Letter: Towns can help save bay

The Great South Bay towns should be commended if they follow through with taking greater responsibility to sustainably manage the bay and the hard clams within ["Rules for a clam revival," Editorial, May 29].

The proposals being considered strike a nice balance for restoring hard clams while maintaining traditional livelihoods and recreational opportunities. Current and past clammers are not to blame for the decline of the clam resource, for it is not their job to assure that this public resource is managed sustainably for all. Unfortunately, if the towns fail to responsibly manage the bay's shellfish, future generations will forever be deprived of a wonderful natural resource that was once a cultural icon of many South Shore communities.

Sadly, deteriorating water quality has complicated worthwhile efforts to restore abundant hard clams to the Great South Bay. Without doubt, all levels of government and private citizens need to work together to mitigate the nitrogen loading in many Long Island bays that is fostering chronic harmful phytoplankton blooms, macro algae blooms, loss of eelgrass, decaying wetlands and hypoxia. This same problem also threatens Long Island's only supply of fresh drinking water.

There is no simple solution for Long Island's water woes. However, there are good proposals that should be pursued immediately ["Bills to help preserve water quality," News, May 11].

Carl LoBue, Cold Spring Harbor

Editor's note: The writer is a senior marine scientist at The Nature Conservancy, an advocacy organization that owns 13,000-plus acres of the Great South Bay bottom and has been trying to seed clams there.