HomeMy WebLinkAboutHSAB Oct. 4 2011Nantucket Harbor & Shellfish Advisory Board
Minutes of Meeting held on Oct. 4, 2011
Approved:
Conference Room, 2 Fairgrounds Road
Call to Order at 4:32 p.m.
Members Present: Dr. Peter Boyce, Doug Smith, Peter Brace, Bob
Rank, Wendy McCrae and Bill Blount
Members Absent: Michael Glowacki
Marine Dept: Dave Fronzuto and Tara Riley
BOS: Whitey Willauer
Others: Matt Herr
Approval of Agenda:
Adopted unanimously.
Approval of Minutes:
Sept. 20, 2011: Adopted unanimously, Mr. Blount abstained
Ms. McCrae clarified the board’s discussion about needing to have
a member of the Marine Department at all HSAB meetings and
stated that the board flounders without either Dave or Tara
attending. Mr. Fronzuto said that if during the summer, assistant
harbormaster Sheila Lucy could give the Marine Department report
and general summer activity. During the scallop season, the
shellfish warden, Dwayne Dugan, could do the shellfish season
report. Also, the boat that sank off the east jetty was 40 feet, not
30.
Sept. 27, 2011 minutes: Adopted unanimously
Chairman’s Report:
Letter to the BOS on Great Point Wildlife Refuge
Dr. Boyce made checked to see if all board members had read the
letter that he had written on HSAB’s behalf to the selectmen.
Dr. Boyce asked Mr. Fronzuto to comment on the Egan Institute’s
Maritime Festival held on Oct. 1 in his report.
Marine Department Report: 4:50pm
Maritime Festival
Mr. Fronzuto reported that the crowd size was a little better than
2010’s festival if not equal, but that it’s hard to count patrons
because there’s no on single entrance. He added that the marine lab
was open to public for tours and that there was a scallop boat on
display, but that the Maritime Festival suffered because that
Saturday was also the first day of recreational scalloping on which
Mr. Fronzuto counted around 500 people scalloping in Madaket
and town. And, during that day, the Marine Department also
responded to three disabled boats.
Mr. Fronzuto asked when the next Harbor Plan Implementation
Committee meeting is because he’s been contacted several time by
people who want to help fund the Nantucket Blue Pages, including
on Oct. 1. He added that there’s a faction of people who want to
help the harbor, but they don’t know where to put their money. He
asked the HPIC discuss this at their next meeting.
Recreational scallop season
Mr. Fronzuto reported that the season began Oct. 1 and that it was
quieter on Oct. 2. He said there’s a lot of seed around the harbor
including Monomoy and Wauwinet, “pretty good” adult quantities
in Second Bend and Third Bend, and off of North Cambridge in
Madaket. In terms of what people were getting, Mr. Fronzuto
reported a lot of half-bushels and a lot of bushels from the bends
on Coatue.
Mr. Fronzuto said his office had sold 1,250 recreational licenses.
He said he appreciated HSAB’s support for the $50 a week non-
resident recreational shellfish permit, which the selectmen
approved at its Sept. 28 meeting. He said that people are reporting
a lot of 2 ¼-inch scallops off Monomoy that he’s hoping will grow
to maturity by Nov. 1.
Mr. Brace asked Mr. Fronzuto if he gets a lot of people who
scallop on Saturday, the end of the week, and then scallop on
Sunday, the beginning of a new week. He said that he used to have
a lot of problems with that before he changed recreational
scalloping days to Wednesday through Sunday.
Statewide shellfish planting regs
On Sept. 20, Ms. Riley attended a meeting on this in Hyannis held
by the Mass Division of Marine Fisheries, which held the meeting
to clarify how they expected the release of juvenile shellfish to
occur and how they would deem such projects appropriate. She
added that guidelines state that a town cannot close an approved
shellfish bed for longer than six years. She said the guidelines were
finalized on Oct. 3 with the final copy coming out in December.
Mr. Fronzuto said he recently got the permits for the town to grow
shellfish.
Ms. Riley reported that for her propagation efforts at the marine
lab, she has two more dives to do in the harbor to evaluate their
three larval releases and then there are two larval releases to try to
evaluate in Madaket by Nov. 1, so she and her crew are working
on that now. She added she saw significant amounts of seed around
the areas of the first two releases. Ms. Riley also said she and the
Marine Department are going to try to get a paper published in the
Journal of Shellfish Research representing this work and do several
presentations at upcoming presentations.
Marine lab activities
Ms. Riley reported that the summer water quality sampling ended
during the last week of September and that now, she and her teams
are analyzing the data. Also, the Marine Department will likely be
opening Sesachacha and Hummock ponds to the ocean between
Oct. 15 and 20.
At the marine lab, Ms. Riley reported that they are in the process
of shutting down the pumps and preparing to transfer scallops into
cages to overwinter them and she is looking for an estimate for an
upgrade of the electrical power needed to run new equipment for
the 2012 season. She said her plan for the winter is to increase
algae production to keep up with increased amount of shellfish she
is raising at the lab.
Ms. Riley said they are donating the leftover algae to Cheryl
Beaton at the Maria Mitchell Association who needs it for tropical
fish in their aquarium.
During the Maritime Festival, her tours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
were not as well attended as 2010’s, possibly because many people
had already been through the lab. Also, she is in the process of
teaching five shellfish labs to eighth grade students at the
Nantucket New School.
Ms. Riley reported that on Oct. 3, she did a dive about 100 yards
off the UMass field station and collected a bushel of all adult
scallops in around 20 minutes.
