Welcome Gift Horse

Hard to believe that a few short years ago, people around here were wondering whether there would ever be enough scallops again for meaningful commercial harvest. Well, now East Hampton knows those fears were unfounded. A bumper crop has been found in the bays and harbors that is so plentiful that the retail price for a pound of the succulent, sweet meats has been around $20.

There are so many scallops that an East Hampton Town Trustee pilot project to collect the emptied shells for return to the waterways was met with so much success that a mound of them drew complaints from neighbors at Three Mile Harbor and will soon be moved elsewhere. Such a problem would have been unimaginable in the days when baymen and women just about gave up their dredges.

Some time back, we wrote about making scallops the poster child for the restoration of local estuaries to their former glory. No one can yet say exactly why these gems of the bays have returned, but we truly hope that conditions remain to their liking.