Photo by Steve Murray 



At low tide, three fishermen rake for clams at Harkers Island 



was the dirtiest I have ever seen. It was 

 near like coffee." 



The heavily silted water stunts the 

 growth of oysters and clams in the 

 creek and sometimes even smothers 

 them, Phillips contends. The silt and 

 mud also coat the hard shells and rocks 

 that litter the creek bottom, Phillips 

 says. Young oysters and clams, called 

 spat, attach themselves to hard sur- 

 faces before they build their shells. If 

 the shellfish land on silt or mud, they 

 die. Phillips says the silted bottom has 

 cut down on oyster and clam produc- 

 tion, which was once plentiful in the 

 area. 



"This may sound crazy," Phillips 

 says with a chuckle, "but what we 

 really need is a good hurricane, if you 

 can call hurricanes good. 



"In 1947 and '48, oyster and clam 

 production was kind of like it is now 

 because the bottom was all silted. But 

 after we had all those hurricanes in 

 1954 and '55, the bottom got cleaned 

 up. The oysters and clams had 

 something to catch on and production 

 went way up for a while. Then in 1960, 

 the bottom began to silt over again 

 and the number of oysters and clams 

 we harvested began to drop." 



Phillips says there were once a lot of 

 oystermen in the area. "My father 

 used to depend on oystering for a 

 livelihood when I was a boy," he says. 

 "But the creek got polluted and he had 

 to quit because the waters were 

 closed." 



Photo by Neil Caudle 



Alton Phillips 



Once an oysterman himself, Phillips 

 has turned to "gardening" clams. He 

 leases unpolluted creek bottoms, called 

 gardens, from the state and transfers 

 clams from polluted waters to the clean 

 waters of his garden. Phillips must 

 keep the clams in the garden at least 

 two weeks before they can be har- 

 vested and marketed. He is one of the 

 few fishermen in the state to have ap- 

 plied for a permit to relay con- 

 taminated clams. 



"There's too many people clamming 

 these days," Phillips says. "The clam 

 beds are overworked. We've got to 

 have a clam season or our clams won't 

 hold out much longer." 



To make sure he'll have enough 

 clams for next year's chowder, Phillips 

 also operates a clam hatchery. He nur- 

 tures clams from the larval stage until 

 they have three-quarter-inch shells. 

 Then he places them in his clam gar- 

 den to grow much like farmers do 

 tobacco in their fields. 



Phillips says it takes a lot of work 

 and extra time to get a good bushel of 

 clams now. "It's a hard manner for a 

 man to make a living fishing these 

 days," he says. 



