2001-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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mately $100,000. This was accomplished with less Shellfish Permits Issued: 745 than $14,000 of funds from shellfish permit fees. Resident/taxpayer 447 Senior Resident/taxpayer 250 Americorps Cape Cod members put in many Non-Resident/taxpayer 31 hours working on our propagation program and other projects. Their help over the last several years has Commercial 17 been key in the successful expansion of the propaga- tion program to grow and release millions of seed shellfish. Americorps member Sara Honsberger is and people of the Town of Mashpee for your support j working with the Mashpee Shelllfish Dept. in collabo- and assistance. Special thanks to the Deputy Shellfishr ration with Dr. Alan Kuzirian at the Marine Biological Constables, Waterways Assistants and volunteers. Laboratory in Woods Hole on a new project to charac- Thanks also to the members of Americorps Cape Cod, terize DNA from the scallops in the bays. The results and the Barnstable County/DMF shellfish programs. will be compared to the DNA in samples from the seed scallops before they were released. This should give Respectfully submitted, further proof of the effectiveness of our seeding pro- Richard H. York, Jr. grams. Shellfish Constable I Water quality continued to be a problem in some areas. The fecal coliform bacteria numbers in the sam- pling program of the DMF were often highest in the Mashpee River. The lower section of the Mashpee River, South of Buccaneer Way (Orsini Beach), remained closed to shellfishing throughout the year. In the past,that section was clean enough to be opened for shellfishing in the spring. The Mashpee Shellfish j Dept. Water Quality Lab. is used to investigate bacte- rial contamination. Wildlife and road runoff were identified as sources of fecal coliform bacteria conta- mination. Our data shows how and where bacteria levels increase after rainstorms. Our results also show that the counts go down after the temperatures get low enough in the winter to kill bacteria by freezing. An Americorps opening scallop seed tray. example of the value of our lab occurred after heavy (Photo:Richard York) rains in late May 2001 might have caused the DMF to close all areas in Mashpee (and other towns) to shell- fishing during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. It 'w was too late in the week for the DMF lab to test. Results of samples from Mashpee waters analyzed in the Mashpee Shellfish Dept. lab showed that fecal col- i iform bacteria contamination was a problem in the - - areas already closed, but not in the areas open for shellfishing. The DMF did not close the open areas, r and people could go shellfishing over the holiday weekend. The Shellfish Dept. continued to participate in Dr. Brian Howes' study of nitrogen impacts in the bays. Our lab, field equipment, and expertise con- tributed significantly to that project. Americorps seeding quahogs. Waterways Assistant Lori Soucy in foreground. Propagation Program: 2,200,000 quahog seed via (Photo:Richard York) i DMF/Barnstable County 1,200,000 bay scallop seed purchased �T 83