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The Sound School Inter-District Marine Education Program Newsletter
Habitat Information for Fishers and Fishery Area Managers
Understanding Science through History
Winter Flounder Habitats After Storms

Brief Habitat Histories for Niantic River – North of Causeway and Clinton Harbor
Dynamic Barrier Spit Openings
Habitat Energy Modifies Habitat Quantity and Quality

Timothy Visel
The Sound School
December 2014
IMEP #12
In a manuscript titled, “The Nehantic Way” by Herb and Marilyn Davis, 2001, for the Waterford Historical Society it mentions the energy dynamics of periodic barrier beach breaks highlighting the Niantic River “bar.”
One of the few records of the Niantic Bay mentions a passable breach in 1815, a western lobe cut so frequent and the tendency for a short cut to the sea, on these types of barrier spits, it is called the “bar” in this coastal community. On page 52 of “The Nehantic Way” is found this passage:
“R.B. Wall writes in 1910 that the oldest residents of the region state that the bar appeared to be diminishing previous to the railroad being built upon it in 1852. In the time of the early settlers, the west end of the bar was much wider with many large trees and vegetation covering almost its entire surface. On the 22nd of September, 1815, a great gale occurred in the area with waves 10 to 12 feet over the bar, which resulted in reducing the bar and erecting the channel, north of the bar, previous to the storm, the channel flowed almost north south on the north side of the bar, but following that storm, it assumed the present zigzag flow.”

The Bar from early drawings indicates lobes, evidence of “breaks” but the railroad in 1852 built a trestle, about a half mile in length, at first a single track but in 1891 the trestle was replaced with a hardened bed of stone with an iron bridge at the easterly tip of the bar. (Page 28: the Nehantic Way, Davis and Davis, 2001) Jordan Cove and the Pattagansett River in East Lyme had similar trestles that were later replaced with earthen or stone causeways as these creosote and tar covered trestles frequently needed repairs or caught on fire. When that occurred, periodic energy pathways were permanently altered and habitats succeeded to more of these associated with lakes or ponds, slowly filling with organic matter that in high heat turned black and became sulfur rich. Storms and barrier spit breaks allowed periodic “energy events” namely waves and storm surges to mechanically remove these deep soft Sapropel deposits.

It’s difficult to predict if the storm filled 1870s would have breached the west end of the Niantic bar, now reinforced as a road and railroad rail bed, but “west end thinning” is classic for several such barrier spits in New Haven, Sandy Point, Clinton Dardanelles and of course, Niantic’s “Bar.” In times of breaches, colder water containing more oxygen would be allowed to enter. The breach itself would allow a restored energy pathway, surges flow currents and waves to re-suspend and carry away organic accumulations into more active and rich oxygen environments. The increase of oxygen would have enhanced oxygen dependent reduction of organic matter follow such breaks as those typified by the Cape Cod, Monomoy System. In times of warmth both and less energy the eastern trips tend to grow larger and western areas, “thin.” Changes in water temperature – cold water is denser and tends to remove larger sands and storms and storm intensity, as measured by interactions of the sub polar and middle latitude jet streams (NAO).
As far as the bar in Niantic Bay, the breach or secondary inlet has not been active for nearly 200 years although periodic storms can cause west end thinning which continues over time to be a problem to both the railroad and towns. The bar is currently undergoing additional reinforcement (2011) after northeasters washed away huge amounts of fill at the west end the past two decades. Because of an easterly route organic deposition continues on the “long way out” and the bar acts as both a breakwater and dam to Niantic River habitats above. The clearing and cleaning action of periodic breaches of Niantic Bar now appear to be over. Maintenance dredging has largely picked up the chore of dredging up excess organic accumulations such as fallen leaves. Similar Southern New England dredging projects report increases in winter flounder populations soon after cleared channels have stabilized. Those observations are now linked to the sulfur cycle.

