Worm harvesters might have an unfair advantage over clammers regarding access to the mud flats, some members of the Freeport Shellfish Conservation Commission said during a meeting Oct. 8.

Commissioner Chris Grimm said that two weeks ago he attended a meeting in Brunswick of regional towns with interests in the shellfish industry, which are considering a lobbying effort in Augusta. Clam harvesters shared their findings on the declining clam populations up and down the mid-coast area, he said.

“While we’re seeing a decline here in Freeport, what we’re seeing farther north is even worse,” Grimm said. “The flats in West Bath are dead. No worms, no clams, no nothing.”

Dale “Chopper” Sawyer said he’s seen “the worst influx” of wormers in Freeport in his 37 years as a clammer.

“The last year or two they haven’t left,” he said. “Our biggest problem was green crabs. But (the wormers) dig forever, and then turn (the mud) over repeatedly.”

Andy Durgin, Freeport’s marine resource conservation officer, cautioned that the idea behind the newly formed alliance of town shellfish officers, who have met twice now in Brunswick, isn’t about the elimination of worming. But during conservation closures, Durgin said, all harvesters – wormers included – should be kept off the flats.

Chairman Doug Leland noted that worm harvesters have access to mud flats “anytime.”

Not all clammers have such concerns. In an email sent to Leland last Thursday and shared with the Tri-Town Weekly, Chad Coffin, president of the Maine Clammers Association, said that a “clam lobby” at the State House would be a waste of time and resources.

“I hope that Freeport’s council rejects participating in any capacity once they learn how ridiculous and baseless your request for financial support really is,” Coffin wrote.

Coffin referred to the studies of Freeport’s clam flats conducted by Brian Beal, a marine ecologist with the University of Maine at Machias.

“How many times does someone have to tell you that Beal’s research shows that when compared to the effects of predation, that the impacts of worm digging on shellfish populations is irrelevant,” Coffin continued. “That means it doesn’t matter. What on earth do you have for science that contradicts that fact?”

Dan Devereaux, marine warden in Brunswick, helped organize the 10 communities that make up the towns with municipal shellfish programs that met in Brunswick again on Tuesday. The group has no name yet, Devereaux said. The alliance is made up of Freeport, Yarmouth, Harpswell, Brunswick, West Bath and the five towns that comprise the St. George Regional Shellfish Organization.

“We’re still pretty much exploring things,” he said. “We need to figure out the shared uses in the intertidal zone.”

Devereaux said that worm harvesters are the only interest in the intertidal zone that isn’t regulated, except that they need licenses.

“Conservation closures should include all harvesting,” he said. “There’s a mortality issue with the clams.”