297 



Raritan Bay covers roughly 90 square miles of which an estimated 

 5 percent was once harvested for shellfish. Thus, about 2,850 acres 

 (A. S. Merrill) are suitable for shellfish. At the rate of 2,000 bushels 

 of oysters on one acre (A. S. Merrill, 1967 Conference — Pollution 

 of the Navigable Waters of Eastern Niew Jersey (November 1967) pre- 

 pared for FWPCA, p. i^84) or 2,000 bushels of clams per acre (Jerome, 

 Chesmore, and Anderson, Study of Marine Resources of Beverly- Salem 

 Harbor (1967), p. 49) combined with a dockside price per bushel of 

 $1.50, the loss per acre per year is $3,000. If 2,850 acres of the bay were 

 so utilized, that total loss would amount tto $8.5 million annually. 

 These figures will vary as follows : 



(1) 2,000 bushels per acre represents the upper limit of current bot- 

 tom harvest yields. Three dimensional farming is already yielding 

 over twice this amount per acre. On the other hand, a more average 

 bottom yield would be on the order of a few hundred to 1,000 bushels 

 per acre. 



(2) The $1.50 figure is very low since a bushel of oysters currently 

 (1968) brings about $10 in the New England area. This would be the 

 dockside landing value of the bushel. Then there is the expanded value 

 of bushel or that represented by the flow of money and jobs generated 

 by people employed in processing and marketing the product. The 

 expanded value runs from five to ten times the dockside value. 



The pollution of shellfish beds in Raritan Bay has resulted, there- 

 fore, in the following : 



( 1 ) loss of employment and loss of an industry ; 



( 2 ) an epidemic of hepatitis ; 



( 3 ) loss of recreational shellfish harvest ; and 



(4) loss of $8.5 million annually and five to ten times this 

 amount if the expanded value is used. 



From 1948 to 1960 Raritan Bay shellfish reaching the New York 

 City market of 20,000 to 30,000 bushels a year brought $6 per bushel 

 or $120,000 to $180,000 annual dockside value. A survey bythe North- 

 east Shellfish Sanitation Research Center (circa 1965) indicated a 

 standing crop of some 5 million bushels of clams which agrees with 

 the estimate made above. 



Penobscot Bay^ Maine 



The "Report on Pollution — Navigable Waters of the Penobscot 

 River and Upper Penobscot Bay in Maine", Merrimack River Project- 

 Northeast Region, Boston, Mass., February 1967, Federal Water Pol- 

 lution Control Administration, provided the information for this case 

 study. 



Penobscot Bay and River are troubled with at least four major types 

 of pollution which affect the shellfish 'beds. Untreated or insufficiently 

 treated sewage, poultry processing wastes, sulfite waste liquor, and 

 heavy metal contamination from mining operations have compounded 

 the problem of trying to reopen the closed shellfish beds. 



T'he long axis of the Penobscot River-Bay-Estuary system is ap- 

 proximately 35 miles in length. Shellfish growing areas of the upper 

 bay were first closed in 1946. Since that time, more and more closures 

 have been required along the entire upper perimeter of the teay and 

 the lower estuary. Increases in poultry processing and other industrial 