This observation is similar to lakes and ponds at the end of long periods of habitat succession. They tend to fill in with organic matter from the watershed, organic matter often consists of bark/limbs, dead grasses and leaves. Deep soft layers compost releasing additional plant nutrients in warm water which fuel algal blooms and increased shallow water aquatic vegetation. Deep organic layers became sulfide rich, source of the natural sulfide mixing called “fall overturn.” When such areas are dredged, it reverses habitat succession exposing gravel and sand and removing sulfur rich organic sludge which does improve fishing after a few years – post dredging. Fishers often report better fishing after the habitat stabilizes and food webs rebuild, usually 3 to 5 years later (personal observations, Clark Pond, Ivoryton, CT).
The habitat history of Clinton Harbor and the Dardanelles breach is more recent and more active. Cedar Island (Sandy Island) was breached in 1898 by the Portland Gale but the Town of Clinton closed it by 1910. However, a special town meeting in Clinton was held in 1919 to entertain a proposal to again reopen the Dardanelles (also a west end opening of the barrier bar) to “let the mud drain off the flats”. According to George McNeil of Clinton, local fishermen here asked several times to have the inlet reopened noticing a decline in the fisheries after each closure and had linked the closure to changed habitats, bottoms turned black and then became soft. Fishermen were correct to link increased flushing tidal exchange to decreases in fisheries; valued species then included winter flounder, clams and bay scallops. This could have only come about by significant and observable changes in habitat quality, a February 21, 1989 Clinton Recorder newspaper article, titled “A Bit of Clinton History: What are the Dardanelles?” by Margaret Bushy, staff columnist, contains this section about the history of the Dardanelles barrier beach inlet in Clinton.

“But Stedman Wilcox, (1989) another Clinton native, remembers hearing his father, the late Sam Wilcox, talk about the Dardanelles. He was a well known local fisherman whose knowledge of the harbor and surrounding waters was deeply respected. He talked about their closing and how they made a mess of it, Wilcox recalls. He said he never heard when they were opened, but a short breakwater was put in across the opening when they were open Wilcox said he favors opening the Dardanelles again.”

George McNeil was very helpful to my review of Clinton Harbor for the Cedar Island Improvement Association, which is available on our school website http://www.soundschool.com/directory.html as # 46 Environmental Fisheries History Review providing two key newspaper articles, both from the local newspaper, the Clinton Recorder, May 26, 1949, discussing building a road to the Dardanelles, then still open; following the 1938 Hurricane and a second article July 6, 1950 in which the title was Harbor Dredging, Making Progress- now pumping in the vicinity of the Dardanelles, now filled with Rocks, (Authors unknown but copied from Mr. McNeil’s scrapbook). The July 6, 1950 artide contains this section as the Dardanelles were being filled with dredge material, “More recently pumping has been going on in the vicinity of the Dardanelles where years ago a channel was cut through to the Sound from the Harbor and this providing an unsuccessful venture as a shortcut exit from the harbor. [This article/author was not evidently aware of the 1919 effort or the natural reopening after multiple closings as part of a barrier beach habitat history detailed in maps from 1790 and mentioned again in the US Fish Commission Reports, 1887)] It was stopped up with huge brownstone boulders although this did not prevent the tide from roaring through there at certain stages of the tide and wind.” I have not been able to locate records of the source of brownstone or the cost, but that information is most likely in the Town of Clinton Selectmen’s meeting minutes of that time period.

George Mcneil recalled that the 1950 effort to fill the Dardanelles was first unsuccessful; water still roared in and out at half tides. But the harbor he felt was cleaner from this increased flushing- scallops came back in the outer channel area, winter flounder thrived in the inner harbor, bottoms were cleaner and firmer with more oysters and clams. However, the opening did allow easterly swells to enter the harbor and the Dardanelles represented “a hole in the breakwater,” similar to what used to occur at the breach in New Haven Harbor. Here a similar barrier breach “bar” called Sandy Point would break in New Haven Harbor sending waves and swells against Oyster Point City Point today just south of the Sound School. In Clinton, navigation and boating interests regarded the breach with distain, considered it a hole in the breakwater making the harbor rough at times. But the waves helped cultivate and remove organic buildups, as Mr. McNeil would mention to me many times.

Today, this organic buildup in high heat is called Sapropel. The 1950 effort was a failure, but a second attempt 1951-1952 was successful here as Mr. McNeil described the cabling together of junk automobiles. He described as necklaces of car with wire rope (cable) so much tide was going out anything placed in the opening just got swept away. At the time, eelgrass beds were in the outer harbor and bay scallops in the channel edges, some fishermen used a push/pull net to catch them. The flow out of the Hammonassett River on rainy days was filled with leaves which he felt fed the outer eelgrass beds in areas out of the greatest tidal exchange. The automobile cable method was successful and the Dardanelles again was filled in almost immediately leaves and organic debris started to collect on the lower river oyster beds (George McNeil, personal communication, 1980s). The time and effort now he spent to keep oyster beds clear soon increased. The channel outside of the Dardanelles filled in and the offshore eelgrass beds had disappeared by 1960. The scallops were gone and the lower Hammonasset River started to collect leaves and organic matter – bottoms started to get softer and leaf filled – clamming declined especially for soft shells and at low tides in high heat, “sulfur smells” occurred..

