After more than month of being closed, officials at the Maine Department of Marine Resources have given the go-ahead for Downeast shellfish harvesters to return to work after parts of the flats were closed because of a rare and potentially toxic algal bloom.
The Portland Press Herald reported that the DMR announced on Monday that it was reopening harvesting areas between Penobscot Bay and Machiasport. Areas farther east had been reopened Oct. 25.
DMR scientists and researchers told the Press Herald that they are still unsure what caused the toxic Pseudo-nitzschia bloom, but added that early testing by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences implicated a phytoplankton undocumented in the Gulf of Maine as a possible culprit.
