Vol. 3, No. 3 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Summer 99
|
Art Longard Award recipient Dana Wallace: Mollusks key to ME's coastal prosperityBrunswick, Maine --- "He's out with his oysters," said Dana Wallace's wife, Mary, in response to a first attempt to reach him at his Mere Point home. When he's out, it usually has something to do with shellfish. This time, Wallace was tending to matters at "Chance Along Farm," a commercial oyster farm that he runs with a partner.
Lifelong fascinationIn 1983, Wallace retired from his 37-year career as a marine scientist at the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). He wanted to have more time to immerse himself in protecting the Gulf of Maine's coastal environment and helping people understand why intertidal resources are important --- biologically, economically, and historically. This summer, Wallace received the Gulf of Maine Council's first annual Art Longard Award, which honors outstanding citizen volunteers working on behalf of the Gulf's environment. Colleagues point out that even before his retirement, Wallace devoted his career to improving coastal water quality and boosting clam harvests in Maine. One Canadian associate describes him as the "Grand-daddy of shellfish issues in Maine." Wallace's fascination with the coastal environment emerged many summers ago when he and his family would make regular Sunday pilgrimages from their farm in Lisbon, Maine, to the coast --- about an hour's ride in their Model T Ford. "My Dad loved to go down on the shore and dig clams and he loved to get lobsters," sometimes trading bottles of hard cider for them. "We had little picnics down on the shore and we'd go out in rowboats and so forth." Wallace would explore the tide pools. At Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine, Wallace's preoccupation with the marine environment grew. He made trips to the coast with a close friend who was writing his thesis on Maine's fisheries. Wallace recalls, "I got quite interested in not only the biological things that would be going on, but the social aspects of the people and the industry," and how coastal communities could make the most of their natural resources. A budding specialistAfter graduating from Bates in 1939, Wallace began working as a high school science teacher and athletics coach in Presque Isle, Maine. During the summer of 1941, he became involved in a National Youth Administration project in coastal Washington County, Maine that showed youth how they could help manage natural resources. "It seemed like a good idea to establish a program up there to take advantage of the clam resources, so I became a shellfish specialist," Wallace chuckles. "Lord knows I knew very little about shellfish but I had a copy of Dr. David Belding's The Soft-Shell Clam Fishery of Massachusetts." After three years in Europe as a meteorologist during World War II, Wallace taught for another year, and in the summer of 1946, began another collaboration with his college friend. This time they undertook a research project for Maine's Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries --- DMR's precursor --- that studied ways to boost the value of marine fisheries to Maine's coastal communities.
Coastal connectionsSince his retirement, much of Wallace's volunteer work has involved gathering and sharing information on shellfish and their habitat. He leads public tours of intertidal areas. He collects, analyzes, and interprets scientific data for local shellfish committees, regional watershed groups, state policy makers, and elected officials. And he's still crusading for community shellfish management and aquaculture as means of fortifying coastal economies. Communities have the ability, in cooperation with the state, to manage and cultivate shellfish successfully, "if you can convince them to spend the money and time," Wallace asserts. Brunswick, he notes, is spending $130,000 this year for shellfish aquaculture, but he says such investment pays off "in sustaining the resource and employing people." "Traditionally, harvesting clams was sort of a last resort for employment," says Wallace, recalling that when he started working with the clam industry, the mollusks sold for a dollar a bushel. "Now, it's up to $100 a bushel in the summer. Clam diggers have done really well," he says, thanks, in part, to advancements in shellfish aquaculture and management that have increased harvests. For example, shellfish can be protected from predators with fences and netting. They can be transplanted from abundant to depleted areas, and can be harvested on a rotating basis to allow shellfish beds of small clams to grow. Increased monitoring and improved coastal water quality have allowed reopening of once-closed shellfish beds. Valuable volunteersA board member for numerous volunteer-based organizations working on behalf of coastal Maine, Wallace says the preservation of coastal resources relies heavily on those groups' contributions. He credits volunteers with expanding coastal water quality monitoring efforts. He praises government agencies with funding some of the volunteers' work in recent years, but asserts, "I think the government was very short-sighted for many years in not taking advantage of them." According to Wallace, "It was always the attitude of the federal and state governments that they only wanted trained biologists to take the water samples." But when state government job cuts in the region reduced the numbers of trained staff that were available, "we had to have volunteers to do the work. It became clear that motivated volunteers could be easily trained." The Phytoplankton Monitoring Program developed by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and DMR illustrates the success of volunteer monitoring, Wallace maintains. One hundred volunteers monitor coastal waters weekly for toxic plankton blooms that can endanger human health by poisoning shellfish that people eat. "We've got sampling stations all along the coast. We're very proud of the program, as we are of the regional efforts," such as the Friends of Casco Bay's volunteer water quality sampling program. Wallace believes that people, including shellfish harvesters, are becoming more interested in being stewards, not just users, of the environment. "Everybody in the world isn't aiming at making a million dollars. They're paying more attention to natural resources. We have more people that are willing to think about those things and think that they are important. I think that there's an attitudinal change. I really do." |
||||||||||
PDF Version
Wallace can't stay away from shellfish. Even his vacations to the Canadian Maritimes sound more like shellfish research junkets than relaxing respites. But with his vigor --- at 81 he still runs to keep in shape for winter skiing --- lounging under an umbrella seems to be the last thing Wallace will ever do on a beach.
At the end of the summer, the agency's commissioner asked Wallace to stay and help staff a new research unit. He did --- for nearly 40 years --- serving as Assistant Director of Research, and as Director of Industry Service. He co-chaired the Biological Advisory Committee of the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission, working with people up and down the Atlantic coast on fisheries issues, and collaborating with Canadian researchers.