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IMEP NEWSLETTER #24 CLINTON HARBOR AND THE GREAT HEAT
Clinton Harbor Connecticut and The Great Heat (1880-1920)
Timothy C. Visel
March 21st 2012 - Leon’s Restaurant, Clinton, CT
Presentation and Habitat History Discussion
Clinton Lion’s Club
What About The Dardanelles?

Habitat Information for Fishers and Fishery Area Managers
Understanding Science Through History
(IMEP Habitat History Newsletters can be found indexed by date on The Blue Crab.Info™ website: Fishing, Eeling and Oystering thread) and Connecticut Fish Talk.com Salt Water Reports
Tim Visel, The Sound School


Acknowledgements

This paper builds upon four previous Clinton presentations: a 1985 presentation to the Clinton Shellfish Commission, a 1988 presentation to a civic group, Citizens for a Clinton Harbor Plan; a June 1987 presentation to the Cedar Island Improvement Association and a November 1987 Town of Clinton public hearing regarding the Dardanelles.

I would also acknowledge numerous meetings and conversations with Clinton Harbor fishers and Madison residents during this time including Diane and Tom Brennan, David Kaplan, Geoffrey Colegrove, Phil Jackson, Cecil Wilcox, Arthur Lang Jr., John Andrews, George McNeil, Gerald Birnbaum, Arthur Lang, Steadman Wilcox, Robert Mitchell, James Vance, Frank Westerberg, Mr. Fowler, David Kaplan, Ronald Paffrath, J. Milton Jeffrey and other Clinton residents.

I appreciated the opportunity to discuss issues and concerns of harbor past and present to the Clinton Lions on at least 11 meetings over the years. Richard Santanelli has been the interest behind many of them.

Introduction
I have been giving the Clinton Lions Club lectures since 1983, the year I returned to Connecticut from employment on Cape Cod. I must thank Richard Santanelli, my Madison barber and a longtime former lobster customer, for his life-long interest in Connecticut seafood and these wonderful dinner / speaker invites. When my brother Raymond and I lobstered out of Clinton Harbor in the late 1960s, we were fortunate to meet many commercial and recreational fishermen such as Charles Beebe of Madison and others that also fished from Clinton Harbor. Much about the historical information of the changes in Clinton Harbor fisheries came from many conversations with them. Regarding the Dardanelles, the coastal feature that from time to time makes Cedar Island (formerly Sandy Island) truly on Island I wish to thank the Clinton Shellfish Commission, a civic group, Citizens for a Clinton Harbor Plan, and local fishers namely (Jack Andrews and George McNeil) and those members of the Cedar Island Improvement Association who had the time to hear me speak before their group in the late 1980s. Clinton Harbor was experiencing rapid habitat change not unlike those which occurred a century ago.

The changes that Clinton Harbor experienced in the late 1980s were happening in many areas in Southern New England and was to launch efforts into researching the impacts of climate, mostly rainfall, temperature and coastal energy – waves, currents coastal storms upon coastal seafood species and their habitats. The opportunity to research and learn about climate changes and the impacts to habitat quality and the fisheries responses to them is ongoing research as part of the Long Island Sound Habitat Work Restoration Workgroup. Many of these papers have been submitted to the EPA-DEEP Long Island Sound Habitat Working Committee, but they do not represent the viewpoint of the committee.

My talk at Leon’s restaurant on March 21, 2012 before the Clinton Lions was in many respects a look at fishery habitats in Clinton’s past, but also to look at Clinton’s habitat changes throughout Southern New England in response to long-term climate and energy changes during the key period 1880-1920. Several appendices review the changes in the harbor during this period.

My study area and the focus of the Clinton presentation was the climate period known as the Great Heat or hot term north of Rhode Island - the period of approximately 1880 to 1920 - a dramatic change from the much colder 1870s. In the 1880s, summers in New England became increasingly hot with killer heat waves between 1896 to 1915. City residents then in heat waves suffered from poor sanitary conditions which fostered disease outbreaks and thousands in city tenements died from the heat. As the warmth increased making city life more difficult, it was also deadly for New England’s “desired” seafood species. The Great Heat was to vanquish bay scallops, collapse the lobster fishery and kill winter flounder by the millions. However, this four decade long period would create the largest increase in the oyster industry, spur interest in soft shell clam aquaculture locally and striped bass, a small, somewhat rare fish during the colder 1870s, now grew to enormous sizes.

Climate and energy changes have profound influences upon coastal seafood abundance and launched in a new field of fisheries habitat history ecology. A long term view is required because people respond quickly to things they can see many times without the context of history. Many of the fishery changes experienced between 1880 to 1920 also occurred again in Clinton Harbor here between 1974 to 2004.

Clinton Harbor and the Great Heat was included as a supplemental publication to recent state discussions about sea level rise and a legislative Shoreline Task Force. Thanks especially to Paul Summers and Robert LaFrance for making the arrangements to have this paper included on the Shoreline Task Force website. Since that time views have increased making it the most viewed of all of our Adult Education publications.

To learn more about our adult education publication series please visit the Sound School website (www.soundschool.com) for more information about Adult and Outreach Education programs please contact Sue Weber here at the Sound School at sue.weber@new-haven.k12.ct.us. Information about newsletters will be available shortly from Taylor Samuels at taylor.samuels@new-haven.k12.ct.us

Tim Visel

The Sound School

Tim Visel is the Coordinator of The Sound School Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center – 60 South Water Street, New Haven, CT 06519.

