01/11/2011 SHELLFISH COMMISSION Minutes

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Town of Mashpee Shellfish Commission 16 Great Neck Road North Mashpee, MA 02649 MINUTES OF MEETING – January 11, 2011 Attendance: Commissioners: Stephen Marques, William Holmes, and Richard York Others: Richard and Diane Cook Convene Meeting: 7:00 PM Approval of Minutes: November 9, 2010 – A motion to approve the minutes was made by Marques and seconded by York. Vote – unanimous for approval. Public Comment: (none) Shellfish Constable’s Report: The exceptionally clear sunny weather in 2010 heated the water in the estuaries to record high temperatures. Water temperatures as high as 85o F were recorded in the bottom waters of Waquoit Bay during the first week of July. Temperatures up to 90o F were observed at low tides in shallower waters such as the Mashpee River. The high temperatures caused the death the majority of the soft-shell clams. Oysters, quahogs and other species of shellfish tolerate higher temperatures, and grew fast as they filtered food from algae blooms. Quahogs continue to be the most abundant shellfish with the wild population supplemented by seed from the propagation program. Large numbers of quahog larvae observed in Waquoit Bay in 2009 grew to increase the amount of seed in the bay in 2010. Oyster and bay scallop harvests were the result of seed from the propagation program because their spawns have not been successful for recruitment and the wild populations died out in the 1980s and 1990s respectively. Approximately 200,000 oysters were harvested in 2010. This removed about 100 kilograms of nitrogen from the estuary based on laboratory analysis of the nitrogen content of our oysters. The massive fish kill in the Mashpee River that occurred in the summer of 2005 because of oxygen depletion from a thick algae bloom growing on excess nutrients (nitrogen) has not been repeated since we have been growing large numbers of oysters in the river. About 50 bushels of bay scallops were harvested from Waquoit Bay in 2010. The members of AmeriCorps Cape Cod helped with the propagation program. Barnstable County funded 20% of the oyster and quahog seed, and funds from Mashpee Shellfish permit fees covered the rest. The total was one thousand bags of remote set oyster seed, one million quahog seed, and one hundred thousand bay scallop seed. We issued 975 shellfish permits. By type there were 502 family, 427 senior, 32 non-resident and 12 commercial permits. (In 2009, a total of 919 permits were issued.) Water quality monitoring continued with collaboration of the Town, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and the