In a repeat of a presentation given to the Oak Bluffs selectmen last month, the Edgartown selectmen Monday heard serious warnings about reducing nitrogen levels in Sengekontacket Pond.
With members of the Joint Committee on Sengekontacket in attendance, the selectmen heard that based on a thorough review of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project study on the pond, nitrogen levels need to be reduced and removed.
With high levels of nitrogen in Sengekontacket Pond threatening everything from marine life to property values, state and local environmental officials have outlined an aggressive plan to clean up the pond that ranges from diverting wastewater from several watersheds to designating the entire pond as a district of critical planning concern.
A pair of quahauggers stood waist-deep in Sengekontacket Pond early Thursday morning, the late August sun glinting off the calm water as they raked hardshell clams, perhaps a basketful for their dinner. The pond has been open to summer shellfishing this year for the first time since 2007.
Sengekontacket Pond will re-open for shellfishing Friday morning following state tests that came back clean, Edgartown shellfish constable Paul Bagnall confirmed.
The pond was closed to shellfishing on July 31 after more than two inches of rain fell, and remained closed this week.
Water testing in the pond was done on Wednesday by the state Division of Marine Fisheries.
The time-honored Vineyard tradition of jumping off the Big Bridge into Sengekontacket Pond has now been joined by a yearly concern about the safety of jumpers — not for their daring leaps into the water below, but for the time they spend sitting and standing on the bridge as traffic whizzes by.
Low railings that divide pedestrians, including bridge jumpers, from Beach Road are the worry, and Oak Bluffs and Edgartown are taking steps to address the problem that they say ultimately should be dealt with by the state.
For the first time in five years, parts of Sengekontacket Pond will be open for shellfishing, at least through June. In July, August and Sepetmber the current plan calls for possible closures following periods of heavy rainfall, but otherwise the same parts of the pond now designated as safe for shellfishing will be kept open.
