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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