8/14/2018 WATERWAYS COMMISSION Minutes

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OUR OFFICE;AS WELL AS,THE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICE AND FALMOUTH NATURAL RESOURCES HAVE RECIEVED COMPLAINTS FROM ASHUMET POND RESIDENTS ABOUT RECKLESS PERSONAL WATERCRAFT OPERATION.ALL THREE OFFICES HAVE RESPONDED ON A COMPLAINT DRIVEN BASIS;HOWEVER,AT THE TIME OF OUR RESPONSE ALL WATERCRAFT WERE IN COMPLIANCE WITH STATE LAW. WAQUOIT VESSEL TRAFFIC HAS BEEN HEAVY DUE AS USUAL; HOWEVER,THERE HAVE BEEN NO INCIDENTS TO REPORT.NO WAKE VIOLATIONS ARE THE MOST COMMON VIOLATION AND VERBAL WARNINGS HAVE WORKED.THE NUMBER 1-4 MARKERS IN FALMOUTH HAVE BEEN SHIFTING AROUND CONSIDERABLY AND FALMOUTH HAS STAYED ON TOP OF IT.I WILL RECOMMEND TO GREGG FRASER(HARBORMASTER FALMOUTH)HE SHOULD UP THE WEIGHT OF HIS MUSHROOM ANCHORS FROM 25-50 POUNDS. In terms of traffic on Waquoit, Rick Santangelo added that a bylaw should be considered and adopted by the Town for kite boarders who cross into boating channels and interfere with the operations of a vessel. DNR Director/Shellfish Constable Report: Rick York was not in attendance. In his place,Ashley Fisher gave the report for the DNR. Ken Bates noted that the first order of business was to congratulate Ashley for her promotion to the Shellfish Constable position. All members of the Board extended their best wishes for this important function. Ashley stated that she was sworn in as the new Shellfish Constable for the Department of Natural Resources on August 13. 2019. Her report followed: The shellfish division has replaced their 2 land-based upweller tanks with 2 brand new upweller tanks that are double the size with double the growing capacity. The tanks are solid fiberglass with a built-in center trough that houses 22; 2'x 2'silos of multiple mesh sizes. Our 10 million quahogs will grow within this environment until they reach approximately 4 mm in size. Shellfish Constable Update: After the seed reaches 4 mm in size the propagation team will transfer the seed into our new dock FLUPSYs (FLoating UPweller SYstmes). During the 2018 shellfish propagation season the department has also redesigned and built 5 new floating dock upwellers aka FLUPSYs.These systems will allow us to grow our millions of quahogs to field plan size of roughly 25-mm/1 inch more efficiently. The School of Marine Science and Technology at UMASS Dartmouth gave the Town selectman an update on the water quality of our surrounding estuarine systems. Overall Waquoit and Popponesset Bay are extremely impaired systems,but our Little and Great River complexes have showed improvement in total nitrogen concentrations,which can be correlated to our shellfish seeding efforts in the area.The Mashpee Enterprise's Hannah Schuster wrote a wonderful article about our successes seen in Little and Great River. Below is a visual of an upweller design.