Hard Work It's hard work in the mud, but Lindsey James, center, and other Wiscasset clam diggers know the importance of keeping their livelihood going.

Call them mud flats, clam flats, or flats - they're not any good for boating, except at high tide, maybe. At low tide they sometimes stink, they're hard to walk on and many would say, they're just plain ugly.

Despite that, there are a few hardy souls who venture out at low tide to dig for clams or worms. These people would say Wiscasset's mud flats are important to the economy of the region - and they would be correct, according to Maine's Department of Marine Resources.

The department estimates that each acre of productive mud flats containing clams is worth $2,500 a year. Wiscasset has about 170 acres of clam flats. Although they are not all productive, if they were, they would be worth $425,000 per year.

In an effort to make the flats more productive, clam diggers have gotten actively involved in "seeding" the flats that are not currently open for digging. Wiscasset has 14 commercial diggers, 12 of whom are Wiscasset residents. Each licensed digger is required to complete 20 hours of conservation work to obtain a license.

Although the requirement is 20 hours, members of the town's Shellfish Committee say many of the diggers put in a lot more than that - some as many as 100 hours a year. Regardless of how much time they put in, none of the diggers are paid from the shellfish budget. That money is used to pay a clam warden, shared with other towns like Woolwich, to enforce the shellfish regulations and keep the poachers out.

Members of the Shellfish Committee say there were once 28 diggers, who averaged about $30,000 a year in income. There were so many diggers, in fact, that many of the flats became depleted. There was speculation that the industry, or profession, would die out.

In an effort to prevent that from happening, Wiscasset passed a shellfish ordinance. Those who wrote the ordinance used the word "optimization" in referring to the clam flats, an interesting and productive label applied to what many see as just plain brown mud.

Restricting the number of places where diggers can dig, and restricting the number of diggers is now handled by the Shellfish Committee.

The Shellfish Committee buys clam seed from Beal's Island Institute and grows them to "seedable" size of about 3/8 of an inch. This is done by using an upweller, which is a float with an open center. A description of how the upweller is used is included in the town's 2005 annual report:

"In the open area there are boxes with screening on them. The clams are placed in the boxes, and the upweller is connected to a mooring in an area where the current is about five knots. The nutrient rich water flows into the center of the upweller and into the bottom of the boxes. It flows up through the screen holding the clams and exits a pipe near the top of the box. Every couple of weeks the boxes are removed, the clams are cleaned, the boxes are cleaned and the clams are sized and returned to the boxes for continued growth. As the water temperature decreases at some point the clams stop growing. In November the clams are removed from the boxes, packaged in coolers and transported back to the Beals Island Hatchery to spend the winter."

After returning them to Wiscasset in the summer of 2006, the clams continued to grow in the upweller until they were about 3/4 of an inch, when they were ready to be seeded. Once there are natural seed clams growing in Wiscasset again, there will no longer be a need to buy them.

For years, the flats next to Maine Yankee, the nuclear power plant that closed in 1997, had no clams. After years of seeding, these flats now have clams.

"After many annual seedings at Bailey Cove, near the old Maine Yankee site, we find that natural clam spat is now occurring in adjacent flats," the Shellfish Committee says.

The old saying, "You need clams to get clams" seems to be proving true. Bailey Cove will be opened for harvesting later this summer for the first time in seven years, due to the efforts of the diggers.

Although the town allows up to 30 recreational licenses for digging clams, only five or six people usually get licenses. While commercial diggers pay $150 for a license, recreational licenses only cost $25; recreational licenses are free to senior citizens. Recreational license holders aren't required to do any conservation work. Because there's not as much money to be made in digging clams in Wiscasset as there used to be, many of the diggers hold down full time or part time jobs as well.

The Shellfish Committee has been helped in its conservation efforts by Professor Brian Beal at the University of Machias, who has provided technical assistance.

Members of the Shellfish Committee include Donald James, chairman; Paul Dickson, Tim James, David Sutter, Richard Forrest, Michael Smith and Stuart Wyman.