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OK to take scallops, but Nantucket waters closed to other shellfishing
The closure comes at the request of the state, which closed shellfishing in most of the towns on the Cape and the Islands. According to Wannacomet Water Company Manager Bob Gardner, Nantucket got 4.01 inches of rain from a low-pressure system related to Hurricane Kyle on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The island's waters are closed to shellfishing because of the high risk of contamination from failing septic systems, petroleum products, gray water and lawn fertilizers that can run off into the harbor. Nantucket's marine department will not be doing any water quality testing as part of this closure. "The state may, but we're not going to do any," he confirmed. "This happens in a lot of communities; if they get half an inch of rain, they close automatically. We're not on an automatic closure list, we just don't have that type of runoff." The preponderance of rain that fell on Nantucket in July, August and September is the likely culprit, which made runoff an issue. When the ground is saturated and the aquifer full, water runoff is quicker into the harbors and ponds. Bay scallops are exempt from this closure because their abductor muscle is the only part that is eaten, whereas quahogs, oysters, mussels and soft-shell clams are eaten whole. Most of September's rain - 4.8 inches - fell last weekend, which is up 2.2 inches from September 2007, when Nantucket got just 2.6 inches, said Gardner. "With the exception of June, we are ahead of 2007 for July, August and September. All we had to do was put the call out to restrict and we changed the weather," said Gardner. On July 3, the Nantucket Water Commission voted to have Gardner declare a state of water conservation. In June, Wannacomet surpassed last year's record for water usage of 77 million gallons pumped in that month with 79 million gallons pumped this June. I |
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