[BlueChip]

IMEP #40

Habitat Discussions with John Hammond and Cape Cod Shell Fishers
(1981-1983)
A Cape Cod Experience 1981
The Truth about Nitrogen Part 3

Different Views about Nitrogen Pollution and Shellfishing, Climate and Energy
Habitat Information For Fishers and Fishery Area Managers
Understanding Science Through History

(IMEP Habitat History Newsletters can be found indexed by date on The Blue Crab.Info™ website: Fishing, eeling and oystering thread) and Connecticut Fish Talk.com Salt Water Reports

Shellfish Restoration and Water Quality Project Shellfish Proposal EPA/DEP Habitat Restoration Initiative
Meeting November 18, 2009*
* The viewpoint expressed here does not represent the EPA-DEEP Long Island Sound Study. The views represented here reflect Tim Visel committee member – no consensus was obtained on the presence of Sapropel or black mayonnaise in Connecticut Long Island Sound Waters. At this time, the State of Connecticut DEEP has not officially made a position statement regarding Sapropel formation in high heat or the existence of Black Mayonnaise deposits that produce second source nitrogen compounds.

Tim Visel, Committee Member, HRI
The Sound School, New Haven, CT

This is part three of a five part series about nitrogen issues and fin and shellfish habitat quality. Although much has been published about the nitrogen and groundwater issue for the coast very few papers talk about the Sapropel/sulfur cycle for second generation nitrogen formation. In the early 1980s shellfishers on Cape Cod were concerned about the impacts of nitrogen to shellfish habitats. They were also experiencing the strengthening of the Sapropel-Sulfur cycle, very damaging to shellfish habitats in coastal coves and bays.

My meeting with Mr. Hammond, Chatham, Massachusetts

I’d met Clint several times before at his old oyster shop on the Oyster River in Chatham. We would talk about oysters, he’d show me his special oyster floats and discuss the once large oyster industry that once thrived in the Chatham shore community. He used to purchase “bedding stock”-- two-year old oysters from Stonington, CT in Quiambaug Cove, and later Clinton, CT. After a few minutes I discovered that he purchased them from the McNeil Oyster Company (today the site of the New Haven Sound School cafeteria) that moved New Haven seed oysters to Quiambaug Cove for good growth. Quiambaug was a tidal cove in Stonington, CT and long used for grow out of New Haven oyster set in clean certified water since the 1880’s. George McNeil who ran the last division of the turn of the century McNeil Oyster Company moved their operation to Clinton when all of the New Haven grow out ground was closed to bacterial pollution. The New Haven oyster beds were then used exclusively to catch “a set” on shells broadcast on areas known to be good seed oyster producers. The set was then transplanted to cleaner waters in the lower Hammonasset River at Clinton Harbor, or Mumford Cove and Quiambaug Cover for good growth in certified water but that ended by World War II. I knew George McNeil from my high school lobster and oystering days when my brother, Raymond and I used to take the 70 year old George McNeil out seed oystering on the Hammonasset River. Putting them back together after all these years was a great experience. It had been decades since they had talked to each other. Later, I would learn that many of the Chatham oysters had started as Hammonasset River two year old seed oysters and the picture of the oyster in Paul Galtsoff 1964 bulletin which I obtained much earlier was in fact from Clinton – Madison. I had an instant friend on the Cape as we both shared an interest in shellfish history.

Mr. Hammond was interested in aquaculture but also agriculture as well. He studied what I would call today then natural sciences. In the late 1950s he was president of the Cape Cod Beach Plum Growers Association. The group was attempting to do for beach plum, a shore fruit that grew in coastal areas as for the apple of the middle ages. The beach plum was a wild cultivar and only had fruit two or three times a decade, but he estimated that a plant could live to be a hundred years. He also likened it to the apple of the Middle Ages, small, firm and low moisture content. Hundreds of years of genetic selection has produced the apple varieties we have today, ever bearing, large and higher moisture, but that was always not the case. What they had with the apple certainly they hoped to accomplish in a few decades, but other than identifying a few significant varieties, efforts were largely unsuccessful, but they had tried.