Comments and questions always welcome. Email me at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us.

Clinton Harbor and the Great Heat as presented to the Clinton Lions Club, March 2012 – Tim Visel, The Sound School

Climate and Fisheries

During a July 2010 meeting of the Long Island Sound Study Habitat Restoration Committee I proposed that the EPA/DEEP Long Island Sound Study review two Connecticut coastal areas. The areas should now become the subject of intense fish and shellfish habitat studies, Clinton Harbor (Inner lower Hammonasset River) and Niantic Bay – (Inner lower Niantic River). Both of these systems could reveal critical “habitat histories” for deciding the future of Long Island Sound finfish, shellfish restoration and other habitat creation projects. What we learn from exploratory core studies in Clinton’s salt marshes could help answer questions from the impact of navigational dredging to the reappearance of the blue crabs, the die off of lobsters and decline of both the winter flounder and bay scallops. Archaeology reviews of the first fisheries such as those pursued by area Native Americans may further provide critical species and climate information. These studies may even reveal answers to questions about the impacts of nitrogen inputs over long periods in our climate history. Nitrogen also has changes in prevalence and abundance from excess during The Great Heat 1880-1920 and scarcity in the 1950s during the New England cool period called the New England or North Atlantic Oscillation. What is unique to these two areas is that they both had an active barrier spit/inlet system.

These two barrier beach systems reflect classic case histories of a barrier beach inlet. In the Clinton example, it is probably the most discussed and most detailed environmental history that now exists for such an opening which locally is still referred to as the Dardanelles. While not as large as Long Island Sound, it is these smaller systems that may prove invaluable to review. These systems have a long history of producing abundant supplies of finfish and shellfish species. Niantic Bay especially for the bay scallop once prevalent to the area and still today is referred to as Niantic Bay Scallops and Clinton Harbor for oysters.

The small cottage community on Clinton’s Cedar Island knows the barrier inlet as the “Dardanelles” as the small piece of water that made their cottages truly an
island community. To the boating public, the barrier beach inlet, a natural opening and closing process governed by climate and storms knew it as a hole in the breakwater. To shell and fin fishermen, it was flushing process which relieved built-up mud and leaves which accumulated over time keeping the harbor bottoms firm and productive for shellfish (oysters) and winter flounder. In both systems at different times, bay scallops and soft shell clams would become famous in each. These events and habitat types now lay buried under massive accumulations of silts and muds. That is the habitat history information they can provide us. They can offer a glimpse of past Connecticut’s habitat history governed by climate and energy.

What makes them special is the periodic openings are reflected in fisheries history, and in times of great energy and cold, it seems they open. The rivers in these systems no longer take the long way but cut the west end of the barrier spit or “bar” providing a short cut, another opening literally through the beach. Characteristics lobes or “ears” often point to sites of former breaches that filled over time leaving a characteristic fan shape that occurs over hundreds of years. This has happened many times to the Clinton and Niantic “bars” or barrier spits. When breached, they allowed energy to transition habitat types above them. Energy systems have a critical function in determining habitat quality and therefore species suitability.

Much has been said about the consequences regarding coastal energy into our near shore environments. What we see is often far too short a time period to draw habitat conclusions – conclusions we urgently need for the larger Long Island Sound Study. Coastal energy drives, creates and sustains coastal habitats while at and the same time destroying and terminating them. Temperature has a key role in determining which species benefit from energy and during what conditions. We see that benefit as recorded in the fisheries literature/records and reports. An improved habitat quality frequently yields improved catches of certain seafood..

Much of the environmental history is periodic and connected to climate and storm energy. Clinton Harbor and Niantic Bay may reflect in a small way how those larger impacts are measured. Native American fisheries – the first fisheries may have left a habitat history in remains of shellfish and finfish consumed along our coast. Clinton and area towns have a rich history of such past fisheries left in shell middens, the kitchen remains over thousands of years. Closely examining those shell middens (remains) may provide clues to long term habitat quality and resource abundance.


The Great Heat and its Fisheries

Since breaching occurs most often in periods of cold, openings may reverse habitat conditions yielding different species each with a distinct “habitat clock” a succession of habitat types that may lie detailed in a habitat history. What is good for one species is not good for another. The Great Heat saw lobsters perish but blue crab populations soared.

What is remarkable about the 1880-1920 period the so called Great Heat, was the absence of hurricanes and strong storms. There were a few noteworthy exceptions - The Blizzard of 1888, The 1898 Portland Gale (named in memory of many lives lost aboard the Steamship Portland) and the summer gales of 1903 and 1905. The Portland Gale reopened the Dardanelles which was closed in 1901, but the soft shell clam sets in the inner harbor were huge. It then became quiet again for three decades. Clinton residents noticed the dramatic increase in soft shell clam production – in newspaper articles the Clinton Recorder at the time mentioned this extreme abundance, they noticed the difference because it was valued resource.

