01/27/2020 BOARD OF SELECTMEN Agenda Packet

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Rodney C. Collins From: Donald Barton <dbarton357@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday,January 25, 2020 12:18 PM To: Andrew Gottlieb; Carol A. Sherman; Rodney C. Collins; David W.Weeden;John J. Cotton; Thomas F. OHara . Subject: Thomas Smith Oyster Grant Application Dear Town Leaders, This Monday evening your body will consider the merits of an application for a large commercially shell fish farming operation off of Monomoscoy Island. I and many other residents are firmly opposed to the approval of this grant. The application hag been filed and revised many times. The applicant's previous compliance with environmental regulations is,a matter of public record. The approval of a 120 black float flotilla(the gear is not submerged) in that confined location serves up a visual assault on the prized harmony and beauty of that designated conservation area. Conservation efforts should not promote more intrusion that never reverses itself. Everyone wants to reduce the nitrogen in the water. The Town has the Federal mandate to clean the waters with Town sewer service. The Town has recently made long overdue progress which should be recognized. The Town also has its own shellfish department which sows millions of seed each year to propagate shellfish in the non intrusive, traditional manner; one that is invisible and not impactive. In fact, the Town is planning to construct a shellfish nursery station on a vacant lot on the Island. The Town can expand on this option. Why not? With approval of the grant, why would the Town syndicate this responsibility to a for-profit,3rd party whose operations create more permanent disfigurement and legally require additional oversight burden by the Shellfish Warden to insure public health safety. Another objection is that the site is a poor natural choice for oyster cultivation. The site is in a confined, dead end loop of the Great River, in extremely shallow water which super heats in the summer (80s). With the warming of waters, there has been more incidence of oyster vibrio contamination on the Cape. This bacteria is linked to warming waters, illness, and shellfish closures. Climate change is worsening the conditions. The grant site by another measure is poorly flushed. The flushing time (System Resident Time)measures the time.for a molecule of water to exit out to open ocean. At the entrance to Jehu Pond, this metric is 20.86 days. Wellfleet oysters exchange at less than..5 of one day, 40 times greater. It should be noted that these same waters across the causeway on Hamblin Pond are already posted at contaminated, due in part, to bird waste. It would be ironic if a grant approval causes even more environmental damage with year round farming operations with accretive and concentrated bird/shellfish waste. Visually, the proposed waterways to be cordoned off with floating cages/equipment, in this confined and populated location, is disturbing. From a recreational perspective, to exclude these waters from public use is . regrettable and permanent. The length of the excluded waters is 750 ft.(2 1/2 football fields). A vertical view of the grant site, shown below, makes it appear an aircraft carrier has dropped on this small inlet. t