He was open to science investigations and seemed rather pleased that I also had a copy of Paul Galtsoff, The American Oyster (1964). He pulled out his copy and showed me that figure 92, a diagram of new oyster growth was actually from his grant and the oyster originally came from the Hammonasset River, the river in which I had seed oystered. I think that is why we had hit if off – I had in a small way had some practical shell fishing experience - “time in the trade” as he used to call it.

This was not his only research cooperation, in addition to Paul Galtsoff of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, but also William Shaw, also of the same organization. William Shaw’s publication includes, “Raft Culture of Eastern Oysters in Chatham, Massachusetts,” (proceedings of The National Shellfisheries Association, Vol. 51, 1960) also “Comparison of Growth of Four Strains of Oysters Raised in Taylor’s Pond, Chatman, Mass,” Fishery Bulletin, Vol. 63, #1 and finally “Feeding Habits of the Busycon Channel Whelk Nautilus”, Vol. 30, pp. 66-68, 1958. In this paper, William Shaw mentions: The author is indebted to J.C. Hammond, commercial oyster grower, whose help in the field made this project possible.”

But, today was different; he had gotten a phone call and knew that I was sent to speak to him all about “fertilizer” issue knowing the cranberry industry was already being investigated for a blue crab kill for Olin Kelly of Waquoit Bay Shellfish Company. Mr. Kelly had practiced a modified box depuration process on the grant (*shellfish lease) and was purchasing clams from a recently opened Narragansett Bay. He suspected pesticide use as nearly all the blue crabs in the area had died and he was worried about his clams. There was also spot spraying to kill gypsy moths throughout the Cape. Mr. Kelly was convinced that nearby pesticide spraying on cranberry bogs had been the source of the kill, although not proved I believed he was correct; (some of my funding was from USDA at the time, but we were already in the middle of a horrific gypsy moth outbreak), insecticides was the chief suspect. The use of insecticides was alarming to both of us, its use so close to tidal waters, Mr. Kelly was concerned for his clams but they appeared healthy and showed no mortality.

The nitrogen issue Clint didn’t think it was the agricultural industry, nitrogen costs money, but the “tourist” industry – too much sewage he explained. He felt bad for the shell fishermen now “in the trade,” as he suspected additional shellfish closures from bacteria. This in fact had been echoed by Ron Ribb, a local shell fisherman just a few weeks earlier, who was now making excellent clam rakes and larger clam rakes for the New England quahog industry. Ron was worried also. Mr. Ribb had fished Pleasant Bay; New Orleans had also seen similar bottom habitat changes but also agreed with the beneficial cultivating / working the bottom concept. It seemed to him that agitating the bottom was good and that it attracted fish such as small flounder and small stripers. On cold days, he dislodged worms and stripers would come in and eat them. The small flounder he would occasionally “tine” on the rake itself as they gathered where he was raking, gathering clams. He had different types of rakes, both hard bottom and soft. He was also selling a tool I had never seen before, an “eel comb,” a vertical rake for eels that was propelled into the soft bottom, eels it seemed were increasing in these soft bottoms. Had the bottom changed, he concluded, yes. It was softer than his first year clamming in Pleasant Bay, and he was selling more “soft-bottom” rakes than ever before. But what was happening now in the early 1980’s had in fact, started in Pleasant Bay two decades before (1960s), was just too much eelgrass. Several proposals had been done which proposed dredging (for the recreational boating industry) and was hoping it (the dredging) would clean up the muck and clear the extra eelgrass which Mr. Ribb described at the time was suffocating the bottom. ( Letter to John Leslie, Chief Engineer, Division from The Department of Health, Education and Welfare, September 20, 1968, confirmed this). The benefits of hydraulics and restoring bottoms was openly debated even to include small model skiff hydraulic hard clam dredges.

