State shellfishers seeking rebound from setbacks

NORWALK — Bobbing up and down in 194 feet of water in Long Island Sound on Tuesday, lobsterman Mike Kalaman made a point to boast about his favorite fishing grounds to the delegation of state lawmakers aboard his boat, The Dark Horse.

Pointing to the waters just beyond one of his blueand-yellow buoys, Kalaman showed Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff where the border between Connecticut and New York crossed the Sound, adding that the water on the other side of the imaginary line was generally more shallow and less attractive for lobsters.

“Connecticut is blessed to have all this deep water,” Kalaman said, gesturing across the area he has spent four decades fishing.

Duff joined three other state senators Tuesday morning for a tour aboard Kalaman’s 36-foot lobster boat and the oyster fleet operated by Copps Island Oysters in Norwalk to learn about Connecticut’s shellfish industry amid ongoing environmental threats and more recent disruption caused by the pandemic.

Norm Bloom, the owner of Copps Island Oysters, said the health of the industry has been boosted by long-term efforts to curb pollution and improve water quality in Long Island Sound.

To build support for those efforts, Bloom said family-run oyster operations such as his rely on good relationships with lawmakers in Hartford.

Duff, a Democrat from Norwalk, has been a frequent guest on Bloom’s boats, both men said.

“They’ve all been down here, they come out and they see what we’re up against,” Bloom said.

Connecticut’s shellfish industry employs roughly 300 workers and generates $30 million in sales annually, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

Another $779,751 worth of lobsters were caught last year, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Still, the industry has been beset by challenges such as a decline in lobster populations and rising waterfront property values that squeeze profits from commercial operators.

To address the latter issue, lawmakers approved tax breaks for the state’s shell fisherman by allowing their undersea beds and certain waterfront properties to be assessed at more favorable rates typically reserved for land-based farmers. The sponsor of that effort, state Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford, was among the lawmakers who joined Duff for Tuesday’s tour.

The other lawmakers who joined the tour were state Sen. Matt Lesser, DMiddletown, and state Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport.

While on the water, Cohen chatted with Kalaman about the state’s slow rebound from a massive dieoff of lobsters in 1999, as well as lingering tensions between lobstermen and federal regulators.

Kalaman said he was once among more than a dozen lobstermen based out of Norwalk, while there are now just three operating in the entire western basin of the Sound.

Kalaman said he blamed pesticides used to combat West Nile virus for the die off, and that a moratorium placed on lobster fishing between September and November by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission cut into some of the most productive fishing months without impacting populations.

“It’s not doing what it was intended to,” he said.

Asked about the moratorium, Cohen, the co-chair of the environment committee, expressed support for the lobstermen, calling them “real environmental stewards.”

She noted that Kalaman made a point of tossing back several lobsters that were within the legal catch size if they otherwise appeared to be ready to grow larger and mate.

“Do I think that we could probably have year-round lobster fishing? I do,” Cohen said. “I think we need to take a look at it. I need to talk to some of our scientists and understand what’s going on in other states.”

Other issues addressed Tuesday included the disruption caused by the pandemic, which shuttered restaurants and caused sales of oysters to crater.

Oddly, Kalaman said lobster sales remained strong through the pandemic, as the the boiledand-buttered crustaceans proved more popular with takeout customers than raw oysters.

“When the pandemic hit, we went to zero. The market stopped,” Bloom said of oyster sales, adding that he relied on federal Payment Protection Program loans to keep some of his employees working to manage the company’s acres of shellfish beds underneath the Sound.

Bloom said the company also began selling small quantities of oysters directly to consumers, while experimenting with a local restaurateur to develop a packaged frozen product that he hopes to one day sell in stores.

In the meantime, commercial restaurant sales have returned mostly to normal, he said.

Duff said the solution to help the shellfish market rebound was a more simple matter for the state to address.

“Keep eating oysters,” he said.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Lobsterman Mike Kalaman speaks with state Sen. Bob Duff onboard the Dark Horse while he pulls up his lobster traps on Long Island Sound off the coast of Norwalk on Tuesday.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Lobsterman Mike Kalaman pulls in his traps on Long Island Sound, off the coast of Norwalk on Tuesday Kalaman was joined by a group of state legislators as he made his harvesting rounds.