The next period (The New England Oscillation) would not be so kind to coastal communities. Beginning in 1935 with a strong hurricane, then followed just a few years later by a massive, devastating hurricane; The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 would destroy many of the summer homes built during The Great Heat. This began the transition to The New England Oscillation (1951 to 1965). Although not nearly as cold as the 1870s, which saw temperatures drop to 30 below zero for days, it would be a much shorter, colder period lasting in intensity from roughly 1935 to 1965. It was during this period that winter walks along Hammnonasset Beach would show ice walls 6 to 10 feet high and even included Long Island Sound icing over, the last time being the winter of 1965. The very intense Hudson Valley low pressure systems were signature to this period. Each spring, the strong southerly gales with low pressures that repeatedly moved up the Hudson River Valley into New York sustained winds (gales) for periods that which at times exceeded 24 hours. This change is energy intensity was devastating to the Dardanelles which broke open in 1938 – the third such opening in 150 years.

The problem with The Great Heat and New England Oscillation is the public awareness of what was happening; summer cottages built on barrier beaches in the stable 1880-1920 periods would be washed away in the 1950s and 1960s. The amount of coastal energy applied to coastal areas then is of legendary proportions. As energy increased, shorelines eroded and coastal storms became both killers of people and people’s homes. The loss was personal evoking strong emotions to protect the coast and its coastal properties. We see the National Flood Insurance Program and Flood and Erosion Control Acts as national legislation happen because of the New England Oscillation. The truth of the matter is that the public got used to a fairly stable shoreline between 1880 and 1920 and now it was on the move again.

But one only needs to look back to the 1870s to see the storms that so devastated packet and steamship navigation interests. The 1870s storms and wrecks would give Long Island Sound the nickname of the “Devil’s Belt” for the treachery of the storms in this shallow sea. That is what started the movement to build breakwaters along the Connecticut coast. Many of these breakwaters were built in or next to harbor areas such as the one off Clinton Harbor. Similar to barrier spits, they also would have habitat consequences as also the eastern Connecticut railroad crossings. By the time many of the offshore breakwaters were built in the late 1890s the energy had warned as many Connecticut harbors now had hot and quiet conditions.

The 1870s would see New England gripped in a bitter cold so cold that in 1875, (people thought the ice age was returning) most of the apple trees would die or be so badly damaged that they would be cut down. Farmers noticed the habitat history of such events and planted new orchards accordingly. The hilltop orchards did much better and from then on, apple trees would be planted on hilltops; that practice continues today.

The end of The Great Heat did not come suddenly, as if a freight train suddenly stopped, but more like a stopping train that then started to back up. The transitional year appears to be 1931; winter flounder benefited from the gradual cold. The bitter cold winters of 1922-24 were some of the most notable, and they brought the best winter flounder and bay scallop recruitment of the last century. By the mid 1930s, oyster vessels would be locked in deep ice, something they were not accustomed to during the period of warmth and quiet. In the shelly and bivalve shell deposits, winter flounder thrived in the higher energy level areas, soft shell clams and blue crabs did not. Clinton Harbor scallops were gone by 1915 replaced with increasing oyster recruitment higher heat also brought more blue crabs, and “steamer” clams.

The Great Heat brought diseases to the cities, diseases to shellfish, killed most of the Southern New England lobster fishery and then decimated the bay scallop fishery. The Great Heat also brought us sanitary sewers, the first cooling centers, thanks to Theodore Roosevelt. And, a northern duck hunter who grew tired of the marshes being unfrozen and muddy during this period developed a special hunting shoe and we know that someone as today as Lionel L. Bean™.

The Great Heat would define environmental policy for over a century and in fact, those policies continue today, food and water sanitation, the need of ice and then refrigeration, the construction of sanitary sewers and the most noticeable, those Victorian porches. High heat in the summer would bring the construction of those open air porches that wrapped around two sides of a house to catch any available breeze into a popular necessity. On the farms, barns were no longer connected to houses, a feature of the 1870s when extremely bitter winters made that a popular fixture. They were now separate and barnyard smells from the high heat was more of a concern than digging 6 foot slit trenches in deep snow drifts to feed farm animals as needed decades before. It was now hot, not cold. We adapted to these new “habitat” conditions and The Great Heat would soon forever alter shoreline demographics.

The Rise of Summer Communities -

The land of the shore long relegated just merchant sailors, and gangs of fishermen became campsites for the rich and famous. According to a retired shell fisherman in Groton, Connecticut, summer cottages sprang up during this period “faster than spring corn”. The shorefront now had company as thousands sought the relief of cooler winds and a cool swim in the 1880s. Lake communities also grew quickly under the great summer heat waves which seemed to increase in intensity and duration each year until 1896. At that time, coastal tourism turned from a steady flow into a river of people arriving on steamships and trains. When malaria hit the Connecticut Valley in 1901 (many feel compliments of the Spanish American War) shoreline residents were poorly prepared for what soon faced them. Up until the early 1800s Hammonasset Point was known as Mosquito Point for good reason. In response to the Greenwich Connecticut Malaria outbreak, and in desperation Connecticut and local health authorities ordered marshes and salt ponds within one mile of the coast to be filled. In the central and eastern coastal sections, salt marshes long sought for valuable salt hay products were not filled were instead local farmers urged them to be grid ditched, lowering the water table draining off mosquito breeding stagnant pools but saving the valuable salt hay crop. Extensive grid ditching spread from east to west and reached the Clinton area in 1933. Malaria left Connecticut in 1938 as winters became colder and marsh draining programs were completed. You can still see those ditches in the salt marshes surrounding the Hammonasset River today. Mosquito disease would return again in the 2nd Great Heat, the period of today. West Nile virus has replaced malaria as the mosquito disease of modern times. When it got colder, and coastal energy increased, malaria left Connecticut, the last recorded case was 1945. The first case of West Nile was in 1991 when it got hot – again.

