New, improved harbors plan ready for selectmen
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Scores of public comments, hundreds of hours of meetings and several drafts produced the Revised Nantucket & Madaket Harbors Action Plan.

Tonight, if the Board of Selectmen agrees, this 189-page document will be sent to the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) for what is likely to be a yearlong review process.

This latest version of the harbors plan is as complete and comprehensive a document as Marine Superintendent and Harbormaster Dave Fronzuto has ever seen, and one that he is already using.

"I think it gives us a great opportunity to have direct input into any water dependent Chapter 91 licenses currently or in the future," he said. "I think it deals strategically with shellfish management, propagation, public access and it really gave the community the chance to say what was important. I literally find myself every day referring to the plan, so it must be pretty complete if I'm referring to it everyday."

In addition to fleshed out sections on the main elements of the plan - natural resources, water quality, harbor facilities and uses, public access, tourism, downtown waterfront, fishing, safety and Madaket Harbor issues - this final version of the new and improved harbors plan is packing some new recommendations on dredging, navigation, harbor uses, the carrying capacity of the harbors and maintaining the island's ability to haul boats during storm events.

The five to 10 percent of the last version of the plan that the Harbors Plan Advisory Committee changed, including 17 recommendations that were revised and or added, came from public participation letters, emails and verbal testimony.

"While the goals and scope of the plan cover an unusually wide range of issues, what has been most remarkable has been the level of public participation," said Dan Hellin, a research associate with the Urban Harbors Institute, the town's consultant hired to help write this new harbors plan. "The public comment period triggered a huge amount of feedback from a wide range of stakeholders. Not only had people clearly read the drafts, they had also thought about the issues and what they felt needed to be done. Another noteworthy aspect of the harbor planning process in Nantucket has been the dedication of those who we have worked most closely with; in particular Dave Fronzuto and the members of the Review Committee."

What made this process so accessible to Nantucketers with harbor interests was the committee's belief that it could not do the plan without their help. Sarah Oktay, director of the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station and a member of the committee said that creating a chart of all the public and committee comments that identified issues and proposed solutions helped the committee convert nearly all the public's contributions into solid recommendations that made it into the plan.

"Ninety-percent of the time we did it [formulated the comments into aspects of the plan], but we wanted to give everyone the respect of making a comment," said Oktay. "It was very helpful for us because there were so many comments that were overlapping, many people asking the same thing."

At the board's meeting tonight, the selectmen are expected to hold a public hearing for any last comments on the plan and then vote on whether to endorse it. If board is satisfied that the plan is ready to be sent to the state, then it goes to CZM.

Although Coastal Zone Management and the state's Department of Environmental Management will both comb through the harbors plan incorporating their recommendations into what Nantucket and Urban Harbors wrote, and hold public hearings along the way, it is the Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs, Ian A. Bowles of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act office who would sign off for the state review, said Hellin.

Once that happens, the new harbors plan is an official, though not a legally binding document, as all of its elements are merely recommendations for local officials and islanders to follow up on should they choose to. There are no bylaws or amendments to bylaws within the Revised Nantucket & Madaket Harbors Action Plan. However, if there is a Town Meeting this fall, expect to see articles for the harbor overlay district that were tabled at the April Town Meeting and for a prohibition on docks, wharves and piers.

The bulk of the harbors plan is likely to be actuated by a committee that selectmen create or by SHAB, with a little extra help.

"I think implementation is going to be more spread out," said Fronzuto. "We're recommending a subset of the Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board along with the members to be determined by the Board of Selectmen."

If this happens, the selectmen would appoint three people to help SHAB oversee the implementation

of the plan. I