Field Notes
by Peter B Brace
EARTH DAY NANTUCKET SUNDAY, APRIL 22 Do something good for the earth and be a volunteer or a contributor for Earth Day Nantucket 2007.

Who says you can't change the world? Look for a listing of contributors, location and times next week.

Earth Day Nantucket is a local coalition of concerned families, teachers, elected leaders, sustainable businesses and groups that work to increase public awareness of environmental issues through Earth Day events and activities.

Earth Day Nantucket is affiliated with Earth Day Network, the international organization coordinating Earth Day events worldwide.

For more information please call 228-3034, Bruce Marshall-Jones, email: info@EnergyIndependenceToday.com or www.Earthday.net.

MMS DELAYS DEIR The Minerals Management Service announced on April 5 that it is pushing back the release date of its Draft Environmental Impact Report on Cape Wind Associates' proposed wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal from this spring to late summer.

The MMS'original spring schedule of issuing its DEIR, followed by the 60-day public comment period, meant that, barring any other delays, it would release its Draft Environmental Impact Statement in April 2008. This adjusted schedule means public hearings will be held this fall with a decision in the fall of 2008.

FREE TREES In celebration of Arbor Day, April 30, if you send the National Arbor Day Foundation just one sawbuck ($10), they'll ship you 10 shade trees, including a red oak, sugar maple, weeping willow, green ash, thornless honey locust, pin oak, river birch, tulip tree, silver maple and a red maple. The Arbor Day Foundation will send your trees in time for planting in April and May, and if they die, the Foundation will replace them.

If you want the trees, send $10 by April 30 to Ten Free Shade Trees, National Arbor Day Foundation, 100 Arbor Ave., Nebraska City, Neb. 68410. You can also do this online at www.arborday.org.

AWAY FROM GULLS AND MOORINGS Avein of scallop seed discovered by scallopers along the Monomoy shore from Great Harbor Yacht Club's property to the first pier at Monomoy and from there to Abram's Point won't stay there long.

Hoping to rescue these most precious juvenile mollusks from gulls at low tide and from the scouring action of mooring chains during the summer, the Marine Department, working with the Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board, will be moving the seed to safer, deeper locations in the harbor this week.

Using commercial scallop boats to dredge up the seed, scallopers will then dump it where Town Biologist Keith Conant designates.

THAT BURNING SENSATION Seeing a lot of smoke and flames around the island's open spaces these days? Relax. The island is not burning up a little bit at a time, despite the April Fool's Day fire out at Altar Rock that burned an extra 40 acres before the controlled burn crews from the Nantucket Heathlands Partnership subdued it. The Partnership is just beginning the spring season of its prescribed burning schedule.

The Heathlands Partnership consists of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, the UMass Field Station, the Nantucket Islands Land Bank, the Nature Conservancy, the Maria Mitchell Association, the Nantucket Civic League, the Nantucket Land Council, the Nantucket Garden Club, the Nantucket Historical Association and the Partnership for Harrier Habitat Preservation.

The partnership works together with the Nantucket Fire Department, specifically, Fire Chief Mark McDougall, to conduct prescribed burns that accomplish the goals of restoring and maintaining the island's sandplain grasslands and heathlands. By starting its burning in the early spring when the larger, more dominant woody plants such as huckleberry and scrub oak are expending huge amounts of energy making leaves and sending up new shoots, the Partnership burn crews, led by Burn Boss Bruce Perry, property manager for the Nantucket Islands Land Bank, knock the life out of some of island's dominant plant species. This allows rare and endangered plants, such as bushy rockrose, St. Andrew's cross, eastern silvery aster, New England blazing star, sandplain flax, and broom crowberry, to flourish.

These controlled burns also burn up brush and vegetation fuels that could fan the flames of a wildfire on the island.

If you need to know where the Partnership is going to be burning in the future, call Plant Ecologist Ernie Steinauer, property manager for Mass Audubon on Nantucket, at 228-9208, or the Nantucket Fire Department at 228-2324.

CONCOM PUBLIC HEARINGS The Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund, proponents of the island's largest beach nourishment project - 2.6 million cubic yards of sand mined from a shoal offshore to rebuild three miles of beach - filed a notice of intent with the Conservation Commission at the end of March.

The ConCom, in the interest of having enough time to review this application, scheduled two public hearing dates: April 11 and 25 at 4 p.m. in the LGI at the Nantucket High School at 10 Surfside Road. Call 228-

7230 for details. I