STEEPER AND DEEPER
None of the island's boatyards had any issues when launching their customers' boats at the Children's Beach boat ramp last summer after the Marine & Coastal Resources Department spent $700,000 last winter to widen the ramp to two lanes, realign it with Harbor View Way and rebuild the finger piers.

But boat owners who launched their boats themselves found that they couldn't avoid soaking their vehicles with saltwater while launching and hauling their vessels. Enough complaints have found their way to Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto that he is now compelled to readjust the newly-adjusted boat ramp to prevent future saltwater soakings.

"It's not as steep as the old one was and it was supposed to be as steep as the old one," Fronzuto said at the Oct. 2 Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board meeting. "An awful lot of boats got launched this spring. An awful a lot of boats got recovered already. If it was so bad, why were the boatyards not lined up at my door every day? Is it perfect? No. Will we fix it? Yes."

To increase the grade of the ramp from 11 percent to 13.3 percent, a contractor will take the first three slabs of concrete from the top of the ramp and then build the gravel beneath the slabs up and seaward so the new ramp is at a 13.3-percent grade. Fronzuto said the work will take around four days. The readjustment project will have to go out to bid, but the Conservation Commission permit for the initial boat ramp improvements that the R. B. Our Company of Harwich, Mass. was working under last January is good through March 31, 2008.

SOUND OFF! Counting this afternoon, the Conservation Commission will hold at least two more continuances of the Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund's public hearing for its notice of intent to rebuild three miles of 'Sconset beach. At today's meeting, which convenes at 4 p.m. in the Large Group Instruction room at Nantucket High School, you'll be able to speak your piece on this project and take in a short video produced by charter fisherman Pete Kaizer of the cobble habitat off the Baxter Road beaches.

The second meeting will be held next Monday, Dec. 10, at 4 p.m. in the Nantucket High School cafeteria. For details, call the Conservation Commission office at 228-7230.

HAZARDOUS WASTE DAY IS DEC. 8 The December hazardous waste collection day, to be hosted by the Department of Public Works this Saturday, Dec. 8, at the landfill, is the last such collection day until the middle of March 2008.

Bring all of your nasty liquids and solids out to th garage at 188 Madaket Road from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. To get there, take the third entrance to the landfill property coming from the town and the first coming from Madaket. For a complete listing of what you can and can't unload, check out www.nantucketma. gov/departments/dpw.html, scroll down and click on the link for household hazardous waste or call 228-7244.

RIGHT BUYER, WRONG HOUSE In last week's property transfers, it was reported that a house on .46 of an acre at 3 Seikinnow Place sold to Peter A. and Stacey J. McEachern of Nantucket, Mass. from Steven P. and Victoria P. Lombardo of Bethesda, Md. The house in question

is actually located at 2 Seikinnow Place, not 3. I