A significant goal of shellfish regulation at the state and federal level is to protect the public health of consumers while supporting a culturally and economically significant industry. One way this is done is through closures of growing areas that may present a human health risk. In New England, combined sewer overflows (CSOs) remain a particularly concerning source of risk, associated with periods of heavy rainfall. Whether pollution from CSOs impacts human health through consumption of exposed shellfish is dependent on a variety of considerations, such as the growing area’s proximity to the CSO source, water temperature, species of shellfish, and volume of CSO discharge, to name a few. Ultimately, CSO induced closures have directly affected harvester’s livelihoods, sparking interest in examining regulations and proposing alterations and alternatives.
In the case of CSOs, state authorities, following the requirements of the National Shellfish Sanitation Program’s Model Ordinance (MO), institute emergency shellfish harvest closures of the impacted growing areas. Based on established Food and Drug Administration practice, an emergency closure is required to last 21 days for a single CSO event with the option to test for reopening after 7 days using an alternative indicator. However, a plain reading of the MO, implies that a growing area may be reopened sooner than seven days, so long as sample results do not exceed an established standard. Therefore, because of the MO language, which does not take into account relevant considerations, the emergency closure practice is negatively impacting growers.
There remain opportunities both at the federal and state level for revision of the MO provisions. At the federal level, impacted growers can submit proposals to the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference for revision of the MO recommendations. At the state level, growers can engage their state’s shellfish management authority, providing historical data and requesting further study of the issue. Regardless of the avenue taken, growers have the ability to directly impact regulations regarding emergency harvest closures in their areas using localized data.
Beyond emergency harvest closures, state regulators can create conditional area management plans (CAMPs) for growing areas that incorporate CSOs and rainfall as closure conditions. CAMPs, take into account localized and historic data and determine the appropriate closure criteria accordingly. If a CAMP sets out the closure and reopening criteria for a growing area, an emergency closure, and the burdensome closure times associated with it, are no longer necessary. For example, Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management created a CAMP for the Providence River that details CSO specific closure criteria. Many other states, including New Hampshire and Maine also incorporate CSOs into their CAMPs. Therefore, as is the broader goal of the MO and shellfish regulation around the country, CAMPs provide an alternative that allows authorities to balance protecting public health while supporting shellfish growers.