All of this seemed amazingly similar to John Hammond’s conversations about cuts and changes in the Monomoy barrier system on Cape Cod. In a series of meetings in Chatham while I was employed by the University of Massachusetts, Mr. Hammond described similar habitat features. As the Hammonasset River filled with leaves, the bottom became soft and sediment filled by the Dardanelles, which now supported a dense meadow of eelgrass in areas that once held winter flounder and clams. Elevations increased and the once hard bottom deeper areas became filled in, soft that increase you couldn’t walk across it (I tried in 1978.) This is the area in which, Lance Stewart NOAA Sea Grant, Edwin Rhodes NOAA NMFS, John Baker, Chief Dept. of CT Dept. of Agriculture Aquaculture; Brian Sullivan, a friend of mine and I placed 10,000 seed scallops from Milford NOAA Shellfish Laboratory in the area that once had been the inner opening of the Dardanelles. As Mr. McNeil explained to me -- having known him since high school—“that habitat for bay scallops had long since passed.” We had planted them in the soft eelgrass meadows, but I was soon to learn that about four feet below this eelgrass was a hard bottom filled with dead Mya soft shell clams and scattered oyster shell just as Mr. McNeil predicted. The area Mr. McNeil claimed was once terrific for winter flounder now contained Sapropel and eelgrass. It was three to four feet deep. Conversations with area fishermen from both Madison and Clinton confirmed this account many times. Eelgrass was not well liked by fishers; it grew so thick, it choked anything (or everything) out and then rose trapping more organic matter in the process. This habitat observation was repeated by small boat fishers in Rhode Island and New York as well. One of the largest examples of what can happen in high heat and low energy was the year 1898.

We have a very detailed report (Coastal and Estuarine Studies, Vol 135 Pg 429 to 447, 1988) about a huge high heat habitat failure in Narragansett Bay at the turn of the century. Dr. Scott Nixon of the Graduate School of Oceanography carefully detailed “The Great Narragansett Bay Algal Bloom and Fish Kill of 1898” in a special report on Novel Phytoplakton Blooms some 25 years ago. Dr. Nixon then relied on a wide source of reported factors heavy rainfall, little mixing energy, excessive heat and sewage sludge (August 1898). It was the beginning of the end for Rhode Island’s lobster industry between 1898 and 1905 most of the sublegal lobsters found the shallows perished just it was too hot. A.D. Mead of Brown University published an article on November 18, 1898 Science Magazine and in it found his description at this time – excerpts – {Brackets indicate new insertions}

A. D. Mead Account 1898 Fish Kill in Narragansett Bay
“The water of a considerable portion of the bay {Narragansett) became thick and red emitting an odor almost intolerable to those living near bay. {This was most likely hydrogen sulfide gas the rotten egg odor mentioned so many times during The Great Heat 1880-1920}.

During the last of August, throughout September and a part of October streaks of red or ‘chocolate’ water were observed from near Quonset Point and Prudence Island, north to Providence, and, on the flood tide, up the Seekonk River, nearly to Pawtucket, a range of about fifteen miles. In other parts of the Bay, as far as could be learned, the phenomenon had not been observed.
On the 8th and 9th of September the water became extremely red and thick in various localities from East Greenwich to Providence, and the peculiar behavior of the marine animals attracted much attention. Myriads of shrimps and blue crabs, and vast numbers of eels, menhaden, tautog and flatfish came up to the surface and to the edge of the shore as though struggling to get out of the noxious water. Indeed, the shrimp and crabs were observed actually to climb out of the water upon stakes and buoys and even upon the iron cylinders which support one of the bridges and which must have been very hot in the bright sun.”

These observations are similar to sulfide toxicity in southern waters for blue crab jubilees, or winter black water kills in ice covered ice ponds. These comments are very similar to a massive fish kill {August 2003} that occurred nearly a century later in Narragansett Bay.

From a Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management September 3, 2003 report titled The Greenwich Bay Fish Kill – August 2003 is found this section.

“Along the western shore of the bay (Greenwich Bay), many noted a rotten egg smell associated with hydrogen sulfide (toxic to organisms) being produced by sediment chemistry and bacteria processes” (pg 3).