It had been quite a controversy – those wanting to protect the habitats and those wanting to restore a habitat value they had seen decline – shellfish populations. It was difficult for people to understand that what the shell fishermen were seeing was way beyond the previous habitat value or historical expectations. Eelgrass was now growing and spreading threatening to choke the entire Pleasant Bay. (This had actually happened in Niantic Bay, CT between 1965 to 1975.) The few shellfishers left realized that some eelgrass was good, but this was far too much, but agreement on this issue was tough. Mr. Hammond, a long time shell fishermen went to a desk and pulled out a letter, and as I explained that shell fishermen were facing shellfish closures in the town of Bourne and the Centerville River. What else, he asked, (the reason I was asked to see him) it looks like large areas are suffocating from nutrient enrichment. He laughed, “Well, that’s a nice way to say it, but it’s really just too much nutrients (nitrogen),” and slowly said, “This is what you need, look into this.” The letter addressed to Robert Wallace, the Wellfleet Shellfish Warden and dated December 31, 1978. This is what is going to kill the shell fishermen, and the coves also, “it’s about the nitrogen, and it’s changing the bottom” but it is not what people think. Asking me if I had the time “to hear him out,” I did.

The fact, Mr. Hammond stated, is that shell fishermen are the eyes and ears for the environment, while people see us harvesting shellfish, they don’t understand the habitats that provided it that shell fishers do. Every time we breach (a new cut into Monomoy) we get great clamming. Why? Because the ground has been prepared, cultivated for soft shells by waves, the flats set heavy and then slowly go hard, the soil gets packed and muck covered or “soft” –nothing is better than clean loose sand. He had seen this several times especially after storm caused breaches. Fishermen can only harvest what has set, as the ground will again go soft. But today, from the 1950’s to present, it was happening quicker, and heat was the reason the nitrogen was the result. He had seen it in Chatham and told me a couple of stories. Several years ago, we had a scientist from Woods Hole come out here and tell us that eelgrass was good. We agreed that some eelgrass was good*, clean sandy areas it would hold large quantities of fish, they liked the food in the coves and the structure. Scallops too, would be next, the eelgrass which he felt helped them from being swept out by the tides. Concerned about scallop dredges damaging the eelgrass, the town (Chatham) voted to conduct scalloping with “lookers” and nets, view boxes that were used at other areas. What they didn’t realize (the shell fishermen knew it) that the process of fall scalloping had become largely a grass cutting operation, as they picked through a larger and larger amounts of it, eelgrass searching for the prized delicacy. The overgrowth of eelgrass was removed as a byproduct of the scallop fishery (similar to mowing a lawn). The first thing they noticed after the change was that there was so much eelgrass and leaves, marsh grass, they couldn’t see any scallops, only the clear areas, those free of eelgrass were productive. Eelgrass which had been before cut free and drifted out with the tide, died off as usual but then stayed, pilling into windows (holding the bottom, by the second year eelgrass was so thick it stopped outboard motors, it was rotting over the bottom producing a whitish bottom which Mr. Hammond called composting). * It is Mr. Hammond that described the “clean and green” eelgrass as he had watched it turn into the “brown and furry.” By the second year, fishermen convinced town officials to reverse the no dredge policy and excess eelgrass was removed by the scallop fishing. What fishers had described was habitat succession and eelgrass is highly aggressive in shallow low organic marine soils.

During this time, he (Clint) had to hire a couple of high school students to drag over his oysters to keep all the dead eelgrass and other vegetation off them and had at the same time battled an invasive weed called codium, which I had never seen before. Between keeping the eelgrass off the oysters and pulling codium off adults, he felt he was in the weed business. What was happening was more “hard” nitrogen was being washed into coves and bays having two impacts, the large plants and also the same ones, algae. He had read an article from overseas that this was a big problem to oystermen and that nitrogen can travel in the water for miles. Although fertilizer use was suspected, Mr. Hammond feared sewage “solids” would become the largest nutrient nitrogen source in the future and that organics not eelgrass would soon become an issue. His feeling was you just couldn’t put that much solid nitrogen* in the water and not have an influence. His decades of research was connected to energy (storms) and temperatures. Small open coves and bays, that couldn’t rid themselves of hard nitrogen -- they lacked the waves and storms that could clean them. And he felt it had gotten much warmer since the 1960s and excess heat made the problem worse. Instead of cycling in winter as leaves would be dissolved the heat and few storms collected rotted and now turned hard bottoms soft. He likened it to the agriculture manure farm ponds of summer where blooms of algae covered the surface. In the winter the water was clear. As he had made progress in the excess eelgrass growth only to see sea lettuce Ulva become a larger problem. Sea lettuce he felt was more destructive than eelgrass although both he felt could dominate the habitat. Sea lettuce he believed lived in the slowest of currents and could completely cover the soft bottom (trapping leaves) thriving in hot summer temperatures, as it rotted leaves or organics below it released nitrogen back into the water – a huge marine compost nitrogen source. Solid (hard) nitrogen included leaves, dead eelgrass, grass clippings soft nitrogen as nitrogen from people or commercial fertilizers.