We were not alone in noticing The Great Heat that occurred first in Europe. In Great Britain, it was known as The Great Stink (1858); the Thames River, full of organic debris from growing metropolitan centers, became eutrophic, sending a nauseating “stink” (fumes) and the infamous “bad airs” into the streets of London at night. The Heat also impacted the Baltic’s and even reached Moscow itself. The late 1880s saw record-breaking temperatures in eastern Russia. The record-breaking summer temperatures even spread into the northern Maritimes, setting eastern Canadian records in the late teens. Barracudas were caught off Wickford, Rhode Island; tarpons were landed in Dutch Harbor (1905). Warming periods and sea level rise is not new, though and those who lived near the shore were well acquainted with the eroding shoreline that had occurred for hundreds of years. In the town of Madison, the town where I spent my childhood, there is Tuxis Island, a small rock island that once was connected to the shore by a salt marsh; that marsh is gone. At Hammonasset Beach, after a severe storm low tide relic marsh banks lie exposed revealing long quiet bays in which long ago salt marshes developed. A beach restoration dredging project 1,800 feet off shore Hammonasset Beach in the 1960s pumped up thousands of Native American artifacts, detailing a shore line from 900 to 1,500 years ago. That previous shoreline is still reflected on navigational charts as depth contours. The shoreline has retreated since the end of the ice age and Clinton has experienced this retreat and sits next to a terminal glacial morraine – we know that as Meigs Point.

During The Great Heat in eastern Connecticut, the Wilcox family in the Groton/Stonington area would wake to see people (strangers) gathered at their property even near the family-owned menhaden fish works to seek salt air rumored to have healing powers. At the end of The Great Heat, huge chunks of the polar ice sheets broke away and icebergs drifted south into northern shipping lanes. Probably the most famous victim of The Great Heat navigational hazards was the ship The Titanic. As a result of these hazards, our international ice patrol was formed a century ago and still exists, located at the Avery Point Campus of the University of Connecticut, Groton once the most southerly extent of icebergs.

Because we have forgotten our fisheries history and also our environmental history, and in many cases thrown it away in this digital age, we in fact blinded ourselves to past climate periods and environmental history included in today’s much discussed global warming.

Do I feel continued consumption of fossil fuels has the ability to alter climate patterns? I most certainly do. But do I feel we are in new climate habitat territory? No, I do not. Not from the fisheries history materials I have seen. Instead, I think we sell our planet’s capacity short to recover from changed atmosphere conditions; it cannot just be about us. We may contribute but what we are seeing today we have seen before, and in North America seen multiple times.

One of the things we can do is examine the shell heaps called middens left by the first fishers the Native Americans that lived and fished Clinton Harbor. Reviewing the remains of previous seafood use many tell us what was abundant from good sustaining habitat conditions. They may have left an environmental fisheries record of past warm and cold periods.

For our New England fisheries: Cod, Haddock and even Halibut, by 1910 changes were happening. Halibut above all has seen wide swings in relative abundance driven by climate changes. The introduction of trawl nets occurred during the same time as the habitat failure of Atlantic Halibut, a cold water species. Trawls quickly were blamed for overfishing Halibut but their days were already numbered; it was getting too warm, and Halibut were in full retreat to the north by 1910.

Public perceptions that links anticipated outcomes to observable conditions like the Halibut, example above limits other possibilities. The truth of the matter is we often lack a baseline ruler to measure these long term changes. In a small way barrier beach systems such as Clinton Harbor and its Dardanelles and Niantic Bay with its famous “Bar” offer study sites. Here we can in a small way see the impacts of energy and temperature and nitrogen inputs into marine shellfish and finfish habitats. Although largely dismissed or ignored until now, temperature and energy determines habitat quality. Habitat quality determines recruitment capacity – there can be great reproductive capacity, sufficient spawn, fry or water-carried eggs (larvae) but without the necessary habitat, it is all lost, useless. Fishery failures often follow habitat failures; when it got hot in Connecticut, the kelp/cobble stone habitat so important to our lobster fishery died, and soon after, lobster recruitment failed and the lobster fishery then collapsed.

We have seen habitat failures before many of us in Connecticut saw it years ago but perhaps did not notice the Baltimore Orioles. This colorful, orange bird was a frequent and popular summer bird. It produced a special paper mache-like sock nest hung from the high branched and drooped branches of the elm tree building its nest almost exclusively in elms. Then the Dutch elm disease came and the elms died by the thousands. And so did the Orioles – there was no over hunting nor was it the subject of award-winning recipes or plumage sought for bedding or hats. The Oriole suffered a habitat failure and was gone. Many of us also remember catching kingfish, a warm water species (Drum family) looks like a cross between a catfish and black sea bass. It did not get that big – 12-14 inches. Its soft body spoiled quickly and it has a mild taste, but later often a muddy flavor, so a commercial fishery never really developed. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was a popular summer recreational creel fresh fish catch – here in Clinton Harbor and often 30 to 40 percent of the 1960 to 1975 catches (recreationally) could be attributed to kingfish. By 1990 kingfish was largely gone, as it got warmer here and its habitat failed. It was not overfished. It just got too hot and avoided Long Island Sound waters.

