U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, speaks with Roger Frate Sr., owner of Darien Seafood Market at 1941 Post Rd.[/caption]
Continued use of certain pesticides is what’s devastated the population of lobsters in Long Island Sound, Roger Frate Sr., owner of Darien Seafood Market, told U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Tuesday when Murphy stopped by for a visit.
Murphy was in town to promote a new bill he’s filed with fellow Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and the two senators representing New York in the Senate — the Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Act.
The bill would maintain $65 million in federal funding to improve sewage treatment plants and restore habitats for plants and wildlife along the coast.
Frate, president of a lobsterman’s association covering the western part of Long Island Sound, told Murphy that decades of pollution from sewage treatment plants never devastated lobsters as much as the sudden use of some pesticides to fight West Nile Virus in 1998 and 1999. In 1998 and 1999 there was a widespread, sudden collapse of the lobster population in the sound, and it hasn’t entirely recovered since.
Connecticut has banned the use of certain pesticides, including methoprene, other than in exceptional circumstances along the coast, but Frate pointed out that New York state has refused to ban them and still uses them for mosquito control.
Frate and Tony Carlo of Norwalk both take lobsters out of the sound, and they say this year’s population — after a cool winter and spring — looks better than previous years, but Frate says the lobsters continue to die off over the course of the season, beginning near the New York state border and nearby Greenwich, then off the coast of Stamford and, six weeks after the Greenwich lobsters die-off, in Darien.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Tuesday afternoon speaks with Tony Carlo, a part-time lobsterman, at Darien Seafood Market.
“The lobsters right now are looking nice and healthy,” Carlo said. “There’s been a huge improvement since 2012.” But the population isn’t nearly back to pre-1999 levels, he said. Most lobstermen went out of business as the population sunk in the 1990s, especially in 1999, according to various news reports.
After a storm, when pesticides used on land are washed into the Sound, particularly certain pesticides used against West Nile Virus, lobstermen see fewer lobsters in their traps, Frate said.
Frate wants to see methoprine and some other pesticides banned by New York state the way Connecticut banned them a few years ago, he said. Frate told Murphy that he hoped the federal government would ban them. Murphy said his bill might be used to persuade the New York Legislature to ban them, using the “carrot” of federal funds rather than the “stick” of an outright ban.
Roger Frate Sr. and his wife, Joan Frate. There have been Frates in Darien for five generations.
“Part of it [the bill] is a sweetener to New York” to get the state to change its pesticide policy, Murphy said. “In order to get New York to change their practice, you’ve got to put some money on the table. […] It’s important that we make sure that if New York wants that money, they’ve got to change their pesticide practices.”
When Murphy asked Frate how long it would take for the lobster population to recover if New York passed the same kind of legislation that Connecticut enacted, Frate said, “Five years would be good. Maybe less, maybe less.”
“Both states desperately need this money in order to take the next steps in water cleanup,” Murphy said. “This is just a tragedy, what has happened to the lobsters in the sound. We shouldn’t accept it as inevitable.”
Frate, who will turn 70 in September, said he’s been fishing from boats for the past six decades.
The Frates continue to fish in Long Island Sound, said Joan Frate, Roger’s wife. Their son, Roger Frate Jr., still goes out on his boat regularly, she said, and he’s been taking his son with him after the boy’s school day ends.