Now the Oyster River in Chatham was becoming the “farm pond” equivalent. He had noticed something else – that he attributed to warmer waters; his oysters were growing faster. He used to plant a mixture of 2 year, 3 year and 4 year old oysters. His ground didn’t catch a good set but excellent growing conditions and good tidal exchange made Chatham oysters famous. The hard sandy/shell bottoms allowed his grant to be planted, cultivated and tonged from a specialized oyster float raft. Toward the end of his business operations, he noticed that the Oyster River was now full of algae most of the year. Previously the water cleared in early fall, allowing him enough visibility to see his oysters (and conduct a modest eel and flounder spear fishery) but that wasn’t the case. Only in the middle of winter, and ice dependent could he see the bottom. But his oysters were growing faster, if he could keep codium leaves and eelgrass off and during hot weather, rake the sea lettuce from them. Some of the 2 year old oysters in shallow water would grow as fast as 3 and four year olds. When he needed three years of growth now only required two, and two only needed 1 year. He felt the soft nitrogen enhanced algae made faster growing oysters “a plankton soup” as he called it. He had seen this in the aqua cultured clams on grants also. Some of the area fishermen had purchased “seed clams” from the Culture Clam on the Cape and that the growth was so quick the shells were too thin. When he purchased quahog seed from CT, he did so from the oyster companies and these were sent up in iced barrels of seed, the size of a nickel with oyster bedding stock. He had good clam growth but nothing like this. As many oyster farmers observed you could “double crop” the grant, hard clams lived below the oysters and once oysters were cleared by tonging by Thanksgiving, raking for winter clams followed. It supplied a small seasonal markets and when bays iced over, “grants” were the few sources of hard clams. The excess nitrogen all the while was enhancing the plants which favored the clams and oysters; most disturbing to Mr. Hammond was what was happening to the bottom that was his hard nitrogen. He then took me to his old oyster bed and with Herb Bassett, Jr. and Herb Bassett Sr. who ran the shop, we looked down at the bottom. All you could see was dead eelgrass, decaying salt hay, sticks and leaves in a black soupy material.

“You see that? Nothing can live in that” I recall him saying pointing to a mass of weed on the end of a long pole. I can recall him saying what can live in that but he also had a solution and pointed to a series of oyster floats, long abandoned that now lined the east side of the marsh.

“I think we need a modified float so that we can grow oysters above the bottom, on racks that have ‘feet,’ the bottom will become too soft (foul), and bottom culture impossible without more cultivation and with closures to bullrakers; nothing will take the dead leaves and grasses out and the habitat was quickly turning against the shell fishermen. As the winters turned milder and less stormy, nature had largely failed to keep the habitats clean – oyster growers and shellfish men could just do so much, but the habitat was turning against them – the shellfishers.

“Soon,” he predicted, “it would turn against fish as well.” He felt that oysters could do a better job of removing the excess algae, as we needed more oysters when we had less. Oysters were nature’s filter, we just didn’t have enough to balance the habitat change. With warmer winter temperatures, we need more shellfish cultivation not less. He had looked at the weather and storms for habitat conditions and made it a subject of this research. He felt that habitats change because the climate and energy levels change. He predicted a New England Habitat failure in 1982, he was decades ahead of his time.

He had seen such habitat changes before but not as bad as now (1982). After breaches (breaks in the barrier beach system called Monomoy) occurred, the waves and tides cleaned the bottom. They would get great sets of soft-shells a few years later. In the 1930s, eelgrass died off and tidal exchange improved in the salt ponds and bay scallops came back strong. After the 1950s, several storms and tides cleared some of the excess mulch out and for days later, the water was brown with sediment. But in the late 1950s and very early 1960s, the eelgrass was back after these storms stopped and spread across some of the most productive clam flats. What started as a good neighbor quickly became a dreaded destroyer (see IMEP newsletters 29 and 30). The fishermen noticed this first as it spread over grounds and started silting them up. Mr. Hammond stated that it got so thick on Pleasant Bay; it could stop an outboard powered motor boat. Shell fishermen seeing this habitats transition would come to despise the eelgrass, and with more leaves and less energy overtake clam habitats in Pleasant Bay the shellfisheries declined.

