Sheriff inmate work-crew chief Blaise Cabral (right), no stranger to clamming, and one of four inmates digging up quahogs last week at Little Pond
FALMOUTH – A supervised crew of inmates dispatched by Barnstable County Sheriff Jim Cummings has just wrapped up work at Little Pond, where they helped dig up and relocate embedded quahogs to purer, more fertile waters. The result, as they say, will be in the tasting.
A closer look at a day’s commercial-sized haul, which is nine or ten small buckets. Inmate holds rake in other hand.
The inmates were joined by officers who work for the town’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Together, they spent 3½ days removing the contaminated quahogs and re-submerging them at two nearby bed sites. One is east of Green Pond in East Falmouth and the other in the family section of Chappoquit Beach in West Falmouth.
And a closer look at part of a one-day haul, amounting to about three dozen of bags. The harvesting lasted 3½ days.
Parts of both are harvested by the town’s licensed and commercial shell-fishers, but the closed beds will be designated “off limits” until the entire batch is purified. The process takes about sixty days and involves no additives or intervention other than what Mother Nature freely supplies. “They’ll be ready to catch and ready to eat,” says a DNR officer assisting at the operation off Little Pond.
That’s because relocating contaminated quahogs alongside healthy ones has the opposite effect from what a casual observer might assume. Instead of the “intruder” quahogs contaminating the “healthies,” it’s the other way around.
Sixty days together and the entire comingled catch will be in the pink. And it’s not just the proximity of “good” and “bad” clams that helps purify the sick ones. The more active water of the destination shorelines are important, too. Little Pond is far from stagnant, but it doesn’t churn like Green Pond or Chappoquit Beach.
Media release and photos furnished by Barnstable Sheriff’s Office
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