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Mussels could stall SBPF's plan
Fishermen say dredge site should be marine sanctuary
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Charter boat captains Pete Kaizer and Bobby DeCosta believe there are enough blue mussels and juvenile sea clams on the ocean floor where the Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund wants to dredge to warrant reconsideration of the site.
At the March 18 Harbor & Shellfish Advisory Board meeting, Kaizer and DeCosta showed a video they shot of blue mussel beds they discovered in the area.
With this information, they were able to convince the board to vote 7-0 to write a letter to the Conservation Commission, the New England Fisheries Management Council and the Army Corps of Engineers, alerting them of the discovery in hopes of stopping the dredging of sand from this area.
The Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund wants to dredge 1.9 million cubic yards of sand from this section of the ocean bottom to rebuild the beaches from Sankaty down to Codfish Park. Though SBPF maintains that island fishermen like Kaizer and DeCosta told SBPF they should get their beach sand from this site, apparently neither side knew the extent of marine habitat and sea life growing there.
"We started reviewing some of the video and taking the cameras through there, but up until then nobody knew how rich the environment was in there," said Kaizer. "We didn't know, the proponents didn't know.
"At this point, we're going to try to make this place into a marine sanctuary, that's where we are right now."
In the underwater video, large beds of mussels can be seen growing on what Kaizer describes as a dark peat-like, organic layer rippling in and out of the sandy and hard bottom that is covered in snow drift-like sections of sand in varying heights.
"We keep running into this substrate that is a smooth brown substrate," Kaizer told the Conservation Commission at a March 10 continuation of the SBPF public hearing. "There's this whole layer that lies across this borrow site that's going to be gone. Once you blow it out of there, it's going to be gone forever.
At that meeting, Mark Rits, one of SBPF's coastal engineers from the Maynard, Mass. firm Epsilon Associates, discounted the amount of mussels on the bottom of the dredging site, telling the commission they were in a different location than Kaizer and DeCosta said they were.
"We don't feel that there are huge mussel beds within the borrow site," said Rits at the time. "Had we found large, significant mussel beds, we would have attempted to work around those."
However, SBPF Executive Director Cheryl Bartlett said that because they are not entirely clear where this video was shot, and the extent of the mussels in its proposed sand dredging site, SBPF is working on confirming Kaizer's and DeCosta's video.
"We don't really understand where they are and what's there," said Bartlett. "Before we can make any comments, we have to re-analyze our data and go down there and check things out."
Originally, SBPF maintained that there were little or no shellfish found at the borrow area. But at the March 10 ConCom meeting, Epsilon Associates declared there was a limited presence of mussels and sea clams in the area. Kaizer said that it was only after he and DeCosta noted that there were a fair amount of mussels at the proposed borrow site that Epsilon announced to the commission that there were, in fact, an as yet undetermined amount of mussels in the dredging area, causing Kaizer to question SBPF's efforts.
"At this point, there is no way we should believe any more of their data on that borrow site," said Kaizer. "The fact they haven't revealed this in two years is because they're either disingenuous or using substandard equipment.
"This resource should be protected for the past, present and the future. If the codfish come back, they will settle in there."
But SBPF is standing firm until Epsilon performs further habitat surveys to determine the location of all mussel beds in the proposed dredging area. SBPF also wants to validate Kaizer's and DeCosta's video of mussel beds in the area.
"They are suggesting that there is an impact and we haven't seen them present that in any kind of scientific way," said Bartlett. "I don't think we've seen the data that has the specifics so we can go out and do the same study. This is new information for the site they have selected."
At the end of last week, Kaizer, DeCosta and other island fisherman held an informal meeting to work on a plan to get their message out and to form a political action committee called the Coalition for Responsible Coastal Management to advance their cause. This week, newspaper ads will tell islanders of their concerns; Plum TV Channel 22 also has agreed to provide a link to Kaizer's video on its Web site, said Kaizer.
SBPF is also trying to get the facts out to registered voters before the April 15 election when non-binding ballot question five will ask voters whether they are for or against SBPF's efforts by sending out postcards that say SBPF guarantees preservation of fishing grounds and by voting yes, one is pro-environment. To put faces on its campaign, island students and professionals to go door-to-door, talking with voters about the merits of
SBPF's quest. I
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