HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-10-4Nantucket 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 ' /fl-
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