09/18/23: Areas A&B are CLOSED due to excessive rainfall. We will get water and meat samples to the Bureau of Aquaculture as soon as possible to see when it’s safe to reopen.
08/31/23: Areas A and B are now open. We restocked both areas at the beginning of the summer, so get out there and get some clams!
08/30/23: Area B is OPEN! The recent water and clam samples passed! Thank you for your patience as we continued to test all summer. We’ll work on opening Area A now.
08/26/23: We’ve sampled a number of times since the last update, but due to the frequent heavy rains the samples have continued to fail. We’ll sample again 8/27 (clams and water samples) and deliver them to the Bureau of Aquaculture in Milford for testing early on 8/28. Results in 2-3 days.
08/05/23: After all the rains north of us, the last set of samples also failed. We are sampling again on Monday, Aug 7.
07/23/23: Dry forecast ahead will give the water a chance to clear up. We will collect water and meat samples Tues or Wed and deliver them to the lab in Milford for testing. Results should be in by Fri.
07/14/23: The water samples we delivered on 07/11 passed, but the meat samples did not pass. The clams take a while to purge. We remain CLOSED. We will resample for meats in the week ahead if we don’t receive too much rain.
07/11/23: Water samples (from the Hammonasset River to Duck Island) and meat samples (clams from the recreational beds) were collected and driven to the Bureau of Aquaculture in Milford.
07/04/23: Received over 1″ of rain, all recreational areas in Clinton are now closed.
06/23/23: Received approval from the Bureau of Aquaculture to reopen Area B.
06/21/23: The last set of samples tested well, but after such a long stretch of failed samples, the Bureau of Aquaculture requested one more set of samples for testing before we reopen. That sample was delivered this morning (06/21) and we should hear back on Friday, 06/23/23. However, the weather ahead looks very rainy which will most likely lead to closures up and down the CT coastline.
06/18/23: Another set of samples was delivered for testing on 06/14. We are still waiting for the Bureau of Aquaculture’s approval to reopen. We are in almost daily contact with them. We appreciate your patience.
06/08/23: We just received word that the last set of samples also failed. Bacteria levels are still too high for safe consumption. You might have also noticed that the town beaches closed due to high bacteria levels. We will continue to work with the Bureau of Aquaculture to see when we can submit samples again.
06/05/23: Last week’s clam samples still had bacteria levels too high to reopen. So we collected samples from two locations in Area B just before dawn today. These were delivered to the Bureau of Aquaculture in Milford before 9AM. We should get the results by 6/8.
06/02/23: The samples we delivered on 05/30 were much improved, but still too high for the Bureau of Aquaculture to reopen our beds. We will collect samples again at dawn on 06/05 and drive them to Milford that morning. We should get the results 06/07 or 06/08.
We restocked clams Wed and Thurs evenings. We have one more batch of clams coming to us this week to wrap up our Spring restocking effort.
05/30/23: Both Area A and B are closed at this time. Bacteria levels in the clams are still coming back high after the rains weeks ago. We’ve collected samples and driven them to the Bureau of Aquaculture lab in Milford every week. The last samples were delivered to the lab 05/30 and we are waiting on those results.
We are making the best of the closure though by doing our semi-annual restocking with clams we purchase from a nearby farmer.
As soon as the Bureau of Aquaculture gives us the green light, we will change the phone recording, update the website, and flip the signs to reopen Area B.