So it was really two problems, raking out the dead vegetation removing nitrogen enhanced algae growths and hotter summers. He knew how to do both and predicted that someday oysters and clams would be raised to remove nitrogen, “nature’s filter,” and then take them to the plant. What plant, I asked? It was the depuration facility north of the Cape. He wasn’t optimistic – all the focus nitrogen – its bacteria also, the warmer it gets the more bacteria as well.

“People think they know the coves, but they really don’t, and by the time they do it, it will be too late.” They do not understand the habitat history, he still had people telling him that lots of eelgrass is good but he didn’t think so, he saw it as a very bad sign. He predicted “dire times” for inshore shellfisheries as habitat changed.

I mentioned the bacterial closures shell fishermen in Bourne and Barnstable were facing, such as the Centerville River. Mr. Hammond stated at one time that nearly all the ponds and coves had oystermen, and Osterville was no different. In fact, oysters were found in the Centerville River in a natural bed, but that was decades ago. The best areas were still in Barnstable and Wellfleet, but he feared high bacteria counts would close them all.

Mr. Hammond was very concerned about the build-up of nitrogen in the bottom “humis” or “compost” and that everyone was focused on bacteria he felt the real threat is from the nitrogen and the buildup of compost (mulch) on the bottom. I had been in small skiff on the Centerville River a few months previous and located an old natural oyster bed, under about three feet of muck, not unlike some of the oyster beds in CT. Mr. Hammond wasn’t surprised with all the grasses and leaves; he was thinking it would have been greater than three feet. He mentioned that leaves can cover the bottom and that dead salt marsh grass was also becoming a problem - but he had also seen previous bottoms in Pleasant Bay areas below the black mayonnaise that held dead Quahogs.

He wanted a shorter relay for oysters or a Cape Cod depuration plant (bacteria cleansing) but he knew that was a difficult step for the Cape long famous for its oysters and clams. The concept of “selling” the need of a plant (shellfish purification) for the Cape was nothing short of announcing seafood here was polluted.” It was just an old process to eliminate bacteria, it wasn’t that chemicals had poisoned the bottom, but we needed to shellfish in these now closed areas. His concerns were both resource use and the impact of not harvesting / cleaning the bottom. Once the harvesting stops the bottoms “died quicker.” He had seen that with skiff trawls for flounders once prohibited these areas just became filled with leaves and muck “no good to anyone” commercial or recreational.

It had happened on the North Shore, Boston Harbor; soft-shell clammers had come for their industry (The Newburyport Shellfish Depuration Plant on Plum Island). A small hydraulic dredge was tied up to the marina near the Crosby Yard; it seemed like a good piece of equipment to clean the buried oyster beds and became part of an oyster proposal for a resident interested in oyster farming. He knew the bacterial counts were increasing in Chatham because he kept a journal of bathing beach counts for Hardings beach, the public beach at the mouth of Oyster River and they were on the “rise” with street drains, pet waste and who knew what else going in the Oyster River. He warned that Oyster Pond would someday be closed. Without the shell fishermen to move the grass (cultivate the bottom) fish would also leave, that flounders too would go. Flounders like fresh clean oyster bottoms, he recalled; years ago he had to chase flounder fishermen off his grant, but they had learned what he knew, big flounders liked the oyster beds because of all the food, he had let them fish. Afterward he would let them stay if they kept an eye on his oysters and refrained from anchoring over them. He had seen the big flounders go out as the ”weeds” (codium and eelgrass) came in. This had also occurred in some areas where skiff dragging had been limited.

