2003-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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M 0 $eport of the Report of the Harbormaster Shellfish Commission To the Honorable Board of Selectmen To the Honorable Board of Selectmen and the Citizens of the Town of Mashpee and the Citizens of the Town of Mashpee 2003 a year of many memories, First the long Enforcement, resource management, shellfish and cold snowy winter,followed by a wet spring a cool propagation and water quality work resulted in an June,a hot July and August.The large Number of peo- abundance of quahogs,good sets of soft-shell clams in ple boating was hard to believe. We had one Boating some areas, and a successfully re-established scallop accident,one Jet Ski accident,both serious.The spring fishery. The Mashpee River South of Buccaneer Way, dredging did not take place, the county dredge was Shoestring Bay South of Simon's Narrows Road and iced in on the north shore for six weeks and missed our upper Popponesset Bay opened for shellfrshing in time window to dredge. January, February and March. Those areas are closed at other times of the year because of high fecal col- The boat ramps where busy and filled many iform bacteria counts, and open in the colder months mornings by 7: am, The construction of the new town after the temperatures drop low enough to kill the bac- docks at Great river ramp and Mashpee neck were well teria. Monitoring also showed that the water quality in received by the boaters using the ramps. Sage Lot Pond was good, and it was opened for Shellfishing on December 23, 2003. The inland waters of Mashpee were busy with both boats and personal watercraft. Mashpee Wakeby We grew two million quahog seed and one mil- Lake had 23 Bass tournaments. The waiting list for lion scallop seed in the propagation program.The very Ii salt water mooring spaces forever grows larger with small(1 mm)quahog seed was provided by Barnstable the number at 700 plus. County at no cost to the Town. The very small scallop seed was purchased with funds from Mashpee shell- �f The pumpout boat broke all records for gallons fish permit fees. After growing in our upweller tanks pumped this past year at over 2600 gallons; this helps and trays to larger sizes, the seed was planted in the to keep our bays clean for swimming and shellfrshing. fall.The seed was worth about$100,000 when planted The pumpout boat was operated on Sundays patrolling (if we had purchased the seed at that size). The mem- both bays and dockside during the week and can be bers of AmeriCorps Cape Cod put in many hours hailed on vhf ch 9. The department maintains 97 aids working on the propagation program (photo below). to navigation on its waterways both salt and freshwa- Sarah Herzig and Kate Basham, AmeriCorps biolo- ter, along with 760 moorings. Please have a safe and gists assigned to the Shellfish Dept,put in many more enjoyable boating season,look out for other boaters in hours working on the propagation and water quality distress and always lend them a hand. programs. P.S. wear your life vest �- Respectfully submitted, f Perry F.Ellis l Harbormaster r yfs 101