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Clammers Unite to Rally Responsible PWC Use

by Angela Andersen and Joan Koons
bubbles2.gif (27778 bytes) If the people lead, the leaders will follow...at least that was the thought behind a recent Personal Watercraft Rally started by local clammers from Beach haven.  On August 9, 1998, the clammers led a rally off Dock Road in Beach Haven in response to two near-death incidents by two clammers who were treading in the bay for their daily catch and were nearly hit by a personal watercraft (PWC).


The clammers tied their boats together out in the bay between Post island and Acid Island to slow down the traffic of PWCs. The clammers voiced concern over the harm caused by PWC to the bay's aquaculture, the disturbance of sediment and the pollution from the emissions and gas.  Barnegat Bay Watershed Association (BBWA) and Alliance for a Living Ocean (ALO) joined together to support this local citizen's effort.  Angela Andersen, BBWA and Joan Koons, ALO assisted the rally and attended it in support of the clammers.   The August 7, 1998 letter from the BBWA to Governor Whitman regarding PWC was used as a handout by the clammers.  ALO supplied copies of the letter to another PWC letter prepared by John Smath, a BBWA board members, from April 1997.

The organizations supplied the clammers with two pieces of rope, one that was 50 feet and represented the distance that a PWC is to be from a shoreline and a person in the water. The other rope was 100 feet long, the minimum distance that the groups have proposed and support. The media coverage of the event was strong in the Beach Haven Times, Atlantic City Press and the Asbury Park Press Southern Ocean edition. The best part of the rally was that the clammers gathered together to support a cause they believed in.  It is truly the citizens and those that frequent the bay that know first hand what is happening in the environment.  Some of the clammers have been clamming Barnegat Bay for 25 years, and the have seen the changes.  They should be commended for taking a stand together.  We hope their voices are heard.  Kudos Clammers!

    

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