Dr. Boyce said the early release Ms. Riley did populated a good
portion of the Head of the Harbor. Dr. Boyce noted that there was
a lot of black algae on his cages and that he thought it was
indicative of a larger problem.
Mr. Willauer inquired about the presence of Leidy’s comb jellies
this year, known to eat scallop larvae. Ms. Riley reported seeing a
lot during her recent dives in the harbor.
Old Business:
Moorings in productive eelgrass beds
Mr. Fronzuto said his department is working from a couple
approaches including software called Moorings Online and re-
examining the mooring field boundaries set by the Army Corps of
Engineers. This allows the gridding of the moorings in the harbor,
so they have addresses, but the Monomoy moorings are not
gridded.
On Helix moorings, Mr. Fronzuto said that the Great Harbor Yacht
Club converted 30 of its moorings to Helix moorings. He added
that all moorings in the harbor must be pulled by Oct. 15 so
scallopers can fish in those areas. Mr. Fronzuto reported that there
are alternatives to the traditional chain moorings now being tested
by the Division of Marine Fisheries in Chatham in Pleasant Bay
that use heavy duty rubber bands and shorter painter lines.. He said
over the winter he would go lay out of the mooring fields in the
mooring software to keep all moorings within the mooring field
and out of eelgrass beds as much as possible. Mr. Fronzuto said
this effort to better organize the mooring field floundered after
Gary Glowacki died prior to which the late Mr. Glowacki used
aerial photography in aiding the Marine Department with the
gridding process.
Mr. Fronzuto offered that if the board wanted to, he would help it
work on amended the mooring bylaw to meet this need via a Town
Meeting Article. Mr. Smith noted that the Shellfish Management
Plan has some action items in it that might help with this situation,
possibly work up some bylaw changes that allows for flexibility in
some of these areas whenever they get heavy concentrations of
scallop seed so it can be protected.
Mr. Fronzuto agreed with Mr. Smith, adding that the alternate
moorings need to be explored such as running a line between two
Helix moorings and putting multiple boats on them as is employed
at Children’s Beach, putting all like boats together in certain areas
to keep them from hitting each other because each one doesn’t
need its own mooring, disturbing the bottom less.
Mr. Brace said that sometimes the Google Earth maps can be as
old as four years old. He suggested that Mr. Fronzuto explore
using Dr. Greg Hinson’s kite photography or Ocean Wings pilot
George Reitof to get current aerial photos of the mooring field. Mr.
Fronzuto said the town’s aerial photos are circa 2007 and Dr.
Boyce said the current Google Earth images of Nantucket are May
2010. Mr. Fronzuto added that he needs current aerial photos
during July August.
Mr. Fronzuto stated that he is not a big fan of Helix moorings,
except when the metal cap is placed at their bottom for scallop
dredges to go over, because they can’t be moved like mushroom
anchors can. Mr. Fronzuto suggested inviting the mooring handlers
to a future HSAB meeting. Mr. Willauer stated that he has an issue
with the long pennants being used because they’re usually attached
to a long boot and then along tender, which altogether makes it
tough to get through the general anchorage. Mr. Fronzuto said that
he and the board could work on all of these issues during the
winter.
Ms. McCrae inquired about the moorings allowed per lot in front
of Hulbert Avenue and Dr. Boyce noted that there was a lot of seed
in this area. Mr. Fronzuto said that he 150 mooring permits below
the town’s limit of 1,700. He added that like Monomoy, Hulbert
Avenue isn’t gridded. Mr. Fronzuto said that waterfront property
owners are allowed two moorings each for boats 26 feet and under.
Mr. Willauer asked Mr. Fronzuto what the Estuaries Project said
about the impacts of raising Nantucket’s jetties to full height would
be on harbor circulation. Mr. Fronzuto said he was surprised at the
results of the computer modeling done by the School of Marine
Science and Technology at UMass Dartmouth, which revealed the
benefits of raising the jetties in combination with sewering, needs
areas. He added that a presentation of this data would be happening
at the Oct. 5 BOS and that he could get copies of the data for
anyone who wanted them. And he said that the Nantucket Harbor
Estuaries Report found that the town basin, the harbor area
between Abram’s Point and Monomoy, is the biggest contributor
of nutrients to the entire harbor and that Nantucket needs to sewer
Monomoy and Shimmo, and raise the Jetties to increase
circulation.
Mr. Fronzuto said he also wants to raise the jetties to improve
navigation in and out of the harbor, and to prevent boaters from
grounding on the rocks. He added that when the jetties were built,
there was a storm that punched holes in the jetties, so the town
used rocks along the jetties to fill in the holes and level them out,
which had the effect of lowering the jetties to where they are now,
covered by water at high tide. And with climate change affecting
sea level rise, Mr. Fronzuto said the jetties would continue to be
inundated and circulation deteriorates during high tide.
New Business:
Scallopers Ball
Mr. Willauer reported that the ball was a great success and that it
was over-sold, that they ran out of tickets. The NYC was very
happy with how it went. Everything was up over last year. No
fights.
Recap and Items for Next Meeting:
Dr. Boyce reiterated the need to have the mooring handlers attend
a future HSAB meeting and have Ms. Lucy give the board a
demonstration of the mooring software. Mr. Smith suggested that
mooring handlers attend one of the meetings in December because
the scallopers will have a better idea where the seed is and the
information could be worked into the SMP
Adjournment: 5:37 p.m.
Unanimously approved
Next Meetings:
Oct. 18 and Nov. 1, 2011
Respectfully submitted,
Peter B. Brace, Secretary