business.
In Scrivani’s absence, Julie Keene stepped in to lead the meeting, and Jennifer Brody served as secretary. Committee member Mark Kelley was also present.
Clam Warden Russell Wright provided an update on the septic issues that have led to the contamination and closure of the Globe Cove flats in North Lubec. He said he and Bruce Greene, the town’s plumbing inspector, have been working with homeowners to address the problems, but heavy rains and posted roads have made that impossible for now. Wright said he hopes to move forward once the ground stabilizes.
Kelley, the Shellfish Committee member who also sits on the Lubec Board of Selectmen, said that once the Globe Cove issues are addressed, the plan is to tackle two more contamination problems affecting the Diamond Point flats on Johnson Bay.
The committee voted to continue pursuing a plan to purchase clam seed from the Downeast Institute, or DEI, the Beals‑based nonprofit research center that addressed the committee in February.
DEI is likely sold out of seed for this year, however, so the committee decided to take a more do‑it‑yourself approach in the short term. Members voted to meet this year’s conservation obligations with a small‑clam seeding program of their own, gathering undersize clams and moving them to other closed flats to develop.
Wright again explained that the practice requires permitting, and the committee voted to ask Heidi Leighton of the Maine Department of Marine Resources for guidance on securing the permit.
Leighton is scheduled to attend the next Shellfish Committee meeting and is expected to bring paperwork to formalize the seeding plan. The committee also voted to authorize Brody to contact DEI to ensure Lubec is on the waiting list for seed if any becomes available.
The rest of the meeting was dominated by an intense discussion of proposed changes to Lubec’s licensing rules for clam harvesters. For several meetings in a row, the committee has been grappling with confusion around the “grandfathering in” of out‑of‑town commercial license holders.
Lubec’s shellfish ordinance, in accordance with state law, sets a ratio for issuing out‑of‑town licenses alongside resident licenses: one non‑Lubec license for the first five resident licenses issued, a second for the next 10, and so on. There are now 10 such nonresident licenses available, and they are distributed by lottery.
Under licensing rules established before the ordinance was enacted in 2015, the town still has a handful of out‑of‑town licenses “grandfathered in,” allowing nonresidents to apply without entering the lottery. Five such licenses remain in circulation, and because they cannot be transferred, the grandfathering system will phase out naturally as those harvesters retire.
Some harvesters have expressed interest in abolishing the grandfathered licenses, which would require the five remaining holders to enter the lottery like everyone else.
After a long and difficult discussion, the committee took an informal poll of the audience and found that most favored keeping the program as is. The vote was nonbinding, and the discussion will likely continue at the next meeting.
In addition to Scrivani’s departure as chair, Secretary Anna Carter also resigned last month, leaving the Shellfish Committee with at least two openings for harvesters or community members. A third seat is likely to open, though the committee has not yet received Dennis Huckins’s official resignation.
The Shellfish Committee now has no active commercial harvesters among its members. Kelley said in a telephone conversation that he has heard some harvesters are interested in joining the committee.
The next Shellfish Committee meeting is scheduled for April 27.
Correction: This story was updated April 17 to correct the misidentification of the departing secretary; her name is Anna Carter, not Anna Baxter as previously reported.
