Most people wouldn't guess that clams and oysters could be objects of regulatory excess, but some local shellfishermen contend that's just what's happening in Connecticut.

"Shellfishermen are being held back by a harsh regulatory environment," said Joe Gilbert, who harvests clams in beds he leases in Stonington, Groton, New London and farther west in Long Island Sound, and has homes in Milford and Stonington. "If we could get the right kind of support from our state, this industry could take off. Now, you can find yourself being a regulatory criminal."

Gilbert and his company, Empire Fisheries, are at the center of a lawsuit pending against the state Department of Agriculture and its Bureau of Aquaculture division over terms of a lease that Gilbert contends are unfair and were changed improperly. At issue is a state lease for shellfishing grounds in Westport, which Gilbert said were made impossibly restrictive after he was named the successful high bidder. The two sides in the case, which is pending in Superior Court in Milford, are scheduled to meet this week on a possible compromise settlement, Gilbert said.

Whatever the outcome, the lawsuit illustrates festering problems between the state agency that governs shellfishing and those who harvest clams and oysters commercially, as well as the volunteers who oversee recreational shellfish beds. Some commercial shellfishermen and recreational shellfish commissioners who would not comment about the situation said they feared retaliation from an agency with power over their livelihoods and whether beds stay open to them. But Robert Rheault, executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, said the problems in Connecticut are real.

"I've never seen it as bad as it's been the last one to two years. It's virtually all-out war," he said. "We have to be able to talk and work together, and that's totally missing from the equation."

Rheault said Connecticut shellfishing interests were ignored by state regulators when they developed and lobbied the General Assembly for new laws to update lease agreements and change other shellfish laws in the last session. When shellfishermen objected and lobbied against the bills, which ultimately were defeated, the agency retaliated, he said, by directing punitive enforcement of shellfish regulations by state Environmental Conservation police. Despite the defeat of the lease bill, the department announced in September that it had enacted a new policy updating its shellfish leases.

State Rep. Ted Moukawsher, D-Groton, called the relationship between commercial harvesters and recreational commissions and the state agency "antagonistic."

"There's a real disconnect between their mission to promote and support the shellfishing industry and the injurious measures they've been taking," he said. "The local shellfishermen are in fear of these guys. They're being thwarted purely out of spite. They should be nurturing this industry."

Citing the pending lawsuit, the state agriculture department and the aquaculture bureau declined to respond to the criticisms.

"We will not be making any comments on the situation until all legal issues are resolved," agriculture department spokesman Steve Jensen said.

In a Sept. 10 news release, however, the department defended what it termed a modernization of its leases, which it said had been "largely unchanged since 1915." The new leases protect taxpayers' investments, the statement said, while also enhancing shellfishing opportunities and protecting the public from vibrio, a warm-water bacteria that caused an illness outbreak in Connecticut for the first time in 2013. Complaints that the lease would allow the state to cancel agreements without cause are unfounded, the statement said.

"There is a small subset of the industry resisting these necessary changes, but the majority of licensed oyster companies are not represented by this coalition," agriculture Commissioner Steven Reviczky said in the statement.

The aquaculture department, for its part, emphasizes that its main mission is to protect the public from contaminated shellfish.

Ed Martin, chairman of the Groton Shellfish Commission, said that he and other volunteer commissioners are growing increasingly frustrated by the bureau's requirements. He joined the commission in 1992 and became chairman 10 years ago.

"Over the years, we're getting less and less help from the Bureau of Aquaculture," he said.

During the past year, volunteer commissions in eastern Connecticut had to assume responsibility for transporting water and meat samples to the Milford lab after a bureau staff member who lived in this area and had served as a courier for the samples was reassigned. The staff member also used to transport samples from the Noank Aquaculture Cooperative, commercial growers who lease town-owned beds in Noank. Now, Martin said, the commercial and recreational sides are working together to get the samples to Milford, sometimes spending a half day or more on the road, but it has become a huge burden.

This summer, the recreational beds in Groton, including the popular clamming areas off Bluff Point State Park, were shut down under an "administrative closure" enacted by the bureau because of deficiencies it found in the amount of water sampling the commission had been doing. Martin and other commission members contend they had no warning from the bureau about any problems, and that the shutdown was excessive and unnecessary.

Not only were hundreds of recreational shellfishermen disappointed during the prime months, but the commission also lost an important source of the revenue it uses to seed the beds when permit sales dropped due to the closures, they said.

"We're a bunch of volunteers who are ready to pack it in," Martin said. "It's just gotten so insane."

While not responding specifically to the issues in Groton, aquaculture bureau staff said the Food and Drug Administration monitors water and meat sampling in the state's shellfish beds. If testing protocols are found deficient, it could threaten the ability of the state's commercial shellfishermen to sell their product out of state, they said.

"(FDA officials) critique us very heavily," said Kristin DeRosia-Banick, environmental analyst at the aquaculture bureau. "The threat is that they will stop our interstate commerce in shellfish."

Peter Harris, chairman of the Waterford-East Lyme Shellfish Commission, said keeping the beds in the Niantic River open for recreational fishermen has become more difficult. Those beds also were closed for much of the summer.

"Running a recreational shellfishing operation is a challenging task, to comply with all the regulations," he said. "Now we have to get the water samples and the clam meat samples to them to test. We're paying our wardens now to drive the samples to the lab. The bureau is working under a tight budget, and we work with them as best we can."

Don Murphy, chairman of the Stonington Shellfish Commission, said that part of the problem is that the bureau is more attentive to the western part of the state, where most of the commercial beds are located.

"There's not much effort they're putting into the eastern part of the state," he said. "We would certainly prefer to have more services from the bureau. I would like to have a stronger relationship with the bureau, and help with transportation (of samples)."

A plan for enhancing the state's recreational and commercial shellfish resources is being developed by Connecticut Sea Grant, based at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point campus in Groton. Currently in draft form, it is slated for completion by early next year, said Tessa Getchis, extension aquaculture specialist at Sea Grant.

In a list of issues, challenges and opportunities developed in brainstorming sessions with stakeholders, the need to improve the relationship between the regulators and shellfishing interests is a main theme.

Getchis said there is a need for better coordination of water testing, for commercial growers to be consulted before bills that affect them are submitted to the legislature, and for a better understanding by commercial and recreational interests about the bureau's responsibility to protect the public from the effects of pollution and bacteria.

"The communication definitely needs to be improved between the growers and the department and the commissions and the department," she said.

j.benson@theday.com

Twitter: @BensonJudy