4/12/2016 WATERWAYS COMMISSION Minutes

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Assistants. The deadline for applications for Waterways Assistants is April 15, 2016 and we plan to hire 5 people early in May. Predator Control Crab traps have been deployed since August 2015 to control invasive green crabs that eat shellfish seed. More traps were deployed in March 2016 when the crabs became active after winter. The green crabs are being crushed and placed in Nantucket Sound for fish food. Great River, Jehu Pond, Little River and Hamblin Pond (DMF area SC16) Quahog seed —10 million small (2 mm) quahog seed are on order from the ARC hatchery in Dennis, MA for delivery in June. The seed will be grown in the up-wellers on land next to the Harbormaster Shack at Little River, and then transferred to new floating up-weller systems planned in Little River. One system will be anchored in the river, and another will be under the floats of the Town Dock at Little River. After growing larger (up to an inch), the seed will be planted in Great River and Jehu Pond, The CWNMP calls for the purchase of large (1 ") quahog seed that we purchase and plant when received. The plan now (adaptive management) is to purchase and grow very small seed to avoid the risk from a new quahog disease that has been identified in Cape Cod Bay. The very small seed is spawned from disease-free adult quahogs (local stock), and grown in filtered water in the hatchery. Large seed is grown in the wild. We do not have the disease in Mashpee. Ten million 1" seed cost $450,000, and ten million small (2 mm) seed cost $90,000, so we will be saving $350,000 on seed this year. The cost of electricity, labor, and the amortized cost of new up-wellers is relatively small. At full implementation, the savings would be over a million dollars a year. Mashpee River and Shoestring Bay (SC20) Oyster seed — 4,480 bags of oyster seed set on shell (remote set) are on order from the ARC hatchery for delivery in June. Our oyster project in the Mashpee River continues with 2,480 bags of seed to be grown in trays. Funds from the October 2015 Town Meeting are being used to purchase 2,000 of the bags, and funds from Barnstable County Cooperative Extension are funding the other 480 bags. The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is funding 2,000 bags of oyster seed for a new project to create an acre of restored oyster beds in Shoestring Bay with funds from an EPA Healthy Communities Grant award to the Tribe's Natural Resources Dept.