York Corner
We went looking for clammers down by the Wiggley Bridge shortly after noon on one sunny Sunday about two weeks ago, and, while we thought we'd timed the tides right, and while the flats were, indeed, free of water, there wasn't a clammer in sight.
So we caught up with Shellfish Warden David Webber somewhat later to see if anything was amiss, and he assured us that all was well and that the flats had been drawing, as in previous years, a normal contingent of between six and 12 clammers every Sunday.
Clamming in York, for those not in the shellfish swim of things, is permitted by paid license on Sundays only, and in winter only, from the third Sunday in November through the last Sunday in April, and each clammer is permitted to harvest one peck per week. Most clammers reach that limit, these days, David said, in a couple of hours of clamming.
David said that he didn't have the precise figures in his head, but he thought that the number of clam licenses sold this year had run about average, with those allotted to non-residents sold out; he pegged the number sold to residents, when he last checked, as in the mid-60s, with the average running between 70 and 90.
Authorities, he said, are also continuing to grant free "junior" licenses to youngsters age 14 and under, to generate an interest in clamming among young people.
The flats that are now open, David reported, are those by the Wiggley Bridge, those upriver just west of the Elizabeth Perkins House, those around Harris Island in the harbor, and those along Western Point Road, leading out of the harbor.
The Seabury flats, by Route 109 at its junction with Brave Boat Harbor Road and Western Point Road, remain closed, but David said that the clam population there is now "looking good." Those flats were closed in 2004 to allow reseeding, he explained, and it's hoped that they'll be ready to be reopened next year.
"There are," he said appreciatively, "a lot of clams in there."
A successful Clam-flat Cleanup Day, held this year on opening day, Nov. 19, David reported, drew 20 participants and filled a 10-yard dumpster. Those who filled the trash-bags they were issued were rewarded with a stainless-steel clam measuring ring, valued, David said, at $8 or $9.
The measuring rings are used to assure that only mature clams are harvested, and that young clams are left on the flats to assure future harvests.
We must have just missed the clammers on the day we were at the Wiggley Bridge, David thought, because there have been almost no Sundays when nobody clammed - though sometimes, he added, bad weather is a deterrent, and there can be times, if the air temperature is cold enough when the flats are not covered by water, when the flats freeze and digging becomes as impossible as clawing in cement.
Among the faithful long-term clammers this year, David reported, has been Charlie Balentine, father of York Village Fire Chief Chris Balentine. Charlie still comes weekly, David said, and when we inquired after Charlie's clamming buddy Martin Losier, whom we'd met on the flats in previous years, David reported that Marty is now recuperating from surgery, and that Charlie is sharing some of his clam take with him each week.
On that day when we were at the Wiggley Bridge, we did meet a person of interest, Steve Del Deo, of Loudon, N.H.
Steve was walking a dog on the causeway when we met up, and he told us that the dog belonged to his son and daughter-in-law, Ross and Jen Del Deo, of York, and that he was house and dog-sitting for them while they experienced a get-away weekend in Camden with their not-quite-one-year-old daughter, Maisy.
Ross and Jen run Blueberry Coast Landscaping on Route 1, Steve added, from which they provide landscape maintenance, design work and gardening services, all in summer, along with snowplowing in winter - all of which leaves them scant time to get away for a rest, making that weekend a special one.
And that issue became relevant, Steve explained, as he reported that his wife, Joanne, hadn't been able to join him for the weekend in York because she'd just had knee surgery following a freak twist in her office. Steve was thus honoring, alone, an important and long-standing commitment.
And as we were collecting names to report this, we shared some chuckles as Steve told us that Maisy's real middle name is Buttercup (appropriate for the daughter of landscapers) that the dog's name, Natale, means "Christmas" in Italian, and that Steve's and Joanne's other son, a musician in Seattle, heads a group called the Unbunny Band.
Steve himself, we discovered, contracts to serve as executive director of the New Hampshire Water Works Association, a nonprofit organization whose members are suppliers of public (municipal) water.
Such organizations exist, probably, he said, in every state, and serve to provide a networking framework.
His own, he said, produces a journal; stages meetings to discuss technical matters relative to drinking-water issues; sponsors a trade fair and a "Drinking-Water Week;" provides training programs, seminars and workshops for plant operators and others in the system who must be licensed; and keeps abreast of, and active in, relevant legislative matters. The job has changed as the society and the technology involved have changed, Steve said, and he reported that he himself, who's now 55 and began with a degree in geography from the University of Rhode Island, "kind of just grew with it." Over the course of 28 years, he said, he's managed a public water system, then designed them and consulted on such systems on his own. His current position was a part-time one until the organization's directors decided to expand; he remains its only full-timer, with other positions being contracted out.
"Most of my work," he said, "is management, bringing in funds, and designing programs."
Included in that work is contact with his counterpart in Maine, Jeff McNelly, of the Maine Water Utilities Association, in Waldoboro, and mention of that led us to an important and timely issue: the fact that natural resources, like water, are no respecters of political boundaries, and that, to deal with that reality, authorities need to network in different circles, and to consider circles that are ever widening.
On that topic, Steve reported that he is often called upon, these days, to testify in conflicts in which private or other rights to what is called "reasonable use" clash with rights established to protect resources held in trust for all citizens.
We came up with no easy answers that day but left with a new appreciation for those common resources that are our clam flats - and we promised ourselves that we'd return, once again, before the clamming season ends.
