Clams or People?

In case you have yet to hear, there has been a giant surge in the hard clam population in Shinnecock Bay’s waters. Partly responsible for this increase is Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County — but also cleaner water, fewer storms and the work of Southampton Town government; to wit, the Town Trustees.

This resurgence comes at a time when the town’s offices, and in particular the Planning Board, is struggling with a major development plan for East Quogue’s Spinney Road area. Said development proposal, which was heard again before the board at last Thursday’s meeting, has been around in one form or another since 2012.

In 1974, when I was a professor teaching field biology at Southampton College, about half of my male students were local and worked as baymen, clamming and harvesting shellfish and fish for a living, including paying their tuition.

The hard clam population diminished year after year until by 2005 there was nary a clam left to catch in the bay.

The Great South Bay to the west of Shinnecock Bay, once the capital of the U.S. hard clam industry, has yet to experience a comeback. The hard clams left, the college ended its 40-plus-year reign, and Shinnecock Bay and the Great South Bay became clamless.

The Blue Water Task Force, led by the national Surfrider Foundation, has been sampling the East End’s bays and harbors for more than 15 years, enlisting the aid of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, the Peconic Baykeeper and other volunteers to carry out their monthly water sampling regime for enterococcus, a fecal bacterium. Most of the samples have been run by SUNY Stony Brook, which took over LIU’s Southampton campus.

While the enterococcus values have been high in many parts of Shinnecock Bay, sampling date after sampling date, suddenly they are low for many months now, perhaps reflecting a dry year with little runoff.

The large condominium complex and golf course proposed for East Quogue will generate many gallons of water of questionable quality, in terms of nitrogenous chemicals, bacteria and other pollutants.

At a gathering hosted by Southampton Town featuring Dr. Christopher Gobler five years ago, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman was seated next to one of the principals of the would-be subdivision and golf course, while I was seated in the back next to would-be Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni.

Dr. Gobler placed on the viewing board the amount of pollution the proposed complex would generate, all of which would flow toward western Shinnecock Bay. When I asked what the pollution levels would be if the land remained vacant, without any development, Dr. Gobler was quick to respond: “What they are today,” was his answer.

So we are at a difficult point. The principals behind the subdivision and golf course have a track record of developing these kind of Shangri-las elsewhere, one in the Northwestern U.S., another on a Caribbean island. But then there is the recovering hard clam population.

It’s a question of clams for baymen and recreational clammers versus more people establishing and recreating on the East End, as well as more traffic on Montauk Highway, which is already overburdened.

“Clams or people” — as William Shakespeare might say, “that is the question.”