Once-thriving LI clamming business struggles

It's midday at Point Lookout, and Bob Doxsee's two hulking black clam dredge boats sit idle in the waters of Reynolds Channel.

The boats have been moored since June, when they caught their new annual quota of just 13,000 bushels of surf clams each. They will remain idle until year's end, perhaps longer.

Doxsee, 79, whose family has fished and clammed local waters for five generations and created the wholesale sea-clam business, has quietly shut down the surf-clam processing business. Last November, he tore down the plant that stood since 1944 and once employed 100 people.

"It's time. I'm almost 80 years old," Doxsee explained. "There is no next guy. It's over."

The once-bustling Doxsee Sea Clam Co. is now composed of a single shack where frozen clams are sold through an honor box, supplied by a handful of employees in an adjoining building whose efforts Doxsee won't discuss.

Crushed shells cover the 60- by 100-foot parcel, where "For Sale" signs are positioned for maximum exposure. The air is less than fresh. Doxsee is among the most prominent of those making a living on the water to say regulations aimed at protecting marine life make it nearly impossible to keep fishing. State regulators say the surf-clam population has been steadily declining, but Doxsee and others say the rules don't take into account economic impacts.

Regulations reduce catch

At least one Doxsee vessel might still be clamming in state waters up to the 3-mile limit were it not for the new restrictions that went into effect this year, reducing the catch from 20,000 bushels of clams to 13,000 per vessel for the year. Doxsee said the state Department of Environmental Conservation indicated that companies like his with two boats could combine their allowable catch to one vessel, which would have allowed him to sell or scrap his second boat, and combine his total catch on one - 26,000 bushels.

Keeping two boats idle right now is nothing but an expense. At $9 a bushel, the Doxsee boats grossed around $234,000 this year, he said. Expenses include $60,000 for insurance, another $60,000 for maintenance, an equal amount for fuel and supplies, and thousands in wages for his handful of employees.

Asked if he can turn a profit, he grimaced. "What do you think?"

Doxsee could clam in federal waters beyond the 3-mile limit, but he says the fishing there is not what it used to be, so he is renting the permits.

He not only supports regulations to preserve the clams and his livelihood, Doxsee said, he cheered and even helped write the rules. He said he's angry the state is not doing the research that fishermen pay for through a surcharge on each bushel of clams. New studies on the large sea clams haven't been done to justify the reduced catch, he said, even though $300,000 remains in a fund to pay for it.

"I'm sure the survey would justify raising the quota," he said.

DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren acknowledged the fund stands at around $300,000, but said it's common for the DEC to conduct the survey every two to three years. The last one was done in 2008.

"It is speculative to say that the bushel limit might be increased if a survey were to be conducted," she said.

The 2008 data, she said, indicated "ongoing and significant declines" in the surf-clam population. "DEC will manage the population to protect the health of the fishery," Wren said.

No new permits

Twenty-two vessels hold 14 permits to harvest surf clams in state waters, and no new permits are being issued. Wren said the permit consolidation idea was considered but not adopted because the Surf Clam Advisory board, the group that decides such matters, did not come to a "solid consensus" on the matter.

One observer said the system is driving once-thriving fishermen off the water by relying on weak science or none at all.

"The tragedy here is that the government and the system have not been able to preserve that traditional enterprise," said Michael White, chairman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council and a longtime Doxsee friend and former legal adviser. "We will regret the loss of traditional fisheries on Long Island."