Hartford - Southeastern Connecticut shellfishermen and their supporters testified before the General Assembly's Environment Committee on Friday in support of three bills they believe would improve regulatory and logistical impediments to recreational and commercial aquaculture.

All three of the measures are opposed by the state Department of Agriculture, which includes the state aquaculture bureau that regulates commercial and recreational shellfishing.

"We need some help. We're just looking for some oversight," Jim Markow, commercial oysterman and founding president of the Noank Shellfish Cooperative, said before giving his testimony. "We're just not able to get ahead. It's sad."

Markow was joined by Steve Plant of Pawcatuck, also a commercial oysterman and co-op member, and commercial shellfisherman Joseph Gilbert of Briarpatch Enterprises of Milford in supporting a bill that would create an independent council to oversee the state Bureau of Aquaculture. Among others supporting the bill was K.B. Shellfish Inc. of Norwalk.

In written testimony, Plant said the council could "perform third-party mediation and arbitration" between shellfishermen and the bureau.

The council also would give shellfishermen a vehicle to influence the policy and management of the bureau, so that the bureau would carry out its public health responsibilities "while allowing industry the flexibilities necessary to employ good farming practices and run businesses," Gilbert said in his written testimony. Gilbert last year sued the bureau over a shellfish bed lease disagreement that has since been resolved.

The bill is intended to address criticisms by some of the state's commercial shellfishermen and others that the bureau is overly harsh in enforcing regulations and has been an obstacle to growth of the industry in the state.

State Reps. John Scott and Aundré Bumgardner, both Groton Republicans, and state Sen. Andrew Maynard, D-Stonington, are among sponsors of the bill. Scott and Bumgardner are also among sponsors of the other two measures.

In his testimony, Scott said the industry "has been hamstrung by a dysfunctional relationship that exists within the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Aquaculture."

Roger Sherman and Joseph Kane, members of the Groton Shellfish Commission, offered testimony on behalf of another bill that would create a second state lab to test water and meat samples from recreational and commercial shellfish beds at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point campus. Sidney Van Zandt, vice president of the Groton Open Space Association, also urged establishment of the lab at Avery Point, noting that the town's recreational shellfish beds were closed during the peak shellfishing weeks last summer because of gaps in sample collections and testing.

Because the bureau's lab is located in Milford, commission volunteers and commercial shellfishermen have to travel more than an hour away to deliver samples required to keep beds open. Until last year, the samples were picked up locally by a bureau courier, but that person has been reassigned.

"More and more of the burden has been put on us volunteers," Sherman said.

Both Sherman and Kane also support the creation of the oversight council.

Also backing both measures was state Rep. Charles Ferraro, R-West Haven, whose district includes the Milford lab. A second lab in the eastern half of the state, he said, would help shellfishermen in his district by reducing wait times for test results at the existing lab.

Shellfishermen and their supporters also advocated for a third bill to allow 2½-inch cultivated, cage-grown oysters to be sold - a half-inch smaller than the current legal size.

Committee member Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, said the bills are needed.

"It's not just about expanding the industry, it's about keeping it from contracting, which may or may not be because of the actions of the department," he said.

The state Department of Agriculture urged the committee to reject all three bills. In written testimony, the department said that creating the oversight council would compromise the aquaculture bureau's ability to carry out its responsibilities under state statutes and the federal Food and Drug Administration, "potentially placing public health in jeopardy and doing long-term damage to Connecticut's shellfishing industry."

Creating the council could lead to several potential unintended consequences, including increasing severity of shellfish-borne illnesses due to delayed response and loss of FDA approval for Connecticut shellfish to be sold out of state, the department said.

The department also opposed the creation of the second lab, arguing that a state Department of Public Health lab in Rocky Hill has been offered to eastern Connecticut shellfishermen and commissions as an alternative to the Milford lab.

It also opposed reducing the legal size at which oysters can be harvested for sale, saying there is no consensus among shellfishermen, and that "producers have failed to be honest with the department, the governor's staff and with the legislature about their actual practices in terms of the size of oysters that they are harvesting and selling."

j.benson@theday.com

Twitter: @BensonJudy