Massive Clam Kill in Upper Narragansett Bay

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

John Torgan of Save The Bay holds the tiny sand-like clams killed with sea stars and other clams by tropical storm Irene. (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News staff)RIVERSIDE — The stench is hard to miss. 

A powerful, albeit natural, effect of tropical storm Irene are hundreds of thousands of beached sea stars and baby clams that cover the sandy shoreline along the Providence River.

The mass aquatic kill was the result of the huge influx of wind and rain that raked upper Narragansett Bay on Sunday.

Save The Bay's John Torgan suggested large waves, the storm surge and low levels of oxygen in the bay during the summer combined to create the die-off.

"They just gave up and they end up here," Torgan said while sifting through the white blanket of tiny shells, most no bigger than a pea.

The tiny steamer clams formed a 100-yard blanket littered with displaced sea stars, razor clams and quahogs. The decay created a smell that enveloped the Rosa Larisa Park Beach and nearby Crescent Park carousel.

Torgan believes the die-off happended well before the diesel oil spill that occurred up the river near Dexter Street on Wednesday. Some 50 gallons of diesel fuel drained into the Seekonk River. The total amount of the spill exceeded 50,000 gallons of fuel, Torgan said. 

Scientist Chris Deacutis of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program said initial evidence suggests that the storm hit the habitat during a series of cyclical spring tides, which have higher high tides and lower low tides. The low tides in particular allowed the potent winds and powerful waves to pull sea life from this shallow stretch of the bay. 

"What it probably did was, as [the tide] went out the strong winds ripped out anything that can't hold on to something," Deacutis said. "They were in a super-exposed condition."