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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHSAB July 12 2011Nantucket Harbor & Shellfish Advisory Board Minutes of Meeting held on July 12, 2011 Approved: Conference Room, 2 Fairgrounds Road Call to Order at 4:33 p.m. Members Present: Chairman Dr. Peter Boyce, Peter Brace, Doug Smith, Mike Glowacki, Bill Blount Members Absent: Wendy McRae and Bob Rank Marine Dept: Dave Fronzuto and Tara Riley BOS: Whitey Willauer Others: Steve Heck, Tara’s other intern, May Taylor Approval of Agenda: Approved unanimously. Approval of Minutes: Approved unanimously. Chairman’s Report: Dr. Boyce mentioned he had some fliers for the July 14 water quality forum held at the Coffin School. Marine Department Report: 4:36 - Dave Fronzuto Mr. Fronzuto recapped the previous two weeks on the harbor: Although there were no incidents during the Iron Teams Race on June 26, because the surfboard paddle, swimming and beach run were shifted to the north shore due to nesting shorebirds on Coatue and despite no incidents with perfect weather, Mr. Fronzuto told the organizers he reserves the right to cancel the swimming and paddling legs due to inclement weather. He noted that because of high winds during the 2010 race, he canceled those portions of the race. For the Independence Day week, Mr. Fronzuto reported no incidents with about 140 boats that motored out to watch the fireworks at Jetties Beach. Mr. Fronzuto said his department successfully responded to a man having heart attack off of Tuckernuck around midnight and he noted that Assistant Harbormaster Sheila Lucy’s exact placement of navigational buoys made getting to and from the man’s boat quick and easy. The patient was flown off Tuckernuck by helicopter. Mr. Fronzuto mentioned he had navigational chartlets for all of the marked channels in Nantucket waters and that Ms. Lucy taught boater safety courses to two groups of teenagers. On the subject of gray/black water pumpouts, Mr. Fronzuto noted that during the first 12 days of July, his department pumped more than 5,600 gallons from boats in the harbor. This is because there a lot of bigger boats with bigger holding tanks this season. In 2010, they pumped 24,000 gallons total, a little less than 2009. This doesn’t count anything the Nantucket Boat Basin has pumped this season. Mr. Fronzuto noted that in 2010 for the same week, he around 80 boats in the anchorage not counting the rental moorings and this year there were only 12. He added that in 2007, the town’s sewage pumping dropped significantly, but the last three years, they’ve pumped around 24,000-25,000 gallons. Dr. Boyce complimented Ms. Lucy for the placement of navigational buoys. Propagation report: Tara Riley Ms. Riley introduced a new summer intern, May Taylor, who is living fulltime on Nantucket and mentioned another volunteer, Georgia Orenstein, who is here through mid-August. As of July 12, Ms. Riley reported that they have done two bay scallop larval releases; 10 million in Fifth Bend and 20 million at Crosby’s. She added that they wanted to try to do one more spawn and release, but they were having some difficulty finding scallops that will spawn in captivity. While they struggled with the scallops, Ms. Riley said they spawned 10 million quahogs and put them in the upwellers in the boathouse. Ms. Riley also reported that Nantucket Land Council-sponsored tours of the boathouse are continuing in August and September, and that anyone who wants to tour the boathouse should call her. And, Ms. Riley said that a film crew would be visiting the boathouse on July 14 to shoot some footage for a short film with the Land Council’s help. She added that some donations to the town’s propagation efforts are coming in and that they are really helping her efforts. Also, over the weekend, Tobey Leske toured the lab while researching a story he was working on for the July 14 issue of the Inquirer & Mirror. Ms. Riley said the town started its oyster grant with Andy Roberts and the Southeastern Massachusetts Aquaculture Center, and that she did receive the oysters two weeks ago. They are monitoring bottom cages at Pocomo Meadows in comparison to Mr. Ryder’s floating cages at the Head of the Harbor. The town’s own oysters in the floating upweller system are doing OK. She added they want to get the floating upweller system going ASAP as soon as they can get shellfish that can float on the screen. Dr. Boyce noted that the boathouse lab is buzzing with activity and really plugging along on many shellfish