What the 2003 report did not mention the level of sulfide toxicity – it is acute, so bad in fact, in fact blue crabs that choose land over the water itself and recently was reported in Niantic Bay, CT. These events appear to climate (cycle) driven and very similar circumstances surrounding the 1898 die off “factors that cannot be controlled, at least not quickly or directly, such as rain, wind, temperature, geology and hydrodynamics” (2003 DEM report, pg 2).
A link to these events seems to be Sapropel – the black mono iron sulfide organic muck that in a high heat activates a “sulfur cycle” which sheds huge quantities of ammonia. A. D. Mead then described “chocolate waters” and it is reasonable to assume this was a HAB species. Sapropel deposits in high heat may significantly contribute if not substantially encourage HABS (Harmful Algal Blooms) which then tax bacteria respiration by oxygen bacteria reducers – changing the entire ecosystem that is now sulfur cycle driven. As sulfide levels build in the water fish trying to flee the region or seek surface oxygen (gaspers). Ammonia levels from Sapropel may be far more destructive to habitats that human forms or in organic aqueous nitrogen mobile forms – subject to currents. Sapropel deposits are for most part stationary often held by an “eelgrass crust.” HABs not only impact shellfish by direct nutritional substituting but also forms gelatinous slimes that cover submerged vegetation especially Zostera eelgrass killing it (Visel, DEP Hearing Testimony 1988 Niantic Bay winter flounder habitats).
A few widespread eelgrass species limited to marine waters in temperate regions” Walter Conrad Muensuber, 1944, pg 61.

The Trouble with Eelgrass – Habitat Services Need to be Linked to Climate and Energy

It is hard to imagine any good from the marine soil cultivation aspect of hurricanes but such events provided the habitat energy that allowed eelgrass to extend its coverage. It was in small bays and coves that shellfishers first experience the aggressive nature of eelgrass growths. So damaging to shellfish populations after severe storms shellfishers felt this plant was not native species the habitat energy that allowed eelgrass to extend its coverage. It was in small bays.

Mr. Hammond felt it (eelgrass) didn’t belong here – at least not this strain; he said it invades shellfish habitats and destroys them. None is as troubling as the current “eelgrass habitat issue.” The absence of proper citations of historic shellfish sources to include only beneficial eelgrass attributes is a far larger concern than its invasive characteristics. To quote a popular advertisement, “It’s like it never occurred.” Too many of the early shellfish habitat researchers detailed at length the problem with eelgrass successive for this to be isolated incident; it is not unfortunately. This was quite alarming to some earlier habitat researchers, and Nelson Marshall’s last book sets the stage for a new scenario, instead of publishing or perish a new scenario, grants or gone. Instead Marshall comments a lack of basic research funds that approaches a client/customer relationship as opposed to an open scientific method one. Here the grantor is not a business entity per se, but a funding agency with mission based or created in response to public policy concerns4. One of these concerns has been the decline of basic research funding. There are however, other examples and commonly referred as agenda based science.

Although there is much discussion today regarding increasing water temperatures in the scientific literature (which is good) very little can be found concerning the habitat consequences of high heat and low energy. Energy or bottom disturbance is often only referred to in a negative sense, habitat destruction, property loss and the erosion of the present shoreline. Other than the Nile River Delta impact and construction of Aswan Dam references to the positive impacts of coastal energy (such as dredging projects) are very rare. This is a cultural and institutional bias that is clearing reflected.
In Egypt and the loss of the beneficial nutrient soil sediment nourishment aspect to agriculture in the Nile River flood delta is one of the few times “good flooding erosion” is ever mentioned. The coastal impacts of energy pathways is even more biased, here the destructive aspect to personal property established the 1960s flood and erosion control acts and a national flood insurance program which lead to armoring the coast as evidenced by breakwater and jetty construction during this storm filled period. In many cases these structures accelerated coastal erosion at the shoreline. The breakwater building projects of the 1890s did not protect the coast as much as they reduced the coastal energy pathways.

