For Release: Thursday, June 18, 2009
DEC Reopens Shellfishing Areas in Huntington, Suffolk County
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today announced that shellfish harvesting may resume in all normally certified areas in the Town of Huntington, Suffolk County, beginning at sunrise on Friday, June 19, 2009. The reopened certified shellfish harvesting areas encompass approximately 7,400 acres in Huntington Bay, Coast Guard Cove, Lloyd Harbor, Northport Bay, Centerport Harbor and Duck Island Harbor.
The action to reopen was taken after DEC performed bioassays on three sets of shellfish samples collected from monitoring stations in the Northport Bay, Centerport Harbor, Huntington Bay and Lloyd Harbor areas, over the past two weeks. Those tests determined that shellfish from those embayments had no measurable amounts of saxitoxin, a marine biotoxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP).
The areas were closed as a precautionary measure after early-warning screening tests indicated that saxitoxin was present in shellfish. The first closure - of the Northport Bay, Centerport Harbor and Duck Island Harbor areas - occurred on May 27. DEC subsequently expanded the closure on June 2 to include the Huntington Bay, Coast Guard Cove and Lloyd Harbor areas. The National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP) requires states' shellfish control agencies to implement precautionary closures based on the screening test. The NSSP specifies that areas can be reopened based only on the results of more a complex bioassay test which indicated the level of saxitoxin in shellfish was non-detectable.
For information about DEC's shellfish monitoring program, contact DEC staff at (631) 444-0475 or go to DEC's website. A map with the reopened areas will soon be posted.
