2007-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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About 40,000 of those oysters were harvested from sei Report of the December 19 to 31, 2007 (the harvest will continue the Shellfish Department into 2008). In the previous years, the area was closed op to shellfishing from April though the end of December fis by the DMF because of bacteria detected in water gr To the Honorable Board of Selectmen and the samples. The area is open in winter when low tem. do Citizens of the Town of Mashpee: peratures kill fecal coliform bacteria. By 2007,water sc samples were clean enough in December to open the w Approximately 200,000 oysters from the area earlier (the Mashpee River south of Buccaneer W Shellfish Department's Mashpee River aquaculture Way and Shoestring Bay south of Simon's Narrows W project were harvested from January through March Road). Recent projects to control road runoff con. w and from December 19 to 31, 2007. This removed tributed to the improved water quality. In 2007,Q be about 100 kilograms (kg) of nitrogen from the estuary oyster spat bags were purchased(200 for the Mashpee la based on laboratory analysis of the nitrogen content of River and 200 for Hamblin Pond). re oysters sampled from the river. Newspaper stories and c` editorials described the significance of these results. The goals of the oyster aquaculture project are to The popularity of oystering is reflected in increased grow oysters for harvest and remove nitrogen. 2t Oysters feed by filtering algae that grow on nitrogen sl numbers of shellfish permits issued. Twice as many and other nutrients. When people harvest oysters, u: oysters were harvested in 2007 compared to 2006, the first year of harvest from the project. Oysters had not they remove nitrogen and help reduce the impacts of q been harvested in Mashpee since the 1980s. Diseases excess nutrients on the estuary. The original goal was 9 'i had killed off the wild oysters, and seeding attempts to grow and harvest 1,000,000 oysters annually c were not successful at that time. Our new aquaculture removing 500 kg of nitrogen/year. This would be 10% sl -free of the 5,000 kg per year nitrogen reduction target for ti project is working because we are using disease seed, and growing the oysters in the low salinity the Mashpee River set in the Massachusetts Estuaries e waters of the Mashpee River. Low salinities inhibit Project report on Popponesset Bay (published in a 2004). The goal has been expanded to grow more oys- n oyster diseases, and eliminate many oyster predators. The project was started in 2004 with seed funded by ters and remove more nitrogen. Nitrogen loading in Barnstable County and the Massachusetts Division of the watershed causes algae blooms which can deplete h oxygen dissolved in the water causing fish kills,float f Marine Fisheries (DMF) using a remote set system ing algae mats, and other problems. It will take years � in which very small(< 1 mm)oyster spat(seed)are set and vast sums of money for wastewater treatment on pieces shell in mesh bags at the hatchery. In June, infrastructure to reduce nitrogen from the sources. 200 of those spat bags were transported to the The nitrogen problems in the estuaries will increase f Mashpee River. After growing larger, the shell pieces before these solutions are implemented. Oyster aqua- and attached oysters were removed from the bags and culture is critical for removing nitrogen now to keep f spread out in mesh trays. This produced about the estuaries from decline and could even improve 160,000 oysters of which 100,000 were harvested in conditions. The first massive fish kill in the Mashpee 2006, and 60,000 in 2007. Of the 380 spat bags pur- River occurred in the summer of 2005, but was not chased in 2005, 200 were placed in the Mashpee repeated in 2006 or 2007. Data from monitoring units River, and 180 in Hamblin Pond where the oysters showed that the fish mortality was the result of oxygen were later spread out on hard bottom instead of trays. depletion in the early morning hours in August 2005. In 2007, about 100,000 of the oysters from the year Chlorophyll data and microscopic observation showed 2005 bags in the Mashpee were harvested,and smaller g p that a thick algae bloom had consumed the oxygen, numbers in Hamblin Pond where predation was The greatly increased number of oysters that we were greater. All of the 400 oyster spat bags purchased in 2006 were placed in the Mashpee River. Some of growing in the River in 2006 and 2007 helped prevent those oysters were removed from the trays in 2007 and a thick algae bloom and fish kill. spread out along the shoreline of Mashpee Neck from One million quahog seed and 200,000 bay scal- the mouth of the Mashpee River to the Town Landing ram. to make oyster beds. In 2006, another culture method lop seed were also grown in the propagation program The quahog seed was provided by Barnstable Co was added in which individual oysters(not set on shell de pieces) were grown in mesh trays. One million very with funds from the DMF at no cost to the Town. scallop seed was purchased with funds from Mashpee small, individual oysters were purchased from the hellfish permit fees. The very small seed is grown in hatchery using funds from Mashpee shellfish permit upweller tanks and then transferred to trays in the fees. Approximately 500,000 of those grew larger than 2 inches by the fall in trays in the Mashpee River. estuary to grow larger for planting. Before scallop 156