02/07/2012 SEWER COMMISSION Minutes

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Af Town of Mashpee • �+ b i . Shellfish Commission 16 Great Neck Road North Mashpee, MA 02649 %i�i:c'c�. MINUTES OF MEETING February 7, 2012 Attendance: Commissioners - Peter Thomas, William Holmes, Perry Ellis and Richard York Public— Marcus Hendricks and Norman Dias, Jr. Convene Meeting: 7:00 PM Approval of Minutes: Minutes from 2011 —Approved Shellfish�Constable's Report: The summary for 2011 is that quahogs continued to be the most abundant shellfish with the wild population supplemented by seed from the propagation program. The Board of Selectmen closed Waquoit Bay for shellfshing except scalloping from November 15, 2011 through April 30, 2012 to protect large numbers of quahog seed and littlenecks from exposure to predators such as winter waterfowl. Approximately 100,000 oysters from the propagation program were harvested in 2011. This removed about 50 kilograms of nitrogen from the estuary based on laboratory analysis of the nitrogen content of our oysters. The numbers were lower than in the past because of a problem at the hatchery resulting in very low densities of seed in 2010. The massive fish kill in the Mashpee River that occurred in the summer of 2005 because of oxygen depletion from a thick algae bloom growing on excess nutrients (nitrogen) has not been repeated since we have been growing large numbers of oysters in the river. For the first time since the 1980s when the wild oysters died off, significant numbers of oyster seed have set in Popponesset Bay. Spawns of oysters from the Town propagation program and shellfish equaculture sites such as the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's oyster farm at Punkhorn Point were carried by the tides to set in other areas. The members of AmeriCorps Cape Cod helped with the propagation program. Barnstable County funded 20% of the oyster and quahog seed, and funds from Mashpee Shellfish permit fees covered the rest. The total was one thousand bags of remote set oyster seed, and three million quahog seed. The amount of quahog seed was increased in 2011 for a new project to control algae blooms and remove nitrogen from Great and Little Rivers. We issued 1011 shellfish permits (534 family, 438 senior, 28 non-resident and 11 commerol). Only a few bushels of scallops were harvested in Waquoit Bay. Water quality monitoring continued with collaboration of the Town, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth SMAST.