Progress Report
PR #7 - September 1999

Dear Friends of Three Bays Preservation,

BOARD NEWS

It is with extreme sorrow that we inform you of the untimely passing of Betsy Hornor, our treasurer, on September 10, 1999. It is a great loss to our Board. She was a pillar of strength and integrity and her sound judgment will be missed. Betsy joined our Board in the very beginning and lent her reputation and creditability to our cause. For this we are forever grateful.

New Board Members

Townsend Hornor
We are happy to inform you that Townie Hornor is joining our Board to take Betsy's place. Townie has lived on West Bay for more than 70 years and has a broad knowledge of the Three Bay area as well as a lifelong interest in how our bays function. He is a retired trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a founder and former chairman of Sea Education Association in Wood Holes, and has a long involvement with a number of charitable institutions on the Cape, in New York City and in Newport, R.I. He has just succeeded Betsy as chairman of The National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay that is building a facility to care for stranded marine mammals. Townie will be a great addition to our Board and will be a member of the Technical Advisory Committee.

Don Schwinn, P.E.
Another great addition to our Board is Don Schwinn. Don is a recently retired Environmental Engineer with 40 years of specialized experience in water pollution control including many wastewater planning and construction projects in the Northeast, as well as Barnstable's current Wastewater Facilities Planning effort. He was principal co-author of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's manual on "Nitrogen Control" and has been extensively involved in nutrient control programs in the Great Lakes, Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay. As you know, the increasingly adverse effect of nitrogen in the Three Bays system is one of our major problems which our dredging projects are intended to ameliorate but not eliminate. That can probably only be done with major projects that may cost in the tens of millions of dollars.  Don will head up our technical advisory committee . Having dedicated his entire professional life to solving water quality problems makes Don a wonderful addition to our Board.

The following is a progress report to bring you up to date on what has happened over the summer and also what is going to happen over the fall and winter.

Summer 1999

The dredging of the two main channels serving Cotuit Bay (the channel at Bluff Point and the channel from the Seapuit River into Cotuit Bay) and the rebuilding of the Dead Neck Barrier Island/wildlife habitat have been very successful.

From observations, the deepened and widened channels have improved the circulation of sea water in the bays. It is reported by many that the water quality this summer season improved. Although the improved channels cannot take all the credit, they certainly made a difference.

The Dead Neck Barrier Island/wildlife habitat was the home of over 150 Terns, 3 pairs of Piping Plovers and untold amounts of critters that did not have a home prior to the dredging. The bays were alive with fish such as menhaden, striped bass, various minnows and snapper blues. That is the good news.

There are some troublesome areas. Our program manager, Lindsey Counsell, is directing the Citizen Water Quality Monitory Program that takes samples monthly at 19 different locations in the watershed. There are 21 volunteers taking part in this important project. Each sample is analyzed for the following:

  • Dissolved Oxygen
  • Chloride
  • Organic Nitrogen
  • Conductivity
  • Inorganic Nitrogen
  • Total Dissolved 2 Nitrogen
  • Fecal Coliform
  • Chlorophyll A
  • Salinity
  • Pheophytin A

During the months of July & August high fecal coliform was recorded in the Prince’s Cove and Warren’s Cove areas. This is a very troublesome sign because it indicates the possibility of direct sewage discharges from dwellings or boats to the Marstons Mills River and or Prince’s Cove.

Your observations as to the health of our bays is very important. We would appreciate it if you would take the time to fill out the questionnaire and return it in the enclosed envelope.

FALL 1999

This fall we plan to continue our dredging program to improve the channels into West Bay from the Seapuit Channel and place the material on the eastern end of Dead Neck.

This work was planned for last January but was stopped because of complaints of turbidity in the West Bay water due to the Dead Neck rebuilding operation. The shellfish grant owners were concerned that the turbidity would damage their shellfish. Three Bays Preservation did extensive testing and it was determined that no harm had been or would be caused by the dredging operation. The project was given the "green light" by the Town Conservation Commission this fall to proceed with the planned program.

FALL 2000

The Board has approved the obtaining of a dredging permit to remove the underwater shoal that is forming off of Sampson's Island and restricting both water flows and navigation in the main Cotuit channel. This material will be placed to the west on the Cotuit shores in the public beach area. Hopefully, the work will be performed next fall.

We will open up discussion with the Town for funding of the construction phase of this worthwhile project. The thought is that this is for the public good, and Three Bays Preservation obtaining the permits, should hopefully break the funding ice with the Town.

As fall progresses we will begin gearing up the water quality part of our efforts and planning for the Year 2000. Based on our sampling program and other input from the Town and Cape Cod Commission, nitrogen loading into the Bays has been estimated to be in excess of the Bays’ capacity to absorb it. When the results of our summer long sampling program have been completely analyzed during the winter, we will include a layman level interpretation of the data in a forthcoming newsletter. In addition to nitrogen, there are other concerns associated with pathogens (bacteria, i.e. fecal coliforms, and virus, i.e. hepatitis) and toxics (i.e. agricultural pesticides and protective coatings for boats and docks) that must be better defined before appropriate actions can be taken. Our sampling program for the Year 2000 will be a critical piece of our efforts to scientifically define the problems. A groundwater quality monitoring program is also under consideration.

WINTER 1999

This winter the Three Bays Preservation, Inc. will sponsor a workshop with the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod, the Center for Marine Science & Technology and others to bring together other towns and water quality organizations on the Cape to share our common problems.

The purpose of the workshop is to foster cooperation between other entities so that we can work together to get state and/or other federal assistance and to avoid studies that have already been done by other groups. Although we have a serious problem, there are other towns and bays that are much worse off than ours. If we combine forces we have a better chance of success. Waquoit Bay and Pleasant Bay both have active programs underway that are similar to ours and we can all benefit from our mutual experiences.

We will continue to keep you informed over the winter as our projects progress.  If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please feel free to contact us.

For those of you who have donated to Three Bays Preservation, we appreciate your past support and hope you will consider continued assistance. For those of you who have not, please consider joining your neighbors in this very important effort. The larger our membership, the greater the impact of our concerns.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

THREE BAYS PRESERVATION, INC.