Unlocking a Puzzle: Quality of Our Waters

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

The diver goes over the side and disappears into the shallow
saltwater pond with a small splash. Several minutes later he breaks the
surface, cradling his prize: a clear plastic cylinder that contains a
large plug of gravelly sand topped with pond water. A wisp of green
algae waves gently in the watery top layer like a slender flag.

"You can't imagine the monkey business we go through
just to collect mud," says Roland Samimy, grinning, as he hoists
himself back into the boat.

Mr. Samimy is the diver and his prize at the moment is a single
core sediment sample from Sengekontacket Pond. Today 20 of these samples
will be collected from Sengekontacket, the vast saltwater embayment that
lies along the southern edge of Beach Road, spanning Oak Bluffs and
Edgartown. A few samples will also be taken from Trapps Pond, a small
coastal pond tucked into a corner of Edgartown on the extreme
northeastern end of Sengekontacket.

The sediment samples are one small piece of a large puzzle that
marine scientists are now happily solving in the name of water quality.

The puzzle is named the Estuaries Project. A six-year, $12.5 million
undertaking that is a collaboration between the state Department of
Environmental Protection and the School of Marine Science and Technology
at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, the project will use
hard science and state-of-the-art technology to analyze the health and
nutrient carrying capacity of virtually all the estuaries in
southeastern Massachusetts. When it is completed, there will be detailed
reports and sophisticated computer models for 89 ponds and embayments
from Duxbury to Mt. Hope Bay, including Cape Cod and the Islands.

The project is all about nutrients - especially nitrogen
- the stuff which has been slowly wrecking the pristine estuaries
of southeastern Massachusetts for the last 20 years, causing a decline
in eel grass beds and inshore fisheries. The main sources of nitrogen
include septic systems, fertilizers, wildlife and acid rain.

Until very recently management of estuaries has been part science,
part guesswork. How many houses can be built on a watershed, how will
the location of a sewage treatment plant affect a pond one mile
downstream?

When the Estuaries Project is complete, there will be unambiguous
answers to the questions and a quantitative tool for managing the
watersheds around coastal ponds.

How the information is applied will be largely left up to the local
towns.

"Now we won't have to wait for 20 years to see things
happen in our ponds," said William Wilcox, the water quality
planner for the Martha's Vineyard Commission.

"It's a block by block process - each step is
important and all the steps together are going to create the big
picture," says project director Brian Howes. Mr. Howes is a
coastal ecologist who got his start at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution 30 years ago and now works in marine science at the
University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

Today he sits in the open cockpit of a shallow-hulled fiberglass
boat that belongs to the Edgartown shellfish department. John Black, a
summer shellfish deputy, is at the helm. Two divers are also on board
- Roland and Steve Aubrey. Mr. Samimy is also a surface water
hydrologist and technical coordinator for the project. For the next
several hours they will collect core sediment samples, tag-team style.

They are at once scientists and sea dogs, moving seamlessly through
their work while ribbing each other mercilessly. The work is both
physically and mentally demanding. Each time a sample is taken the diver
goes down to the bottom with one of the clear plastic cylinders. The
cylinder is carefully worked into the sand or mud - sometimes with
the aid of a hammer - and then just as carefully pulled out. The
trick is to remove the sample with little or no jostling - the
sediment cannot mix with the water on top or the sample will not be pure
when it comes to analyzing the nutrient exchange between the water
column and the sediment.

Mr. Samimy comes up from a few feet of water and tosses a couple of
quahaugs on board along with a mild expletive. Hardshell clams disrupt
the core sampling routine.

Each time they come up, the divers give verbal reports to Brian on
the immediate environment around the bottom sample. "No eel grass,
lots of worms, soft mud, oxidized surface, no snails, fish or
flounder," Mr. Aubrey says.

"Burrows - big, honking burrows. Lotta shrimp. Looks
like shellfish hash," Mr. Semimy says on another run.

Mr. Howes records all the detail by hand, along with other
information including the water temperature. The sample is placed in a
holding crate and the group moves to another location to do it all over
again.

Last year on the Vineyard the group sampled the Lagoon Pond, the
Edgartown Great Pond and Tashmoo. Next year Katama Bay will be sampled.

The Estuaries Project is at the start of its third year.

"The project is now at cruising altitude," declares the
exuberant Mr. Semimy, who moved to New England from Miami with his
family two years ago to join the project.

Mr. Howes says the mid-career scientists who have joined the project
are excited about the work because it will have visible results.

"We've all been studying the marine environment for
years, and this is a chance to do something about it," he says. He
continues:

"The bad news is that most of the systems are impaired in the
region. The good news is that restoration is possible, it's
feasible. The information can be linked to land use models, and how
changes in the land affect changes in the bay."

He credits the numerous local groups that have supported the
Estuaries Project, including the Coalition for Buzzards Bay, the
Falmouth Pond Coalition, the Vineyard watershed team and the MVC.

The data for the Vineyard ponds is still in the working stages, but
Mr. Howes says the early report cards are mixed.

"Edgartown Great Pond has its issues because it's
nontidal, but compared with other Great Ponds it's okay. The
Lagoon had anoxia problems and it still does; we looked at those samples
from the Lagoon and it looked like somebody had sprayed it all with
soot. It was eerie. It takes awhile for it to get that anoxic. It has
issues, the Lagoon has issues. Tashmoo is a little better," he
says.

The field work is done in the summer months, and the rest of the
year is spent on analysis and other technical work.

The scientists move around like migrant laborers in the summer,
setting up mobile laboratories at an eclectic array of locations. Last
year on the Vineyard the group camped out at the state lobster hatchery;
this year they set up shop at the Rod and Gun Club. Once the samples are
collected the work in the laboratory runs around the clock; the samples
are kept in coolers where the ambient water temperature of the pond is
imitated exactly.

One morning after Mr. Howes and his divers have finished their work,
graduate students Jennifer Antosca and Michael A. Bartlett analyze the
samples in the sparkling morning sunshine outside the Rod and Gun Club.
The two senior staffers radiate their own enthusiasm for the project.

"Each piece we look at could mean something. It's
exciting," Mr. Bartlett concludes.