Region’s fortunes still tied to the water

The region’s fortunes throughout the centuries have ebbed and flowed with opportunities won and lost from the sea. Lately, the tide is turning in our favor.

There are the big developments unfolding in the Thames River estuary.

On a large scale, Electric Boat, perched in Groton on the shores of the Thames, won a $22.2 billion Navy contract to build nine Virginia-class submarines. The submarine pipeline will add thousands of workers to the 17,000 already employed.

Another opportunity on the horizon is the tantalizing prospect of New London’s revitalized State Pier becoming the staging ground for offshore wind turbine installation. Orsted, a Danish clean-energy corporation in partnership with New England-based Eversource, proposes installing wind turbines 65 miles offshore.

Smaller, but equally exciting and impressive, are developments along the Connecticut shoreline where a nearly extinct shellfish economy is being revived.

It was commercial fishing, more specifically hunting whales for their oil, that put New London on the world stage at the dawn of the Industrial Age. In 1805, the city’s first whaling ship company was formed. For the next 100 years New London ranked among the top three whaling ports, with 15 whaling companies based here.

Profits from whaling sank with the emergence of the oil industry in the late 19th century. The last whale boat left New London in 1908.

By the time whaling foundered, the local watermen had diversified to develop a robust seafood business supplying the country with lobsters, oysters, clams and scallops.

Connecticut lobstering reached a peak in 1998, when 1,200 lobstermen harvested 3.7 million pounds worth $12 million. The Connecticut oyster business peaked in 1995, generating $42 million. The clam haul was $6 million.

Prosperity came to a screeching halt by the end of the decade. Industrial pollution, warming waters and a resulting parasite infection were contributing factors to a mass shellfish extermination.

By 2005, the Connecticut commercial oyster business generated less than $1 million. The lobster business fell by more than 90% and may never recover. Today there are fewer than 100 lobster fishermen working locally.

Oysters, however, are experiencing a renaissance, their revival spurred by a successful public/private program under the Connecticut Sea Grant. The Sea Grant is funded federally by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and by the University of Connecticut at Avery Point.

Sea Grant funding created the Connecticut Shellfish Initiative as a collaboration between commercial shellfish companies, university marine researchers, state regulators and 14 shoreline municipalities to restore and protect oyster habitats. The group coordinates with Connecticut’s Bureau of Aquaculture on policy regulations.

Among the managed commercial beds are two in southeastern Connecticut: the Noank Aquaculture Cooperative and the Niantic Bay Shellfish Farm. As part of that interdependent alliance, the two commercial operators supply oysters, scallops and clams to stock municipal recreational shellfish areas.

Permit fees for recreational shellfishing support municipal water quality tests. Shellfish businesses need clean water to obtain state permits for their operations.

The Shellfish Initiative success prompted the Aquaculture Bureau last month to authorize several new recreational shellfishing areas between Madison to Stonington. More recreational areas are planned in East Lyme and Stonington. Old Saybrook and Old Lyme also are seeking sites.

Commercial shellfishing areas in the Niantic Bay and Mystic River have been upgraded, allowing those businesses to expand.

Although volume has yet to recover to historic levels, shellfishing businesses and recreational activity in the region are surging. In 2017, Connecticut recorded an oyster harvest worth $16 million, and a clam harvest valued at $10 million. More than 350 people are employed by the Connecticut shellfish industry.

Some lobstermen became oyster farmers. Others are venturing into aquaculture by farming kelp.

This is a good-news economic story. A virtuous circle of enlightened self-interest is restoring a maritime economy, upgrading water quality, improving recreational shellfishing and adapting to climate change. Oysters themselves contribute by filtering and cleaning the waters they inhabit.

The regional economy is experiencing fair winds and following seas thanks, once again, to its ocean proximity.