Habitat Quality and Quantity is Largely Energy Dependent

Although much has been written about the negative impacts of bottom disturbance from energy events, the concept of maintaining habitat quality in the area of human influence and one of the few areas we can control- habitat energy. In this case, the analogy of lawn care as a habitat type and a lawn mower as the energy source required to maintain that habitat quality was the example chosen. We have similar energy examples in several small boat fisheries. For over a century, shellfishers have noted the positive benefits of working the bottom, ie bottom disturbance. In a small way, shellfishers as part of the harvesting process were sustaining habitats longer by the cultivating action of the rake or dredge. It was the energy that was keeping habitat quality longer than traditional or natural habitat succession cycles. If in times of high heat, organic matter input and low energy stopping shellfish harvest disturbance often if not every time guaranteed a set failure. Contrary to traditional management policies bottom disturbance to marine soils can be good equivalent to the lawnmower or cultivator as what happens when barrier spits break. We have another example: the small trawl net salt pond closures of the 1970s. As the climate moderated and marine soils became acidic and then contained Sapropel winter flounder nursery areas (suitable habitats) became smaller and then failed. Winter flounder have a secondary respiratory pathway that allows them to stay in tidal cycles at low tide when oxygen levels actually drop. They head to sandy loose soil bottoms subject to hydraulic pressures. At high tide oxygen rich pore water is forced into loose sandy gravel bottoms which is released as the tide recedes and pore water circulation now seeps out. It is cooler and oxygen rich compared to ebbing tides warm and often oxygen depleted. Small winter flounder seal themselves into these sandy loose gravel bottoms (which tend to reflect sunlight/heat) and activate these specialized bottom skin tail cells to begin processing oxygen through their bottom tail skin. This feature has long perplexed biologists as they noted winter flounder remaining on creek and cove bottoms long after oxygen levels drop as they do not immediately flee, staying very quiet as the flow ebbs.

In warm water streams- John L. Funk, A Century of Fisheries in North America, American Fisheries Society Special Report #7, 1970 also describes why trout and salmon seek out the same habitat areas.

The tendency of trout and salmon to seek out sandy and gravel areas in which to seek to lay eggs is also based upon pore water. Trout seek clean bottoms kept clean by stream energy or the flow and riffles created by stream obstructions. Funk (1970) in a major paper to the American Fisheries Society describes this energy relationship to habitat quality on Page 143.
“Stable riffles in unpolluted streams support a valued benthos community, with many species…for this reason; benthic reflects the effects of pollution. Unstable gravel, sand or mud bottoms support few organisms. In parts or back waters with stable silt or mud bottoms, support few organisms.”
It is the current stream flow that clears trout habitats and that energy is from the resistance of stream relics themselves, boulders, rocks, ledges and other current moderating obstructions. That is the basic premise to rebuild curvature into straight channelized streams of the 1960s and 1970s, to replace lost stream habitat energy. In a paper on the management of trout streams, Cooper (1970) describes what many trout fishers already knew --that brook trout head up to find areas of pore water with good oxygen levels. “Brook trout are strongly attracted to areas of upwelling of ground water.” The small winter flounder it seems shores this affinity and the presence of these specialized tail cells may indicate a tendency of adults to lay eggs over clean sand and cobble bottoms.

When the incoming water is so hot it does not recharge the oxygen pore water, its cooler from groundwater but oxygen poor. If a hibernating flounder is disturbed from the bottom it will dart and then swim erratically searching for oxygen (personal observations, Tom’s Creek, Madison).
I presented a paper about this in 2012 at the Thirteenth Flatfish Biology Conference NOAA, December 4-5, 2012, Westbrook, CT) and diagramed this feature on pages 17-20. Many biologists contacted me after the conference about these specialized bottom tail skin cells having seen similar reactions. The sandy and gravel bottoms had a life support function few recognized in the 1970s. They are also linked to energy pathways.

Winter Flounder Habitats Fail – Lack of Energy

In the 1970s, these sandy soils became clogged with organic matter and often had a “crust” of eelgrass. As eelgrass grew thick it absorbed heat and organics trapped between the blades and sealed off pore water. It acted as leaves sealing off similar exchanges on terrestrial soils. If someone dumped five feet of leaves on your lawn, you would be inclined to rake them off knowing that the grass below would not survive (habitat change). Winter flounder fishers both recreational and commercial also noticed it but often the regulatory response was to prohibit small trawls in these shallow coves even when these fishers noted the decrease in “good bottoms” and increase of sea lettuce, eelgrass and dead leaves. At the end of small trawl winter flounder fishery in Rhode Island, salt ponds (Lee 1980) noted that, flounder trawlers noticed a tremendous increase of organic matter vegetation to fish. Eventually these areas were closed to small otter trawls and vegetation soon covered the bottom.

Phil Schwind fisher and author about Cape Cod fisheries noted this impact having the opposite effect on page 88 of his back titled Cape Cod Fisherman (1974) when trawls were prohibited.