What about the Dardanelles – What makes it important?

Nitrogen enters water bodies in three ways – atmosphere and water and by organic (terrestrial) matter such as leaves, dead grasses and wood debris.

The impact of organic nitrogen would be harder to see, although nutrient pollution of coastal waters is a large concern to put the entire blame on coastal residents is short-sighted and in some cases misleading. To properly evaluate the impacts of nitrogen, you also need to look at temperature and energy. In cold periods, nitrogen is not available to certain plant and algal species – the browns, but the greens and reds do fine. In stormy periods (or when the Dardanelles was open) the residence time – how long a substance hangs around - was short; it was quickly flushed from tidal harbors and coves, with the numerous storms. In the early 1950s, during a cooler period scientists frequently labeled Long Island Sound as nitrogen poor or limiting. Some even ran experiments that explored putting nitrogen into the water to stimulate algal growth. In the 1960s, sewer treatment plants often were praised for replacing nitrogen lost from long-ago filled in salt marshes. Then it got hot and Clinton Harbor went from nitrogen limiting to nitrogen toxicity – eutrophication. Long Island Sound also turned brown; lobsters died and fish kills occurred but this is not new to New England or Clinton Harbor for that matter. In Clinton Harbor, all of those conditions occurred during The Great Heat – resulting in a 1919 special Clinton town meeting about the Dardanelles. That meeting was called to reopen the Dardanelles “to let all the mud out”. Clinton Harbor was stagnating under intense summer heat and poor flushing. Clinton Harbor is an excellent model of a semi enclosed water basin subject to energy and temperature changes from the Dardanelles. We have excellent records of its opening and closures for two centuries.

During heat inlets and barrier breaks tend to heal, close and in doing so, reduce tidal flushing. What could be limiting in cold and energy would quickly become excessive in heat and stagnation. That is natural. Nitrogen enhancement during heat has happened here before – shortly after the Civil War when refrigerated milk cars allowed Connecticut milk to be shipped south and west. Dairy farming surged in Connecticut. Connecticut farmers became wealthy and dairy expansion was a constant goal. One of the industrial practices would upset a group of shell fishermen in Groton as it was a common practice to “drink” cattle at night in brooks to increase milk productivity. Those pasture brooks became loaded with manure and the Poquonnock River (Groton) became entropic in the early 1880s. Excessive plants, mostly eelgrass caught by the oyster industry, fouled the air so badly that oystermen were ordered to destroy their crop. This excess plant growth was soon linked to manure filled brooks in the Groton area, and farmers were threatened with barn burnings if it did not stop. (Elmer Edwards personal communication, Tim Visel, 1983). In the time of The Great Heat, the Poquonnock had no scallops and none were caught until habitat had improved, when it turned sharply colder in the 1940s. After 1935, bay scallops were found in the Poquonnock River. By the 1950s fishermen were harvesting thousands of bushels of bay scallops that had suddenly “reappeared. ”The Poquonnock River has a barrier beach inlet that over time has a record of opening and closing very similar to the Dardanelles. In 1987 Clinton Harbor became entropic and then the anoxic – severely depleted oxygen. Fish and oysters died in high heat and poorly flushed lower basin and the growth of gracilaria here made national news reports. Soundings Magazine Connecticut Harbor plagued by pollution towns considers unblocking old river channel February 1988. Clinton Harbor residents wakened mornings to find a thick blanket of green spaghetti like seaweed (enteromorpha) fouling beaches – clogging water pumps and wrapping propellers. But that is natural during periods of high heat and low energy and retired fishermen in town announced in local newspapers – “time to reopen the Dardanelles.”

Today, conversations that portray nitrogen (or even us) as the chief culprit in Long Island Sound fisheries declines fails to take a long term environmental history viewpoint and often can be misleading. While nitrogen is a concern, a greater organic nitrogen impact is the return of Connecticut’s forest canopy – 75% is today restored. Many of our coves are filled today with deep accumulations of oak leaves which are acidic and the hard bottoms are long since gone (buried). When the rot they release plant nutrients than sustain the brown algal species. Nitrogen from people alone did not do this. In fact, in a short while, the extent about terrestrial source nitrogen (USGS stream flow models) will be released and explanations needed to satisfy global warming and climate questions for Long Island Sound Fisheries will be asked. Storm water street runoff is much more of an environmental foe than the coastal landowner. It is just not about us; we must examine our fisheries history and we need to do that now—my opinion.

Clinton Harbor and Niantic Bay may provide us important answers to some very important questions. They give us a look at habitat conditions in smaller estuaries over time. They can give us a habitat history.

Thank you for your attention and I would be pleased to respond to any questions after the slide presentation.

Tim Visel











Appendix I
An Act of the Connecticut General Assembly, December 1790

A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE LINE BETWEEN THE TOWNS
OF GUILFORD AND KILLINGWORTH
PASSED, DECEMBER 1790.

Resolved by this Assembly, That a straight line from the mouth of Dudley’s Creek in said Hammonasset river, running south 50 deg. 10 min. east to West Rock so called, upon the sound, being 216 rods, be, and the same is hereby established to be the dividing line between the said towns of “Guilford and Killingworth.” And that the lands lying east of said line, be and the same are hereby annexed to the said town of Killingworth, exclusive of the power and authority in town meetings to make rules and ordinances for regulating the fisheries of clams and oysters, which power and authority is hereby reserved to the town of Guilford in the same manner as though this alteration in the line between said towns had not been made.








