Field Notes

BOATHOUSE SCALLOPS The Nantucket Marine Collaborative reached an agreement in principle with the Marine & Coastal Resources Department on sharing the Brant Point boathouse for their individual needs.

The Nantucket Marine Collaborative is a cooperative effort between the Shellfish Association, the Maria Mitchell Association, the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station, the town, Nantucket schools and scallopers to renovate the boathouse into a state-of-the-art shellfish and water quality research and propagation lab. All the aforementioned entities would share in the use of the lab with the collective goals of research, education and shellfish propagation.

The Nantucket Shellfish Association made the announcement at its annual meeting on June 21 and also said it is now working on finding a primary fundraiser for its goal of raising $10 million to endow use of the boathouse and another $3 million to outfit the boathouse with equipment and build two dormers on either side of its roofline to increase the working capacity of the building.

The Independent file Brant Point Boathouse

However, the entire project hinges on the U.S. Coast Guard extending its lease of the land on which the boathouse sits to the town to 2033. Congress is expected to take action on the Coast Guard budget bill that contains this lease extension sometime this summer.

BUBBLING OVER Nantucketers are a thirsty bunch. In 2006, because of our everincreasing need for water, Wannacomet Water Company installed more than 200 new services, 17 fire hydrants and 15,090 lineal feet of new water mains. For those who want direct access to Nantucket's delicious sole source aquifer water, there are five public drinking fountains around the island that flow from May 1 through Nov. 1

Slake your thirst at bubblers in front of the Pacific Club at the bottom of Main Street, at the Milestone Road Rotary, on the Surfside Road bike path, the Madaket Road bike path just after Eel Point Road heading west and at Mill Hill Park on Prospect Street.

PLANNING NEWS The Planning Board dealt with just one public hearing at its meeting Monday night because Planning Board Chairman Frank Spriggs could not attend the meeting. Spriggs was hospitalized on June 17 for heart complications. The report from the Planning Office is that he is in good spirits and should not be out of action for too long.

Planning Board Chairman Frank Spriggs

However, it is likely that he will miss the June meeting of the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission tomorrow night at 7 p.m. in the garage at 2 Fairgrounds Road, the Planning Department's new home.

CAPE WIND CLARIFICATION In the June 20 issue of The Independent, Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound CEO Charles Vinick misstated the distance between the top of the 440-foot wind turbines proposed for Nantucket Sound and the bottom portion of the PAVE (Precision Acquisition Vehicle Entry) PAWS (Phased Array Warning System) missile detection system.

Vinick told The Independent that the electromagnetic beam of the radar signal, which emanates from PAVE PAWS in a line-of-sight fashion starting at three degrees above the horizon from the radar station and ascending skyward to 85 degrees above the horizon, would be 449 feet above the ground at 27 kilometers (16.7 miles) from the Cape Cod Air Force Station. Actually, according to Clean Power Now Member Carl Borchert and retired professional engineer Richard Kleekamp, the low part of the radar beam would be around 2,500 feet from the top of the nearest wind turbines to the PAVE PAWS installation.

SEE THE ICE BEFORE IT'S GONE Want to see penguins and polar bears and what's left of one of our planet's rapidly melting polar ice caps with a bunch of island friends?

Then sign up for a 15-day trip, dubbed Antarctica: The White Continent, planned for January 2009. The trip is being organized by the Maria Mitchell Association and led by Lindblad Expeditions. It includes lectures by National Geographic. whaling, geology and global warming experts along with kayaking excursions among icebergs and local wildlife.

To learn more about this trip, sign up for the Maria Mitchell Association's electronic newsletter called E-Comet by sending an email to info@mma.org and then keep an eye on E-Comet for updates on this Maria Mitchell trip.