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C. Mashpee Department of Public Works, Greg Taylor and Catherine Report of the Laurent Waterways Commission D. Mashpee Conservation Commission, Robert Sherman E. Mashpee Water District, Russell To the Honorable Board of Selectmen Babcock and The Citizens of the Town of Mashpee The Commission would like to thank the people The Waterways Commission met monthly to of Mashpee who in 2003, contributed photographs, deliberate on waterways-related topics. The goal is to memorabilia and words of encouragement in our quest maintain and improve the waterways in Mashpee. To to preserve Mashpee's history. We are constantly this end we work with the Harbormaster to oversee reminded how unselfish and kind the people of maintenance dredging, and plan and manage improve- Mashpee can be. Our appreciation again goes to sisters ment dredging. We also actively support the Town's Paula Webster and Pat Leonard for their weekly dili- efforts to improve water quality in our bays. gence in organizing the vast vertical file of newspaper articles at the Archives. We give thanks to Jean Maintenance Dredging Noussee for her work in sorting and documenting the No maintenance dredging was performed in video collection housed at the Archives. Our continu- 2003 due to equipment problems and the cold weath- ing respect and appreciation go to Judy Godin whose expertise, intelligence, and patience moves us toward er. The dredge got locked in the ice in Truro. State and Federal Marine Fisheries would not grant an our goal to track all our documents on databases. She extension to our dredging permit time window because now has set up the fields for entering the locator file of the winter flounder spawning season. which will expedite the searches for all our data, records and memorabilia stored at the Archives. We Improvement Dredging are making steady progress in our goal to record all of The current project is to obtain permits to dredge our precious records that we have sworn to protect and the Mashpee River. In mid 2002 we determined that preserve. There have been almost nine hundred pho- the proposed Ockway Bay public landing disposal site tographs documented each with over ten pieces of was too small. We continued to investigate the possi- information divided into fields and keyed into the ble use of conservation land and to work closely with computer.At this writing there are two thousand more the Conservation Commission Chairman and Vice- photographs to be documented in this manner. This is chairman to arrive at an agreed upon site. We have not a monumental task and all done by dedicated volun- yet located a suitable site. teers who value Mashpee's history. Water Quality Monitoring We reiterate special thanks to Frank Kelly, who We continued working with Dr. Brian Howes oversees our wonderful team of volunteers at the who is analyzing the nutrient problems of the Archives while handling the exacting tasks involved in Popponesset Bay and Waquoit Bay Systems. In 2003 operating a research library. We especially thank him we took samples in both bays and their tributaries, for his hours of work coordinating the activities totaling 32 sites where samples are taken. We sampled involved with the schoolhouse celebration. each bay once a month on separate days during May, Finally, we extend our gratitude to the Board of June, July, August, and September. Selectmen, to our liaison Ken Marsters, to Town We took water samples to measure dissolved i Administrator, Joyce Mason, our building supervisor oxygen, salinity, temperature, turbidity and nutrient f and good friend, Ray Martini for their support. We levels. thank the people of Mashpee who encourage us in our work to preserve the historic and, cultural features of This monitoring will be an on-going requirement the town. for the indefinite future. Water quality monitoring in f Respectfully submitted, both bays is needed to assess continued degradation and eventually determine what effect wastewater man- Ann Whitlow,Chairman agement efforts are having on water quality. Rosemary Burns k Miriam Estrella Other Committee Work Lee Gurney The Waterways Commission members partici- Frank Hicks pate in other Town and County committees as follows: 133