(rekeyed by Susan Weber, Sound School, 2012)










Appendix II
C O P Y

January 27, 1950
Board of Selectmen of Madison
Madison, Connecticut

Gentlemen:
In the year 1790 when the boundary between Guilford and Killingworth was the Hammonasset River “records of the State of Connecticut” year 1790, volume 7, pages 244-5, show that the dividing line was changed by a line from the center of the Hammonasset River north of Dudley’s Creek to West Rock. The resolution of this General Law also reserved the right to Guilford to make rules and ordinances for regulating fisheries of clams and oysters.
This change boundary is the present boundary between Madison and Clinton and the same reservation allowing Madison to regulate shell fisheries exists.
The Oyster Committee of Clinton has been requested to grant sizeable oyster bed grounds in Clinton Harbor between West Rock and the Dardanelles and also on the South side of Cedar Island, which granting, if any, comes under the authority of Madison.
We are of the opinion that the areas in the Hammonasset River and Clinton Harbor are natural oyster and clam beds and should be reserved for the people of Madison and Clinton, but we are faced with the problem that you might consider issuing grants for oyster beds if applications were made to you.
The object of this letter is to ask you to declare the territory over which you have control by virtue of the law of 1790, insofar as shell fishing is concerned, as natural clam and oyster grounds so that for all time the citizens of Madison and Clinton may not be deprived of the privilege they have enjoyed for so long a time.
We shall greatly appreciate your thoughts in the matter and your advice as to what action you may take so that we can make same a part of our Committee Report and as a guide for future Oyster Committees.
Very truly yours,
CLINTON TOWN OYSTER COMMITTEE

(rekeyed by Susan Weber, Sound School, 2012)







TOWN OF CLINTON, CONNECTICUT 06413
PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION

August 11, 1987

To: PZC Members
From: Barbara Swan, ZEO Barbara
Subject: Opening “Straits of Dardenelles,” Cedar Island

I am circulating copies of correspondence I obtained from the Selectmen’s files regarding the idea of opening, or I should say reopening of the Straits of Dardenelles.

I would suggest that members carefully read Arthur Rocques letter of response to the Nature Conservancy. I guess residents of the Town of Clinton won’t have an opportunity to even consider whether this is or is not a good idea.

Some of you may have read recent newspaper articles in which the idea was proposed to reopen to allow the harbor to flush and hopefully to dilute the concentration of pollutants and improve the water quality. Funny, I thought that water quality was addressed in our CAM regs as a goal of the Coastal Area Management Program.

I have learned that during the 1938 hurricane the naturally occurring opening across Cedar island, known as the Dardenelles, eroded due to the velocity and amount of water resulting from the hurricane and that out of concern for future erosion to the island, a decision was made by “those in authority” to close this natural opening. I understand that junk automobiles were obtained from the local junkyard and used to block the opening as the natural current made it difficult to close it with earth materials. Once stabilized with junk cars, the boulders and earthen materials were put into place. There are local residents who were involved with this project who can testify to this.

I hope that the Commission and our Town Planner are not excluded from any further consideration of this proposal and would suggest that members ask for copies of any correspondence, agendas, or minutes so that we might be better informed regarding this idea and the proposal to give Town land on Cedar Island to the Conservancy saving the State money they would otherwise have to pay the developer to resolve the law suit on our approval of the Dicambio CAM application.

(rekeyed by Susan Weber, Sound School, 2012)
Clinton Recorder
CLINTON, CONN., FIRDAY, JANUARY 23, 1903.
CLINTON, CONN., FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1903 PRICE 3 CENTS
TO PROPOGATE SHELL FISH

Charter Reserving Tract of Harbor Desired
A special town meeting was held Wednesday evening pursuant to a call which read as follows: -
Upon the petition of Lucius J. Stevens and twenty-four other legal voters and taxpayers of the town of Clinton requesting the selectmen to call a special town meeting for the purpose of taking action to petition to the Legislature of Connecticut to grant to the town of Clinton the right to lease all or part of the harbor for the purpose of the growth and culture of oysters and clams. In accordance with the above petition the legal voters are hereby notified and warned that a special meeting will be held on Wednesday evening, Jan. 21 at 7:30 p.m.

John A. Stanton was appointed moderator and Mark Smith clerk.

Sturges G. Redfield offered a resolution which as finally amended reads as follows: - That our present representative at the Legislature be, and he is hereby instructed to present a bill before said Legislature authorizing the selectmen of the town of Clinton to lease to the citizens of said town the following section of Clinton harbor for this cultivation of long clams, said section to be the mud flats lying south of the main channel, bounded as follows: -

Northly by the south bank of the main channel. Easterly by a stone bound on the north and east end of Sandy Island, thence in a northerly direction by a straight line to south bank of channel. Southerly by Sandy Island. Westerly by a straight line drawn from the east end of the Dardinelles breakwater, in a northerly direction to the before mentioned channel bank.

Provided that all lessees shall be male electors of the town of Clinton and shall pay to the town treasurer a sum not exceeding ten dollars per acre, with the privilege of renewal at the end of each year.

