The Oyster Pond Environmental Trust Newsletter, Spring 1996
OPET, P.O. Box 496, Woods Hole, MA 02543-0496
The Town of Falmouth has included in the budget for fiscal 1997 $20,000 to be spent "for engineering to pick a location for and design of an adjustable weir to be built at the outlet to OysterPond,..."
The members of your Pond Management Committee (Barry Norris, Don Zinn, Stan Hart and Carl Breivogel) are very proud of our being able to obtain this commitment from the Town. Needless to say, there was a lot of effort and good will from many others which got us to this successful result. In all truth, we are somewhat stunned at our success at obtaining this money on our first try.
The explanation for our success apparently stems from your cooperation and the work of Brian Howes' lab at WHOI. Your cooperation because you completed and returned the questionnaire which we sent out early last year asking for your concerns regarding Oyster Pond and how it should be managed. The results of the survey showed, for one thing, that there were no conflicting agendas regarding Pond management. Brian Howes and the Pond Watchers for studying the Pond since 1987 with the financial aid of Falmouth) and proposing a science based management plan.
When the Conservation Commission was presented with copies of the responses to the questionnaire and an explanation from Brian Howes' of the management plan, they approved it unanimously and sent a letter to the Town Commissioners informing them of their action and recommending that the plan be implemented. The Town Engineer attended the Commission meeting.
Next we went to the Planning Commission because they are the ones who have been getting the money for the WHOI testing. They also approved our proposal.
We had submitted a petition article for the warrant which must by law go before Town Meeting so the Commissioners approved the Article as a matter of form without discussion. The article did go before the DPW subcommittee of the Finance Committee. It was proposed to the full committee for approval by the subcommittee which approval was obtained after discussion. The only questioning comments were that a couple of members would have preferred to see our article come from a Town organization rather than as a petition article. The committee, in its wisdom, recognized this as an improper objection because of state law. The
Town Meeting subsequently included our article in those which were passed without objection.
Now a Request for Proposal has to go out to Consulting Engineers to quote for the design. Here again OPET is taking the lead and preparing the RFQ so that bids can be in when the new fiscal year starts July 1st. When an engineer is engaged. the design wiH be completed, and then contractor quotations obtained. If all goes well, we hope to have another article at the spring Town Meeting next year so we can get the weir built.
by Barrv Norris. Pond Management Committee Chair
This book, written in the late 60's, describes studies Emery made of Oyster Pond. An Epilogue by Bryan Howes and Stan Hart brings it up to date in a new printing OPET will be introducing at its annual meeting. Members will be able to purchase this classic at a discount price of $15 before and during the meeting.
K.O.Emery's classic study of Oyster Pond A COASTAL POND studied by oceanographic methods, originally published in 1969, is a fascinating little volume that sets forth a study which Dr. Emery labelled a "low-cost backyard operation". It is of more than historic interest, however, as it broadly defines manv of the issues which still demand our attention with respect to Oyster Pond, and indeed coastal ponds more generally.
Dr. Emery "reads" the sediments of the pond to trace the waning of the great ice sheet, the rise of sea level and the eventual change from fresh water to infilling by the ocean about 2200 years ago. Slow reversion to brackish water occurred as a baymouth bar began sealing this coastal bay some 900 years ago. The local settlement called Suckanesset in 1668 became Falmouth by 1693, and by 1773 the oysters were in irreparable decline, victim to the continuing "freshening" of the pond. Sand layers in the pond document the sporadic history of hurricanes reaching back to 960 A.D., with the most recent in 1991 adding its quota of heavy salt water to the stagnant bottom waters of the south basin. This noxious pool, first described by Dr. Emery, is only part of the pulse of the pond; summer layering and anoxia, wind currents, mixing and fall overturn with its memorable aromas, life and anti-life.
Dr. Emery leaves us circa 1969 with a reasonably healthy pond. The impact of future settlement around the pond is left an open issue. Since then, and especially with the efforts of the Falmouth Pond Watchers, this impact is being chronicled systematically and vividly. To weave the present to the past, Drs.Brian Howes and Stan Hart have supplied an "Epilogue" to Dr. Emery's book. These two scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution review the latest findings with respect to water resources, nutrient loading, anoxic events, and the flora and fauna. Watershed management and themes for future pond stewardship are here as well, and all provide a fitting tribute to the "low-cost backyard operation" with which Dr. Emery started it all in 1969.
by Stan Hart
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