The National Park Service is criticizing legislation sponsored by independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine that’s intended to protect traditional intertidal clamming and worm harvesting in Acadia National Park.
King told a hearing of the National Parks subcommittee that his bill is simply designed to make sure traditional uses of the park by Maine wormers and clammers can continue.
“The idea, I think, as we all agree, is to allow traditional clamming, worming, periwinkles — as has been used,” he says. “The discussion is about mechanized and about other types of marine organisms.”
But Robert Vogel, acting deputy director of the National Park Service, testified that the Park Service wants to limit uses to current levels and allow the secretary of the interior to develop rules to protect the park from overuse by mechanical harvesting devices and by expansion of harvesting to other crops.
“Considering the 3.3 million visitors coming to Acadia last year and the sensitive nature of the intertidal area, that these activities should be subject to those regulations and rules that the secretary deems necessary,” he says.
The full Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which King is a member, will now consider the bill.
