LIVELIHOODS
Scallopers opt not to take Fridays off
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Given four days to mull it over, Nantucket's scalloping fleet opted not to push for a four-day work week in an attempt to raise the current wholesale price of $9 a pound.

At an emergency Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board and concurrent Board of Selectmen meeting held last Thursday afternoon, after nearly all in the audience raised their hands in agreement, SHAB opted not to take action on scallopers taking Fridays off to temporarily choke off the scallop supply in hopes local buyers would bump up the price.

Despite the scallopers retreating from their push for Fridays off, the ensuing discussion spawned two potential long-term solutions that could ultimately put more money in fishermen's pockets. These include a unified approach to marketing Nantucket's most delicious crop and the construction of a public shanty, which would free fishermen from the restraint of opening their scallops at island seafood store shanties where they are restricted to selling their catch.

The dip to $9 on Nov. 9, after the Nov. 1 opening day boat price of $11 a pound, is due to a glut of bay scallops on the market harvested from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and several towns on Cape Cod.

After SHAB Chairman Wendy McCrae opened the meeting, exclaiming, "What a wonderful problem, we have too many scallops," she then asked for comments from the crowd of around 60 islanders, most of them scallopers. (About 40 fishermen heeded scalloper Dann Pronk's call for an impromptu gathering at the Fairgrounds Restaurant on Nov. 11 to discuss how to handle bargain basement prices unseen since the boom season of 2004/2005.) At first, scallopers were silent, turning to one another and checking to see if there was anyone who would speak.

Pronk chimed in first, explaining to SHAB and the selectmen why he and the rest of the scallopers were backpedaling and that he felt there had to be another way to galvanize the boat price and keep it up in the future.

"I reconsidered it," he said. "You take Fridays off and now you're down to a four-day work week…you get cold weather, now you're down to two-day weeks, and I can't afford to do that."

The only fish retailer to speak up at the meeting, Ted Jennison, co-owner of Nantucket Seafoods, also advised a wait-and-see approach.

"We're only 12 days into the season, so it's a pretty short time of year to freak out about the kind of price we're getting right now," he said. "Nine dollars is not far off from $10, so I think you've got to see how the whole season is going to go."

While the discussion began as one of retraction, it evolved into a brainstorming session, one that capitalized on the rare occurrence of so many scallopers being in the same room at one time. SHAB member Doug Smith urged all to join the Nantucket Shellfish Association.

"I don't think anybody feels like there is going to be a quick fix here, but the fact that there was such a radical price drop gives us the impetus to come up with long-range solutions," said scalloper Ron Shepherd.

Chief among these proposed solutions was creating some form of marking, a stamp or sticker, identifying all scallops leaving the island as genuine Nantucket bay scallops to protect against bay scallops from other towns being sold as Nantucket bays. Pronk suggested patenting the Nantucket bay scallop brand as way to ensure their price and demand remains strong.

Other scallopers lobbied for the construction of a public shanty where anyone could open scallops and not be beholden to buyers' boat prices set for those who open at their shanties. And Pronk offered that it would be easier for shellfish wardens to keep track of scallopers instead of driving around to all the shanties to check each day's catch for seed and mounded boxes.

"I'm sick and tired of buyers telling us how hard it is," said scalloper and former town biologist Ken Kelley. "When we're at the buyers' shanties, we're forced to sell to the buyers. Why doesn't the town take some of the money out of the propagation fund and put a shanty down at the town pier and maybe we'll see a little competition."

After voting 7-0 to make no change to the current five-day fishing schedule, McRae announced that last night's SHAB meeting was to be held in a larger venue. The topics of pre-season scallop populations, creating a public shanty and marketing were

added to the agenda for the Nov. 20 meeting. I