propagation fronts. Mr. Fronzuto added to his report by distributing copies of a grant application letter for his department from Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management for coastal management principles for erosion control for the beach management part of his department. It is a CZM pilot program to help coastal communities deal with storm mitigation, erosion control and sea level rise. No money, but two years of assistance from Regional CZM Director Steve McKenna. Awarded to Boston, Duxbury, Plymouth and Oak Bluffs last year. This year, they’re doing it by region. Mr. Fronzuto also distributed copies of the 2010 estuaries and salt ponds water quality report for the board. Water Quality: Tara Riley Ms. Riley reported that Mr. Heck and Ms. Taylor have been doing all the water sampling of the harbors and pond, and sending it to the state certified lab on the Vineyard. She added that the reports for June are available upon request and that having a lab on the Vineyard makes it possible to see water quality results on a month-to-month basis. They have been doing the harbors twice a month and the ponds once a month. Dr. Boyce commended Ms. Riley, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Heck for their work and the efficiency of the water quality-testing program. Mr. Brace asked Mr. Fronzuto about the possibility of Nantucket having it’s own state certified water quality testing lab, but Mr. Fronzuto stated that it would cost the town too much because of the wide variety of testing needs on island. Mr. Willauer asked Mr. Fronzuto if Nantucket has documented a rise in sea level over time. Mr. Fronzuto stated he didn’t know, but that he knew of CZM compiling data for all the coastal regions. However, Mr. Fronzuto said sea level rise was a major topic in the aforementioned CZM grant application he filed recently. Mr. Fronzuto added that he uses sensors at the Steamship Wharf and Station Brant Point to predict storm surge but didn’t know about historical data. Mr. Brace said he noticed the decking of the finger piers on Old North Wharf were under water at high tide without a full moon and that harbor water seemed to be reaching further and further up onto Coatue at high tide. Mr. Blount doubted the predictions of 24 inches, but Dr. Boyce said that would be over 100 years. Mr. Brace stated that the predictions are a moving target. Old Business: There was no Old Business to discuss. New Business: 2010 Water Quality Report Dr. Boyce said the report was a poor one and that he would go through it for the board. Dr. Boyce said the Summary of Results was very distressing to him because SMAST (The School of Marine and Science Technology at UMass Dartmouth) and its director, Dr. Brian Howes, among many other shortcomings, didn’t meet the deadline for the final report and the original, individual data. He added that because the report came so late in the year that it is of no use to the town in improving the program. Dr. Boyce pointed out that the nitrogen level numbers on the data chart were just averages and not month by month, which he said didn’t reflect spikes in nitrogen flow into island waterways during the summer months. Ms. Riley said she did speak with Roland Simimy, Dr. Howes’ right-hand man, about him supplying the town with monthly averages for the public water quality forum on July 14. Dr. Boyce noted that are some interesting trends when one looks at the individual week-by-week numbers, but that these numbers are not in this report. Dr. Boyce said the data on the streams of nutrients flowing into the harbor in various places couldn’t be compared with numbers recorded monthly to an annual average as was done in this report, but that comparisons can be made between historical stream measurements year to year. Dr. Boyce said he would prefer more frequent stream samplings to know when fertilizer is being applied to the cranberry bogs and that at the very least, months need to be compared with each other and that it’s bad science to compare months to the annual average. Dr. Boyce stated that SMAST came up with trophic state numbers, but didn’t document their formula for arriving at their results, so there is no way of checking their numbers or how to calculate the trophic state. Mr. Fronzuto asked Ms. Riley if she was sampling the streams every month this year. Ms. Riley replied yes, but that in some months, the streams are dry. Mr. Fronzuto said if SMAST had provided the originally requested monthly data that the town would have been able to adjust