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rowN o� 4'Lt .••nuw y.. A •� s '' 'y Town of Mashpee , : ; • Shellfish Commission 16 Great Neck Road North ' /�,�• Mashpee, MA 02649 ��tU1 L CG MINUTES OF MEETING 9-11-12 Attendance: William Holmes, Stephen Marques, Peter Thomas & Richard York Public: Marcus Hendricks Convene Meeting: 7:00 PM Chairman Peter Thomas held a moment of silence for the victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Election of Officers: William Holmes nominated a slate of the current officers: Chairman — Peter Thomas, Vice-Chairman—William Holmes, Secretary - Richard York. The motion was seconded by York. The vote was unanimous in favor. Approval of Minutes: Minutes of 4-10712 and 5-8-12. Vote- unanimous approval. There were no meetings in June, July or August. Shellfish Constable's Report: We have issued 849 shellfish permits so far this year. There are plenty of quahogs. Scallop season looks better this year with enough for family scalloping in Waquoit Bay at least at the beginning of the season which starts October 1. The oyster beds at Mashpee Neck open November 1 as usual. We should have enough oysters to last through the end of the year, but probably not to March 2013 because this is another year from low numbers of seed in the remote set bags from the hatchery last year, and we harvested most of the oysters from left over previous years last winter. Spawns from our oysters and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's shellfish farm at Punkhom Point resulted in significant sets of oysters in the area for the first time last year. This summer, we had a college student intern count the oysters that had set and grown in Popponesset Bay and associated estuaries (Mashpee R., Ockway Bay, Shoestring Bay, etc). He counted 11,200 oysters. This a small number compared to the hundreds of thousands of oysters that are harvested from the Town propagation program and the Tribe's farm, but if we increase our numbers by purchasing more seed, there is potential for the sets from spawns to contribute to the fishery, removal of nitrogen and control of eutrophication. In the propagation program, we purchased 1,000 oyster spat bags, one million quahog seed and 300,000 scallop seed. Most of the funding was from shellfish permit fees with 20% of the oyster bags and 20 % of the quahog seed funded by Barnstable County. They are all growing well because the algae (Shellfish Commission minutes 9-11-12) 1