“If you don’t cultivate a garden you can’t grow any vegetables and the same holds true for shellfish and finfish. Those pending (loosened by law to flounder dragging, Ryder’s Cove, Little Round Pond and Quonset Pond no longer produce flounders. The ponds still closed dragged (hand hauled trawl nets) Meetinghouse, Connies’, Joe Avery’s and Mill Pond still produce.”
The same comments were made to me by Baymen from the east end of Long Island in 1979. When trawling was stopped bottoms quickly “grassed over and the bottom became foul” winter flounder were no longer seen in these bays. When fishery managers did not realize is that energy (any energy) in keeping the soil free of muck or rotting vegetation was actually helping to maintain a habitat quality for winter flounder. When the energy ceased habitat winter flounder quality quickly declined.

Energy is important to Habitat Quality -

The trawl net was in fact a lawn mower, and like the lawn used to maintain a habitat type. In fact, small trawlers used to talk about cleaning the bottom and keeping it clean, and after winter flounder catches improved. Recreational winter flounder fishers in Connecticut in the 1940s often followed oyster dredgers for the same reason. Niantic winter flounder fishers used to say what was needed was some storms (energy) and that the best winter flounder fishery followed strong storms; they were correct. Energy is an important but frequently overlooked factor in habitat quality. When small trawls were prohibited in the 1970s, it was like somebody turned off the lawnmower. Small boat fishers sadly watched as habitats changed and turned against their fisheries. Winter flounder soon collapsed in southern New England.
Two decades later Kaiser and Sparer (1994) would detail that after recent beam trawls they observed 35 times as many fish concentrating over the trawled area than not trawled. One of the problems confronting fishery managers has been the role of temperature as it relates to energy. If someone did dump five feet of leaves on your yard you might be tempted to use a leaf blower, seeking to maintain the lawn as a habitat quality. But if it was very hot, the lawn would be “burnt” quickly by the heat of this compost reducing itself from bacterial decay. Even cut sod for new lawns rolled in strips can be damaged by this process, the habitat quality for flounder and what we can do to maintain it is just now being examined.

Oyster harvesters and planters soon recognized the value in energy keeping silt off oysters and cleaning (stirring) shells for an oyster set. Dredged salt ponds may provide a habitat refuge for blue crabs in very cold winters. The habitat quality question is the cycle of Sapropel and what role it plays in blue crab abundance. We are just beginning to understand the habitat quality parameters of these long term populations cycles which appear to be dependent upon temperature and energy.

Summary

Blocking or altering energy pathways has profound fishery habitat consequences as the opening and closures of barrier spit breaks historically illustrate, but because environmental regulatory policy is currently based upon minimizing energy disturbance (bottom disturbance) even to the point of estimating the impact of a human foot, these habitat impacts positive or negative remain excluded from view or greatly minimized. The fact of the matter is our coastal fisheries habitats are created and destroyed by energy. The best case of before and after energy pathways could be perhaps the ancient practice of breaching salt ponds on the Cape Cod Islands (Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket) and Southern Rhode Island. There are consequences to restoring energy and many case studies exist that should be reexamined for species shifts. The energy that shell fishermen frequently mentioned to keep bottoms “clean” and the loss of shellfish habitats when they “grassed up” need a full and impartial review. Although natural energy systems were often seen as destructive, the breaks in barrier spits is a part of natural long term natural habitat succession process.

Therefore, we could learn much from a long term habitat history of both Niantic Bay and Clinton Harbor. The barrier spit bar dissecting the bay from the Niantic River has been substantially hardened (reinforced) although it continues to be vulnerable to western end thinning. It is in Niantic Bay that bay scallop productivity soared, in the cooler energy filled 1950s and 1960s in the absence of eelgrass Zostera marina. Although the last barrier spit breach occurred in 1815, old maps and charts may yield enduring breaks that may represent layers in a coastal cove study.

A Clinton Harbor (lower Hammonasset River) core study would be very valuable because the inner harbor despite the 1950 closure, is relatively undisturbed. In 2008, the eastern tip of Cedar Island had grown and western thinning was clearly evident. But during Irene and Sandy, the Dardanelles did not open. Western thinning (if it continues) will allow the reopening although the offshore energy pathway has been mitigated by the Clinton Harbor breakwater – that energy pathway has also been modified. We would learn from environmental fishery history.

Always welcome suggestion or comments.
tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

Anyone interested in a short review of the Climate Pattern (NAO) North Atlantic Oscillation that directly affects habitat and therefore Connecticut’s shell and fin fisheries, see The Search for Megalops – The Rise of Blue Crabs Special Report #1, January 2014, available from Sue Weber at susan.weber@new-haven.k12.ct.us

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