The moratorium on lobster harvests in the Long Island Sound that began Sept. 8 will end for Connecticut fishermen Nov 28.
According to a pair of men who have been pulling lobsters from the sound all their lives, why bother?
“It”™s been a disaster the last four or five years,” said Roger Frate, 68. “There”™s nothing out there.” And what is there, he said, “literally stinks” ”” lobster meat that fish will not eat, even blackfish, which by their nature eat injured lobsters. “If I put a single poisoned lobster into a tank with healthy lobsters, they all get sick; that”™s how potent this stuff is. The meat is rotten. It”™s just disgusting.”
Frate is addressing methoprene and resmethrin, a pair of insecticides used to control mosquitoes that the Legislature banned July 21 (except under emergency conditions) via House Bill No. 6441. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed it ”” “a prohibition on the use or application of methoprene or resmethrin in any storm drain or conveyance for water within the coastal boundary” ”” and the ban took effect Oct. 1
Frate is president of the Western End of the Long Island Sound Lobster Association. For 33 years he has owned Darien Seafood, a retailer that also wholesales clams and oysters. His son, Roger Jr., 45, is the organization vice president ”” and that pretty much constitutes the organization”™s roll call these days. “There used to be 50 members before the 1999 die-off; now there are just a few of us.”
The specific date that led to the ongoing catastrophe ”” this is the first shutdown of the industry in its 300-year history ”” is Sept 17, 1999. That was the day Hurricane Floyd hit.
Floyd was bumped from the regional collective memory by other weather blockbusters since, but for fishermen, it was Black Tuesday and the Chicago fire rolled into one. The West Nile virus was in the news and regional states reacted, perhaps overreacted, quickly. A week before Floyd, New York applied 20 million pounds of neurotoxins to mosquito-prone areas, storm drains and catch basins; Connecticut applied half that amount.
But for Floyd, the chemicals might have dissipated, as they are designed to do. “The trouble is you get overflow of the basins and storm drains after about an inch and a half of rain,” Frate said. “We had 10 inches with Floyd; the timing could not have been worse. September 17, 1999 was the date that changed my life. We saw a 90- to 100-percent decline after Floyd.
“We received $7 million to study the problem in 2000 from the Clinton administration,” Frate said. Besides the pesticides themselves, the findings pointed a finger at the use of liquid chlorine in wastewater treatment, which both amplifies and transports chemicals to the sound bottom, he said. “Just one part per billion of methoprene blows apart their immune systems so that any bacteria will kill the lobsters. By 2004, we knew what was causing this.”
The website for the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) in a cartoon-illustrated “methoprene general fact sheet” said the chemical “can accumulate in fish tissues. It is moderately toxic to crustaceans such as shrimp, lobsters and crayfish, and very highly toxic to freshwater invertebrates.
“By acting like an insect hormone, it interferes with insect growth and development,” the NPIC said. “It can prevent normal molting, egg-laying, egg-hatching, and development from the immature phase to the adult phase. This prevents the insects from reproducing.”
The problem as Frate explains it ”” and he has been on the topic since Floyd, more than 14 years now ”” is that insects and lobsters are members of the same biological phylum. “The same thing that kills bugs kills lobsters ”” they”™re all arthropods,” Frate said.
In the wake of Floyd, Frate said, 300 dead birds that were turned in for testing revealed only five died of West Nile virus; the remaining 295 were killed by ingesting poisoned insects.
On the same day Frate spoke, federal and state officials announced 23 grants totaling $1,295,972 were awarded to local government and community groups in Connecticut and New York under the Long Island Sound Futures Fund.
“The grants are for projects that improve water quality, restore habitat, enhance living resources,” the announcement read, “and educate and involve the public with the ultimate goal of protecting and restoring the Long Island Sound.”
Thirteen grants totaling $625,982 leveraged another $590,000 in grantee contributions for, among other state initiatives, a program for stormwater awareness via social media to be run by The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk ($70,000) and for an organic lawn care program in Waterbury ($52,000).
Those grants notwithstanding, “I spoke in Washington, D.C., Aug. 20 to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission,” said Frate. “I said this bill in Connecticut is the only chance the Long Island Sound has. When are they going to stop these pesticides in New York?”
Connecticut now uses BTI (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis), a bacteria that attacks mosquitoes in the larval stage and that is billed as targeting few unrelated species.
Lawn care is a big problem, according to Frate, fraught with the use of available brands like Illinois-based Clarke”™s Anvil brand, which uses another neurotoxin, sumithrin, classified as an “axonic (as in the axons of nerve cells) excitoxin,” and Scourge, made by Germany-based Bayer, which contains the now-Connecticut-banned neurotoxin resmethrin.
“I raised these issues with a friend who had retired from the lawn care industry,” he said. “This fellow said I was 100 percent right. He told me, ”˜I should be ashamed, but I got rich off it.”™”
Mike Kalaman, 47, runs the lobster boat Dark Horse for Norm Bloom & Son L.L.C. in Norwalk. These days he”™s mostly working on his boat. When he does go out he hunts for channel whelks; their meat is better known as scungilli.
“The biggest problem is New York”™s continued use of West Nile pesticides,” Kalaman said dockside recently. “They”™ve had a significant impact on the lobsters.” Calling lobsters “the canary in the coal mine,” he said those who make decisions are too removed from the world of boats and lobster pots. “We”™re allowed to set out pots Nov. 15,” he said. “But we can”™t bait them until Nov. 28. You gotta be kidding me. You should have heard the laughter when they announced that decision.
“The people who make the decisions don”™t know the industry,” Kalaman said. “The lobster industry provides a monitoring function in a manner government can”™t afford. The politicians need to listen to the fishermen. We”™re the true stewards of the environment. We”™re the ones who count on the balance that Mother Nature provides.”
“These should be the best lobster-breeding grounds in the U.S.,” Frate said. “I blame the whole thing on New York ”” it”™s gotta be about money.” As for further studies: “People are making a living off what they already know.”
Several calls to New York officials in the departments of health and environmental conservation resulted in interdepartmental shuffling, but no response to the lobstermen”™s concerns.
can you send this to the local New York representatives?