The Executive Office for Administration and Finance eliminated funding in FY 2015 legislative appropriation, including funding for shellfish propagation in Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket counties.
Funding was announced Friday for three key projects: the restoration initiative at Squibnocket Beach in Chilmark; a pilot by the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group to sow marshlands with ribbed mussels; and a project at Barges Beach on Cuttyhunk.
With nitrogen pollution a perpetual concern for Vineyard waterways, two towns are hoping that a shellfish experiment will be the latest puzzle piece to fall into place.
Voters in Chilmark and Tisbury will be asked at their respective town meetings next week to fund pilot programs aimed at reducing nitrogen levels in two locations: Chilmark Pond and Lagoon Pond. Through the funding and a partnership with the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, test reefs of noncommercial oysters will be cultivated, in addition to beds of native ribbed mussels.
The Vineyard had a bumper crop of hatchery-raised shellfish this year. The Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, which provides shellfish to all Island towns, produced nearly double the number of quahaugs and oysters. The bay scallop crop was also good, although not as good as last year.
Shellfish May Survive Edgartown Oil Spill; Emergency Seen as Serious
Wake-up Call
By JULIA WELLS
The director of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group said
there may be good news for a crop of about a million baby oysters that
were threatened by an oil spill in the Edgartown harbor early this week.
"I don't want to say that we are out of the woods
entirely, but the oysters may survive," said shellfish group
director Rick Karney on Wednesday this week.
Oil Spill in Edgartown Harbor Kills Million Baby Oysters and Fouls
Waters
By JULIA WELLS Gazette Senior Writer
An oil spill of unknown origin sullied the pristine water of the
outer Edgartown harbor yesterday, ruining an entire crop of juvenile
shellfish at a hatchery owned by the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish
Group and posing a possible threat to the rich bay scallop beds off the
north shore of Chappaquiddick.
Following the die off of juvenile shellfish at the Martha's
Vineyard Shellfish Group in recent weeks, there will be a summit of the
minds next Wednesday at the Tisbury Town Hall. Shellfish constables,
biologists, members of the Lagoon Pond Association and the Tisbury
Waterways Inc. will meet at noon to talk about the next step in
protecting the water quality in the pond.
The director of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group said yesterday that nearly four million healthy juvenile shellfish under culture at his Lagoon Pond hatchery have died in the last three weeks because of extremely poor water quality in the pond.
The deteriorating water quality has not affected mature shellfish and there is no danger to humans who eat shellfish from the pond.
