“This has been kind of cool,” said George Davis, vice-chair of the Shellfish Commission at its meeting on Tuesday. Davis was speaking of the grand experiment he and others on the Shellfish Commission conducted over the course of the past year. The goal was to see if soft-shell clams could be successfully grown from seed and then distributed into the Great Salt Pond. Although there is a wild population of softshell clams, the numbers do not support their harvest, and the pond has been closed to the taking of the mollusks for years. There have been past efforts by the commission to seed the pond with softshells, which need protection from predators, whether of the human or crab variety. Nets were used to cover them while they buried into the sand. But, those efforts were deemed unsuccessful. Commission members have long looked north to the state of Maine for guidance on how to grow out soft-shells and Davis has invested a lot of time and energy not only studying, but putting into practice a method of growing out the seed. Along with other volunteers on the commission, Davis created and scientifically monitored six different plots in the GSP. Six were at Andy’s Way, and two in Cormorant Cove. Using simple plastic flower pots, softshell seed clams were placed in the pots, which were then secured, usually, with a mesh cover and placed in the test plots. Besides the variations in locations, there was also a variable with the size of the mesh. Pots either got “harbor mesh,” a finer “pet screen” mesh, or no mesh at all. Davis and helpers were painstaking in tracking the clams’ progress, measuring for factors like size, survival rate, with some interesting results. Although the clams overall did best at Andy’s Way, the result of one of the four plots there was that all the clams died. The smaller the mesh, the more protected the clams were from predator crabs, so those clams had a better survivability rate, but, their growth rate was less. (The clams that grew the most but also had the worst survival rate were in the pots with no mesh.) At this point, the clams are still out there, and Davis is monitoring them by counting “breathing holes.” He last checked them on December 5, and found them to still have the netting intact, with no apparent damage from recent storms. “It looks like those plots have been successful,” said Davis. It’s very exciting. I think.” Commission member Jon Berry asked what would happen in the spring. Davis replied that they might not dig them up, but instead do more “planting.” “I have a vision of doing this every year for a few years to bolster the population.” “It’s a multi-year project,” said Berry, but he would like to see even more monitoring to “make sure it’s not a futile project.” The soft-shell clams raised from smaller seed in the town’s upweller at the Block Island Maritime Institute was not quite as successful, although it was still a learning experience, and a lot more work. Davis said the bags used to store the seed after it came out of the upweller had been found to have small crabs in them. “So, we lost some of our upweller growth,” he said. Later in the meeting, the commissionagreed on planting more of the larger-sized soft-shell seed in the pots, but ultimately decided that the upweller could be put to a better use. To that end, they will to try to grow out scallops and hard-shell clams from seed. Hard-shell clams, or quahogs, have been grown in the upweller before, but scallops have not, and though it is believed that there is a fairly healthy scallop population in the pond, it has been some years since the pond was seeded with them. All of these projects take money, and the Shellfish Commission doesn’t actually have its own budget – instead it is a line item in the Harbors Department budget. It does however bring in a fair amount of revenue from the sale of shell-fishing licenses, about $60,000 so far this year. “I’m not sure who is advocating this item” on the agenda, said Davis about discussing raising shellfish license fees. If there is an increase in license fees, Davis and the other commissioners at the meeting hoped the revenues could be directly used by the Harbors Department instead of going into the town’s general budget. Commissioner Mary Lawless said: “Someone brought up to me [that the current fees] are very reasonable, but could be raised.” Harbormaster Kate McConville, when asked, thought a $5 increase wouldn’t be inappropriate for most classes of licenses. The “golden” and veteran’s licenses should remain as is though, she said. Of the increase, “we can say it’s going for projects,” she said. Other types of licenses are seasonal (mid-May through mid-October), weekly, monthly, and resident. Berry asked how many licenses had been sold last summer, but a breakdown by class wasn’t immediately forthcoming. “I’m trying to figure if an increase makes a meaningful difference,” he said. McConville said the increases in license revenues in the past few years has come from more weekly and resident licenses sold. Five dollars, she said, “is not going to deter people from shell-fishing.” There is a need for a new class of license, said McConville. She would like to see a non-resident off-season license. “There are people working out here,” she said, and some of them would like to go shell-fishing. The in-season rate is $60 for a non-resident and the license is good from mid-May through mid-October. “Bear in mind,” said McConville, the entire pond is open in the winter and “there are more species,” including oysters and scallops. An amount of $80 was arrived at for the off-season six-month license. That and a $5 increase in the fee for seasonal, monthly, weekly and resident licenses were approved in separate votes. Before they can go into effect though, they must be approved by the New Shoreham Town Council. Also sent to the Town Council: the annual list of commercial shell-fishing licenses coming up for renewal. Davis recused himself from the discussion and vote as he has applied to the state for a commercial license.