To The Editor:
James Bloom Norm Bloom and Son LLC 7 Edgewater Place Norwalk, CT 06855 (203) 451-1122
In regard to the recent article, CT Widens Net to Lift Shellfish Harvests, (HBJ, 09/10/14), Commissioner Reviczky states that the Department of Agriculture “modernized” state shellfish leases to protect “public health” and “enhance opportunities for small businesses.” In plain terms, the commissioner is using buzz words to distort the issues and to distract the public from the real goal of the new lease language — to give the department total authority to redistribute leaseholds by allowing the commissioner to take away a shellfish lease for essentially any reason at all.
As a multi-generational shellfish farmer who works within a small family-owned business in the state of Connecticut, all shellfishermen agree that we are 100 percent in favor of public safety and only wish to provide the public with safe shellfish from Connecticut waters. In fact, we often far exceed state regulatory requirements for shellfish handling, investing enormous amounts of capital to further enhance methods to ensure public safety. We also make great efforts to improve water quality through work with local, nonprofit groups and the Bureau of Aquaculture itself.
Shellfish farmers in Connecticut oppose the new lease for a simple reason — it allows the commissioner to take away a leasehold for any reason at all, a truth which has been recently overlooked by both the department and the media. It further allows the commissioner to take the shellfish farmer’s property — clams and oysters — on these leaseholds if they can’t move it within a small window of time. The simple truth is this — the new lease language does little, if anything, to promote “public safety” and is couched in this language to distract and distort attention away from the real intent and effect of the new lease — that it’s wholly unfair and overly punitive to those who have spent generations, and considerable amounts of money, growing their businesses.
The new lease language will in fact hamper new, “start-up” shellfish companies. Banks will not grant farming loans on the basis of such an unstable lease agreement where there is no guarantee, no due process, no remedial program available to those who are faced with termination. If the commissioner intends to help small, family-owned businesses through the lease process, I suggest the commissioner find a way to make the lease program fair and affordable to all companies — and without a termination clause that allows the commissioner to strip farmers of their leaseholds for little to no reason. With the rising costs of farming operations and already slim profit margins, small businesses need support and relief from their department, not policy that will force the entire industry out of existence.
The fair approach would be for the new leases to be terminated and be invited to have substantive conversations with the governor’s office and the Department of Agriculture regarding these issues. We reject the department’s attempt, following their failed efforts in the legislature, to force this new lease — which is based on misguided and impractical “aspirations” — on the industry as a whole and gamble with our livelihoods.
