1998-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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agents to find a way of handling the dredging opera- Report of the tion and the material so that the affected wildlife habi- f Waterways Commission tat winds up being improved over its present state. We continued our support of the Mashpee p Y g with Dr. Brian Watershed Committee b working -'' To the Honorable Board of Selectman and the Citizens of Mashpee: Howes who is analyzing the nutrient problems of the Popponsset Bay System.For Mashpee,the water sam- The Waterways Commisssion worked on a number pling crew is Ed Baker, Pirates Cove; Rick York, of issues over the past year. In our monthly meetings Shellfish Constable; and Waterways Commissioners we took public comment, and we reviewed all appli- Jim Hanks, Paul Lumsden, Don Lund, Herb Silver, cations for shellfish grants and dock permits that were and Bill Taylor. On the Barnstable side it is Ken submitted. The Harbormaster and Shellfish Constable Molloy and the "Cotuit Waders."We took water sam- provided reports and these were fully discussed. ples once a month from April to October to measure dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature, and turbidity. MAINTENANCE DREDGING Samples were also gathered to count Coliform Bacteria. The results so far comfirm that Oxygen star- In February 1998 the County Dredge came to vation occurs in the upper reaches of the Mashpee River and arts of Po onsset Ba as well.This infor- dredge apart of the channel into the sound outside P PP Y Popponesset Bay. Only a small amount of material mation is being used as a basis for a Wastewater was removed near the deep channel leading into the Management Plan being developed for the Watershed Bay. Management Committee. WATER QUALITY/NEW DREDGING FEDERAL NO DISCHARGE AREA DESIGNATION Progress on obtaining Mashpee River dredging per- mits has been going slowly as we worked to answer Late in 1998, we abandoned our efforts to seek No } the issues raised by the Army Corps of Engineers in Discharge Area Designation for Popponseset Bay and 1997. its tributaries because the State is pursuing an effort to make all Massachusetts waters No Discharge Areas. To respond to some of these issues we contracted AQUACULTURE with Aubrey Consulting, Inc. to perform hydrologic modeling analysis of tidal flushing in the Mashpee River and the Popponesset Bay system. The model The Commission worked with the Shellfish was refined to add the configuration of the Constable, Shellfish Commission, and Harbormaster Popponesset Bay inlet, and to incorporate the bathym- to develop a new seection to the Shellfish Regulations etry data gathered by Wayne Jaedtke, Barnstable pertaining to aquaculture. Our objective has been to County Dredge Superintendent, in 1997. Several sce- establish a fair and equitable use of the waterways for narios were run using different channel configurations, multiple purposes. and investigating the effects of making islands in the river from the dredged material. The results showed The Waterways commission completed working negligible positive or negative effects on flushing, so with the Assistant Town Planner Eric Smith on the we decided to base our plans solely on navigation pur- Coastal Resources Element of the Local poses. We recommended that permits be sought to Comprehensive Plan. dredge as far as the last house/ mooring in the river, OTHER COMMITTE WORK and the Board of Selectman approved. We sent the Army Corps of Engineers a letter in The Waterways Commission participated in other August 1998 answering the questions and concerns committees as follows: they had raised, and received a response that we could go forward with specific proposals. Gerry Daly Barnstable County Coastal Resources pp The biggest hurdle remaining is finding a method and location for disposing of the dredge material. For Jim Hanks upland disposal, which seems to be the favored Watershed Scientific Sub-Committee xA. approach, the only suitable sites are on conservation WBNERR Advisory Committee(former) lands.Therefore we are working with the conservation 167