Largest Clam Contest Sunday

The East Hampton Town Trustees will hold their 27th annual Largest Clam Contest on Sunday at noon at the Donald Lamb Building on Bluff Road in Amagansett.

The contest, which serves to educate the public as to the trustees’ role in town government and celebrate the bounty of the waterways under their jurisdiction, is a perennially popular post-summer event.

Through Saturday, contestants can take clams harvested from Lake Montauk, Napeague Harbor, Accabonac Harbor, or Three Mile Harbor to the Amagansett Seafood Store, Gosman’s Fish Market in Montauk, the Seafood Shop in Wainscott, or Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett. Winning entries will be named on Sunday in categories including largest overall clam and the largest clam taken from each harbor by both adults and juniors age 4 to 14. A clam chowder competition will also be on the menu. Prizes have been donated by shops and restaurants here.

Town Councilman Fred Overton’s Bonac chowder will be served to the gathering, and clams on the half shell, shucked by members of the trustee board, will also be free to those attending.

Representatives of the town’s shellfish hatchery will explain the ongoing effort to seed town harbors with shellfish and keep the waters pristine. Officials from Concerned Citizens of Montauk will offer information about septic systems and water quality. An overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus, leaching from aging septic systems, is blamed for the harmful algal blooms that have beset waterways, resulting in shellfish kills and destruction of eelgrass beds, which provide essential habitat for marine life.

Members of the East End Classic Boat Society are also expected to be in attendance. The society typically displays and sells raffle tickets for the boat its members have constructed over the past year. This year’s offering, a sunshine tender, will be raffled in December.