Dredges scoop up millions of S.C. clams; some say limits needed

Wild clams are the other shellfish, not considered Lowcountry delicacies like oysters or crabs. So it might be surprising to hear that millions come out of the water every year.

They are brought up by a device called a hydraulic escalator dredge, which revolutionized commercial clamming in the Southeast. The dredges pull clams from "subtidal" beds, the sandy bottoms out of reach of humans. Their scoop and the pressurized water they spray under water can turn up a sandy bottom in no time, and rake out clams by the hundreds.

"It is a moneymaker," dredger Danny Wyndham said of the machines. "But to be a moneymaker, you have to have some common sense."

Wyndham, who has made a living harvesting quahogs (hard-shell clams), said unregulated dredging in South Carolina has cleaned out the state's public clam beds.

State regulators disagree. They say the harvest has been consistent from year to year.

In Beaufort County, only a few clammers remain.

"There are only three, maybe four, that I know of here," said Tonya Desalve, owner of Benny Hudson's Seafood on Hilton Head Island.

"Clamming used to be passed down from grandfather to father, father to son, through generations," Desalve said. "Now the kids are in computer camp and doing other things.

"The clamming industry is definitely dying out around here."

BLAMING DNR

Wyndham is a grizzled old waterman, who earned a living from the coastal waters when clamming was mostly unregulated.

Like a lot of the watermen who saw their trade corralled by S.C. Department of Natural Resources regulations, he blames what he sees as the clams' disappearance on the way regulators do their jobs.

The DNR's failure to set bag limits for clams did the crop in, he said. The complaint is reminiscent of those of longtime crabbers, who say unregulated harvest of soft-shell crabs ruined their business.

Wyndham fell in love with shellfishing for a living when he was young, shifting from oysters to crabs to clams with the tides and seasons. He worked side by side with his wife, Shirley, who died a few years ago.

"She could pick clams, count them, grade them faster than anyone I've ever seen, and when we shipped them to New York (buyers), we had no problems whatsoever," he said.

In his earliest clamming days, he found a "button" pearl inside a quahog he pulled from Bull's Bay in Cape Romain, something rare enough to be considered a precious gem. He still has it.

A MESSY BUSINESS

An escalator dredge is a 50-foot-long device that looks like the ladder on a hook-and-ladder fire truck. The "ladder" is dropped into the water so that a scoop can run along the bottom. High-pressure spray kicks loose sand and knocks clams onto the scoop, and a conveyor belt carries them up to the boat.

Escalator dredges are messy, noisy and controversial. Some think they drive away fish, although some studies show fish are attracted to look for prey in the stirred up water. The dredge's diesel engines are so loud that the state banned dredging on weekends to give nearby anglers some quiet time.

Dredging does such a number on fishing areas that Virginia has banned crab dredging, and North Carolina has a per-trip bag limit on clam dredging to prevent over-harvesting. In 2001, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the federal regulator for the state's coastal waters, recommended against allowing dredges to be used on bottoms where vegetation grows.

Clamming in the Lowcountry brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, according to figures from the state. But Wyndham contends some clam beds won't ever replenish themselves because -- with no harvesting limits like North Carolina's -- they've have been stripped clean.

State studies, however, indicate dredging leaves enough clams to replenish the stock.

Operations by commercial dredgers are monitored by DNR, and harvests have stayed about the same year to year, said Mel Bell, DNR fisheries management director.

If any one boat over-harvests, DNR can stop it, Bell said.

Wyndham scoffed as he walked the dock at Leland Marina, pointing to a rusty dredging boat stranded in the pluff mud at low tide.

They're not out clamming because there are no clams to be found, he said.

Reporter Grant Martin contributed.

Follow reporter Bo Petersen at www.twitter.com/bopete.

This story was originally published January 2, 2012 at 9:58 PM with the headline "Dredges scoop up millions of S.C. clams; some say limits needed."