DRAFT
Wellfleet Non-Resident Taxpayers Association
Minutes of Sixth Annual Meeting
(includes Summary of Herring River Restoration Project)
August 13, 2006
Sam Frank, Vice-President of the Association, called the meeting to order at 5:00PM. It was held at the Wellfleet Senior Center and attended by approximately 90 people. In addition to the business of the Association, the meeting featured a presentation on Tidal Restoration in Wellfleet s Herring River Estuary.
A motion to approve the minutes of last year s annual meeting was approved unanimously. Curt Lippincott, Treasurer, reported that the Association had a balance of $6680.63, with two bills outstanding. The Treasurer s report was also approved.
Alice Iacuessa, a member of the Nominating Committee, presented a slate of officers and directors, to serve terms commencing in August 2006. Other members of the committee were Diane Mangiaratti, chair, and Dorothy Altman. Lila Croen and Mary von Kaesborg were nominated to serve one year terms as Vice President and Secretary, respectively. Incumbent directors nominated to serve two year terms were Dorothy Altman, Alice Iacuessa, Jerome Sadow, Elga Wasserman and Agnes Wolf. Dwight Estey was nominated to serve his first two-year term as a Director and Peg Landon and Bill Toner were nominated to serve their first one-year term as Directors. In the absence of any nominations from the floor, the nominations of the committee were approved unanimously.
Sam then turned the floor over to Mary von Kaesborg, chair of the Association s Harbor Committee, who introduced the evening s speakers: Gordon Peabody, chair of the Herring River Technical Committee; Peter Watts, chair of the Herring River Stakeholder Committee and a Wellfleet s representative to the Seashore Advisory Committee; and John Portnoy, a National Seashore ecologist.
Gordon Peabody gave a brief history of the Herring River dike, which was originally constructed in 1908 in an effort to block the tidal flow, and has been reconstructed in the intervening years. In August 2005, a memorandum of Understanding was reached between the Selectmen and the Seashore to study potential restoration issues regarding the Herring River Estuary. Stakeholder and Technical Committees, appointed by the Selectmen, met between October 2005 and January 2006. After numerous meetings and much discussion, in January 2006 they recommended the feasibility of restoration and this was unanimously endorsed by the Selectmen. The Technical Committee had concluded that opening the dike would help to eliminate overgrown vegetation and restore the following: storm surge protection, salt hay
production, diverse sea foods, money from annual herring run, pollution control, and recreation and commercial navigation. The Technical Committee was then charged with creating a conceptual restoration plan.
John Portnoy stated that the dike blocked the tidal flow and that this has resulted in a reduction of: tidal range in the river from 7 feet to 1 ½ feet, salt marsh from 1100 acres to 7 acres, and wetlands drain. The problems that this has caused include: a disconnect of a coastal river from the marine environment, the invasion of exotic plants, poor water quality resulting in fish kills, high mosquito production, high fecal coliform causing shellfish closures, restricted access to migratory fish, and sediment subsidence.
Portnoy described the coliform problem as effecting oyster beds at the mouth of the river and around into the bay, which have had to be closed since 1985. Currently, he stated, adjacent beds are barely protected from the effects of high fecal coli form, which comes from animals who have invaded the area. An increase in flushing by opening the dikes would dilute the fecal coli form and allow a resumption of harvesting of the closed oyster beds.
During the Spring and Summer of 2006, meetings have been held to address the technical and management issues raised by stakeholders. The speakers emphasized that implementation of any plan will be incremental and continuously monitored. Consultants have been chosen to help develop a comprehensive restoration plan.
In response to questions from the audience, the following points were made:
-Restoration means restoring the natural tidal exchange and native wetland values to the extent possible, given social constraints.
-Tidal range and salinity will be restored in small increments over the years.
-Invasive woody vegetation will be removed as it succumbs to salt water.
-The monitoring data will be used to adapt planning.
-Restoring the tidal estuary in the Herring River will allow for flushing and improved water quality; suppress exotic plan growth; reestablish salt marsh grasses; give migratory fish access to marsh and ponds; improve mosquito control; increase marsh sediment; and restore shellfish and finfish habitats.
-A 25 acre conservation area was proposed in the Mill Creek area and the Town has voted funds to acquire this land. Land bank money will be used to buy this property.
-Hatches Harbor in Provincetown serves as a model for an incremental tidal restoration project.
-A wide range of groups have joined this venture as restoration partners (At its Board meeting the following week the WNRTA voted to become a partner).
-No long-term impact on ponds is anticipated.
-Currently, there is no time frame for implementing this project because we do not know how long the permitting process will take. In six months we will have a better idea of when this could begin.
-Wells in the Herring River area will not be affected. Sea water will not push into the aquifer unless the wells are in a very low lying area. A National Seashore publication, on file in the library, discusses this subject.
-Peter Watts stated that the Stakeholders include private property owners, fishing interests, etc. This group met six times and sent its concerns to the Technical Committee. It considers all private property owners as stakeholders. This committee will review the Technical Committee s responses and proposals.
-Funding does not seem to be a problem, since there is considerable interest and support for this project at all levels of government. There is a lot of federal interest in the project because of its scope and potential for other areas.
-If the sea level rises because of global warming it will affect everyone, but at the Herring River we will have a system in place that we can control. Moreover, marshes are major sinks of carbon and will, thus, have a positive impact on global warming.
-Email or newsletter as a vehicle for informing people is being discussed, but all reports are currently on the Town s website.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:30 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Lila G. Croen, Secretary.
| 