Also provided that no individual shall hold more than one acre of said mud flats and such individual shall not sub-lease any part of his plot to any other person or corporation.

W.H. Stafford said he would suggest an amendment that no one be allowed to become a lessee unless a resident of the town.
Mr. Redfield said he would accept such amendment.

Joseph H. Sperry asked if it was obligatory to make improvements or merely hold it after leasing an acre of this mud flat.

Arthur M. Buell, who follows oystering and clamming a portion of the time for a livelihood, said he got his bread by the sweat of his brow and he wanted the privilege to continue to do so. He moved an adjournment. Not carried.

S. G. Redfield said that by sprinkling a layer of sand over these mud flats clams would grow. He had written Congressman N. D. Sperry relative to the matter and had received from prominent shell fish expert report of clam culture in the vicinity of Essex, Mass., in which twenty-five acres of mud flat in two years time had been made to yield 2,500 bushels of clams where before there were next to none. The speaker said but little was being done toward the culture of clams. Professor Mead of Brown University had said that by strewing these mud flats with sand and small clams in a short time they could be made exceedingly profitable. Mr. Redfield said according to the U.S. coast survey the proposed tract contained about 75 acres, or only about one-eighth of the harbor. The speaker closed with an earnest plea for the adoption of the resolution.

William H. Kelsey suggested amending the resolution so as to limit lessees to legal voters of the town.
Captain L. J. Stevens said he had thought of this subject for quite a while. He found a change in the minds of many regarding the protection and propagation of shell fish. At the last session of the Legislature, a bill had been introduced putting the control of harbors along the state Sound coast line into the hands of the U.S. Fish Commission. Such a bill was coming up again, he understood on the best of authority and he thought even now it might be too late to get the proposed resolution recognized by the Legislature. If the town did not vote to lease he should favor the state taking control of the harbor.

Z. Silas Wellman said he was opposed to the resolution and thought it ought to be defeated. The oysters and clams were a God given heritage enjoyed by their forefathers and he believed it was best to so continue them. He called attention to the decision of the superior court in the Clinton oyster cases some years ago and said he did not believe the Legislature would grant the proposed charter.

Arthur Buell said he would like to ask Mr. Redfield if he had ever been across the harbor at the point in question?
The latter replied that he had not for some years.

Captain G. Ransom Buell said certain persons were working to steal what our forefathers gave u. “You can’t find a poor man that owns an acre of oyster ground. Go as far as Stony Creek or Branford and you will “find this is so.” The syndicates are buying up this ground and it won’t be three years before they will own this harbor.”

S. Leander Stevens said he believed the resolution was opposed to the laws of the state. He was in favor of it, but if he understood it aright it gave the selectmen the control of the entire harbor. He believed first in finding out what the town could legally do, in other words –“where they were at.”
Arthur Buell thought his grandchildren would not live long enough to sand over an acres of this flat.

M.L. Blaisdell said he had experimented with a spot of mud flat about 30 feet square. He had sprinkled such a spot with sand to the depth of about two and one-half inches and in a short time clam holes were found so numerous that he could hardly put his fingers between the. One man he knew of had dug twenty bushes from this tract and another as many more.

S. Leander Stevens said no doubt Mr. Blaisdell was honest but he had not lived here as long as some of them. He had seen the day in 1879 when he could jump off the bank where Mr. Blaisdell had experimented and catch two and one-half bushels of clams in an hour and a half.

Captain L. J. Stevens said if there were thirty applicants for ground the selectmen were obliged to have plans of the section drawn.

William H. Kelsey said the meeting was called in the interest of the poor of this town that the poor man who went to the sea might have ten cents to buy a loaf of bread to feed his children before going to school. At present such a man barely managed to exist. He might get a peck of oysters one day or a bushel another. He was decidedly in favor of the bill. He expected opposition from these same men whom the bill was framed to benefit. Later Mr. Kelsey moved to amend the clause limiting lessees to legal voters to “legal male voters of the town,” etc.

Captain Stevens thought a committee should be appointed to go to Hartford and oppose the acquiring of harbor control by the Fish Commission.

John H. Miller moved the appointing of such a committee.
A.A. Snow thought that such action was illegal, not being in the call.

A committee was appointed consisting of the selectmen together with S. G. Redfield, L. J. Stevens, William H. Kelsey and Attorney Charles A. Pelton.

A vote was then taken on the resolution resulting in 113 votes being cast; yeas 84; nays 29. The resolution was accordingly adopted and the meeting adjourned.



Appendix VI

Clinton Harbor, CT
George McNeil, Oystermen, Jack Andrews, Fishermen

Clinton Harbor Case History for an Energy Driven Habitat Response

According to Gary Wikfors of the NOAA (National Marine Fisheries Service (1987) an outbreak of bloom of green seaweed in Clinton Harbor was linked to temperature he describes the impact of thick growth of enteromorpha, a filamentous green algae, when an unknown combination of water temperature and light produces a thick spawning and growth. But, area fishermen offered a different explanation, one that has been part of the Clinton Harbor Habitat history for centuries that may have enhanced the event. In a July 30 1987 Hartford Courant article, titled, “Thick Green Seaweed has Clinton Harbor in its Grip,” George McNeil, formerly of New Haven and a retired oysterman, and Jack Andrews, a local lobsterman and member of a long time Clinton fishing family, mentions habitat changes after a barrier spit inlet was closed in the Cedar Island area:

George T. McNeil, an oysterman in Connecticut for more than 61 years, said he has seen nothing like it before.
“I started to notice it a couple of weeks ago,” McNeil said, “and now it’s all over the place.”
McNeil, who cultivates the last oyster bed in the inner harbor, said he was afraid the growth could hurt the bed.
He explained that when oysters spawn, the spat or juvenile oysters must settle on clean shell to survive.
McNeil said he has noticed the growth covering the oyster shells in the bed and could think of no way to remove the growth without disrupting the oyster bed.
Jack P. Andrews, owner of J&J Lobster on Commerce Street, said lobstermen and recreational boaters have had boat motors clogged by the slimy green growth.
Andrews said he grew up by Clinton Harbor and had never seen or heard of anything like this.
He said a possible reason for these types of abnormal plant blooms in the harbor could be the closing in the 1930s of a harbor inlet called the Straits of Dardanelle.
Fishermen and residents say that when the inlet was closed, the flushing action of the tides was disrupted between the harbor and Long Island Sound, allowing decaying organic materials to build up in the harbor.






Sources – Printed References

The Clinton Recorder – Oystermen fights for Clinton “Crop” April 23, 1953
Oyster Farming – Connecticut style – Bertram Smith, Clinton, CT – 47 pages

Shellfish Management Procedures for Connecticut Coastal Towns – Timothy C. Visel, Sea Grant Cooperative Extension Service, The University of Connecticut, Avery Point, Groton, CT 06340 – Proceedings of the 1985 Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference, 41st Annual Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference, May 5th – 8th, 1985 – Hartford, CT – pages 291-294

A Mass Mortality of Northern Bay Scallops, Argopecten irradians irradians, Following a Severe Spring Rainstorm by Stephen T. Tettelbach, Peter J. Auster, The University of Connecticut, Marine Sciences Institute, Marine Research Laboratory, Noank, CT 06340, Edwin W. Rhodes, and James C. Widman, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Center, NOAA, Milford, CT 06460
The Veliger 27 (4): 381-3385 (April 1, 1985)

Removal of Sea Lettuce, Ulva ssp., in Estuaries to Improve the Environments for Invertebrates, Fish, Wading Birds, and Eelgrass, Zostera marina by Clyde L. Mackenzie, Jr.

Sedimentary Processes Affecting Cedar Island: Study of a Breached Barrier Spit by Raymond Visel, University of Rhode Island, The Graduate School – Department of Geology, College of Arts and Science – May 1995

Direct Underwater Observations of Oyster Beds in the Upper Neck River, Madison, CT – 14 April 1984 from Peter Auster, Fisheries Consultant, 12 Denison Avenue, Mystic, CT 06355.

A Shellfish Survey of the Hammonasset River, Madison, CT – Final Report on the Management of Natural Oyster Beds, Prepared for The Madison Shellfish Commission, Prepared by Timothy C. Visel, University of Rhode Island Department of Aquaculture Science and Pathology – December 30, 1982

Environmental Assessment of the Use of Explosives for Selective Removal of Eelgrass (Zostera Marina) – Michael Ludwig, Environmental Assessment Division, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Milford, CT 06460

The Oysterman and Fisherman, Devoted to Seafood and Allied Industries , Vol. XII, Friday Morning, March 11, 1915



Resources – Newspaper Articles

• Clinton Recorder, February 21, 1989 – “A bit of Clinton history: what are the Dardinelles?” by Margaret Bushy, Staff Columnist.

• The Hartford Courant, Inside Connecticut, July 30, 1967, “Thick green seaweed has Clinton harbor in its grip,” page C3, by Sam Libby, Courant Correspondent.

• Soundings, February 1988, “Connecticut harbor plagued by pollution” [Town considers unblocking old river channel] by Patrick O’Grady, page B2.

• The Hartford Courant, Saturday, November 14, 1987 – “Officials say opening 2nd harbor channel unlikely in Clinton” by Sam Libby, Courant Correspondent.

• Shore Line Times, November 26, 1987 – “Doubts expressed about reopening of Dardanelles” by Tod Riggio, Special to the Times.

• Clinton Recorder, May 17, 1988, “Hopes of reopening shellfish beds are dimmed by ‘black mayonnaise’” by Kirk Laughlin, Staff Writer.

• The Hartford Courant, October 19, 1992, “Residents move to restore oyster bed in rivers.” By Gary Libow, Courant Staff Writer.

• The Hartford Courant, Monday, October 19, 1993 – Clinton “Official opposes shellfish plan” [Restoration move called too limited] – by Sam Libby, Courant Correspondent.

• New Haven Register, Sunday, August 9, 1987 – “Clinton Harbor plagued with slimy, green algae [Lack of oxygen, restricted flushing causes problem] by Paula Tancrell, Register Staff.

• The Hartford Courant, Friday, June 26, 1987- “Channel may turn the tide for shellfish beds” by Sam Libby, Courant Correspondent.

• The Clinton Recorder, May 26, 1949 – “Senate Approves State Park Bill [Depositing of Silt from Clinton Harbor Seems to be Uncertain.”

• The Clinton Recorder, July 6, 1950 –“Harbor Dredging Making Progress” [Now Pumping in Vicinity of the Dardinells, Now Filled With Rocks.”