SHAB approves $1,000 for harbor temperature buoys
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
For a thousand dollars, SHAB is going to help take Nantucket Harbor's temperature.

The Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board voted unanimously at its April 17 meeting to give the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station $1,000 to construct two or three water temperature buoys that new SHAB member Peter Boyce would build and anchor at key locations in the harbor.

The buoy sensors are to be used in concert with the Marine & Coastal Resource Department's seed growout program, in which Nantucket bay scallops are being sent to a hatchery in Harwich, Mass. to help spawn one million seed that will be grown out in floating cages in Nantucket Harbor.

Equipped with solar panels to power them and radio transmitters, the buoys will beam their temperature data back to a computer monitored by Field Station Director Dr. Sarah Oktay.

"Deploying such buoys would be the first step in instrumenting the harbor to measure the water quality on a continuous basis as called for in the new Harbor Plan," said Boyce and Oktay in their written proposal to SHAB. "Moreover, since there is a plan approved to collect local scallop spat for propagation, knowing the temperature in real time would be helpful."

Boyce and Oktay plan to anchor the buoys on the west side of Pocomo Point and in Third Bend with a third buoy possibly being set up in the Head of the Harbor. The electronics cost between $300 and $500, and can be assembled to fit inside the buoys with solar panels on top.

The buoy temperature sensors will be used primarily to track scallop seed recruitment and spawning. Because bay scallops spawn - release their eggs and sperm into the water - at or around 68 degrees Fahrenheit, Oktay said it is useful to know where and when the water temperature reaches 68 degrees so the Marine Department knows where to place spat bags to collect them for grow-out. "We can tell if the water column is well mixed and if the scallops are likely to spawn," said Oktay. "We'll want to combine those with other buoys that measure current, salinity and in the long term, we'll have a buoy that can shoot nutrients."

Oktay added that within the next year or two, she would be exploring new sensor equipment and working with Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto on the best places to locate these sensors.

Although the commission liked the idea enough to vote for it 5-0, it did have some concerns. New SHAB member Bam LaFarge did see the logic of the temperature buoys, but wondered how they could be protected from vandalism and boats running over them. No immediate solution was outlined at the meeting.