its testing protocol if it needed to such as testing water quality in the streams once a month. Dr. Boyce, in a draft letter he proposes to send to the Board of Selectmen on the report’s shortcomings, said the chlorophyll varies by a factor of four or five. The brown tide bloom in Nantucket Harbor last summer made those numbers go way up and Dr. Boyce said that data, which the report does not reflect with its annual averages, is vital to the board and the Marine Department understanding why 40% of the scallops in cages were lost in 2009. Given the delicate political situation of still needing harbor modeling data from SMAST, Dr. Boyce asked the board how it wanted to proceed. Mr. Brace stated that sending letter wouldn’t change the results, but Mr. Glowacki said it would set the record straight on what the board needs in the future. Dr. Boyce stated he wanted to get the letter to the selectmen before the forum to make them aware of the omissions. Mr. Fronzuto said that the BOS are already aware of the holes in the report because of the number of citizens calling in to complain about it. He added that a conference call with himself, Mr. Howes and BOS Chairman Rick Atherton was scheduled for July 13 to get Mr. Howes to include the information missing from the report in July 14th’s presentation. Mr. Fronzuto said SMAST needs to put the report in layman’s terms for the public and do the same for the TMDL (total maximum daily load) number for Madaket when SMAST presents this report in August, but he agreed with Dr. Boyce’s assessment of the report and said that the board is within its right to question the specifics of the report. Mr. Fronzuto advised that the board’s letter to BOS be written plainly and simply. Mr. Brace and Mr. Glowacki agreed. Mr. Willauer expressed anxiety over SMAST’s ability to produce nitrogen numbers in relation to sewering Monomoy through the models they’re going to run for the town. Mr. Fronzuto said Dr. Howes claimed he could do it based on lot size, but Mr. Glowacki added that Dr. Howes has been unable to validate his assumptions for the last 15 years. Mr. Smith motioned that HSAB send Dr. Boyce’s letter to the BOS as is. Mr. Fronzuto agreed with this motion and the timing of sending the letter to the BOS. He added that since private donors funded the $46,800 report, they too deserved the agreed upon information, as the Marine Dept. is having to answer to the donors. Mr. Brace said the board is doing itself a disservice by not responding to the report and that Dr. Boyce’s was direct and well written. In answer to Mr. Willauer’s inquiry on what the presentation would be on July 14, Mr. Fronzuto said to expect a shined up version made to look more complete than it really is and that the island’s water quality is not too bad when this is not entirely true. Mr. Smith said Mr. Fronzuto should ask for real-time data from SMAST that Ms. Riley has been asking for since January. Mr. Fronzuto said that because of SMAST’s lackluster job on this report, he is not hiring them again for Nantucket’s water quality analysis. He added that his department had always done this analysis itself over the last 14 years. Mr. Brace stated that for a water quality forum in August 2010, he understood that its sponsor, ReMain Nantucket, had told its speakers not to report anything negative about harbor pollution. Mr. Glowacki clarified for the board that ReMain wanted only the speakers facts, not their opinions. Mr. Boyce called for a vote on sending his letter to the BOS and the vote was unanimously in favor of Mr. Smith’s motion. Mr. Willauer lamented that the town would still have to rely on Dr. Howes for political force in convincing voters of the necessity of water quality improvement projects such as sewering Monomoy, raising the jetties or dredging. Mr. Fronzuto said it’s balancing act and that the BOS should deal with the politics in the future. Mr. Smith asked about the Land Council’s $10,000-challenge grant and Mr. Fronzuto said Ms. Riley has had tremendous response from the public. Mr. Willauer asked if this grant was for structural repairs to the boathouse. Ms. Riley replied that she and Mr. Fronzuto were writing a grant proposal to the Community Preservation Committee to fund that work. Recap and Items for Next Meeting: Dr. Boyce stated that he would send the final draft of his letter on the 2010 water quality report to Mr. Atherton tonight. Adjournment: 5:40 p.m. - Unanimous Next Meetings: Aug. 9 and Sept. 6 and 20 Respectfully submitted, Peter B. Brace, Secretary