Referring to the discussions about shell fishing and bottom cultivation, he chuckled that the environmental concerns were in fact being leveled at people, maintaining the habitat they wanted here for fish /shellfish. Perhaps one day, instead of yelling at each other, (referring to some letters to the editor in Cape Cod newspapers) they could work together, wouldn’t it be great if you got paid to raise the oysters to remove the nitrogen. This is what you should do—look into how to get rid of this nitrogen. We need more shell fishermen not less, and they had been the first ones to ring the nitrogen alarm bell. It’s ironic that the ones trying to preserve habitat values that attracted people to the Cape in the first place, were being accused of environmental harm. Going into another drawer, he placed a copy of a report conducted by Luther Blount that he had recently obtained. Mr. Blount also one of the last remaining oyster growers from Rhode Island was experimenting with off-bottom culture. What was interesting to Mr. Hammond was not the food aspect of this culture method, but its ability to increase the carrying capacity of oysters to remove nitrogen from the water column, “nature’s filters” he would say; today we need more of them. Pound for pound nature can remove the nitrogen cheaper than the proposed sewer plant expansion (Hyannis). Everyone is focused about the nitrogen, can you swim in it, can you drink it, etc., but the real threat is from something no one can see (referring to the plate culture of bacteria) nitrogen. Mr. Hammond was quite excited about the report he obtained during the spring of 1981 from Luther Blount, owner / operator of Prudence Island Oyster Farms. Mr. Blount was experimenting with off-bottom culture and mentions the capacity of oysters to remove algae in large quantities. On page 6, Mr. Blount estimates that oysters would filter some “Eight million tons (of sea water) from which oysters extracted in 1977-1978 season, about 11 tons of shell and meat” and further Mr. Blount on page 8, continues to suggest environmental services of shellfish by “artificial feeding”. That is what your (Extension Service) should look at and how to put it to good use. He gave me a copy of his report, he had copied it before our meeting.

A few days after our meeting, the debate about shell fishing, nutrient enrichment and the environment hit the newspapers. Quoting from the Blount Report, Mr. Hammond directed my attention to a solution to his long time foe, sea lettuce. Mr. Blount states on page 8, “At nearby Nag Creek, a ten-acre tidal pond, there is during the summer, a considerable growth of sea lettuce (ulva), (which Mr. Hammond felt was also the result of nitrogen pollution and warm temperatures). It is estimated that there could be as much as one or two tons of this harvested per week at very reasonable cost if this material would be of use as “feed.”
“We believe a commercial type blender could efficiently mash the seaweed into slurry at a reasonable cost.” (Blount Study).

Mr. Hammond liked this idea, as he also had seen the dramatic increase of this “weed” such as eelgrass and had hired high school students to tow a drag to cut and remove dense mats of algae from his oysters. The utilization of oysters to remove both micro and nutrients supporting macro algae was putting something that was out of balance to good use.

Mr. Hammond believed that without such utilization of excess nitrogen enhanced seaweed habitats would be substantially changed, hard bottoms would change to soft and why he felt modified off bottom culture would become prevalent.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Blount went beyond suggesting the capacity of his oysters to remove algae and even excess seaweed, but kept a record of other species seen in the aquaculture area. He lists on page 11, three shellfish species, 12 fish species, 8 crustacean, two worms, a sponge, tunicates, 7 bird species, mink and for macro algae species, poly-siphonic, spirula, enteromorpha and ulva- sea lettuce.

I believe that Mr. Blount’s report was one of the first off-bottom experiments to detail many aspects of what we call today, “environmental services” of oysters while Mr. Hammond saw the potential of shellfish increasing the carrying capacity of biological removal of excess nitrogen. What concerned Mr. Hammond was information and phone calls from other shell fishermen and reports of other shellfish areas of sea weed blooms; he was concerned that what was happening was nothing short of a quantum shift in habitat profiles, formerly hard bottom shell habitat was now turning into soft bottom, and illustrated the change as he read part of a 1978 letter to Bob Wallace then, Wellfleet Shellfish Warden, Mr. Hammond thought his Oyster Pond River and the shellfish grants would be overwhelmed by excess vegetation (nitrogen enhanced) for him the Oyster River was dying.

December 31, 1978

Mr. Robert Wallace
Wellfleet Shellfish Warden
Wellfleet, Mass

Dear Mr. Wallace:
Thank you for your time in talking with Mr. John Richards and myself last Friday. I had wanted to meet you and also to inquire about a report by Mr. Richard Nelson of the Cotouit Oyster Co. that Wellfleet was having a high mortality in its oyster crop.

After talking with you and also with Mr. Howard Snow relative to the oyster mortality I have come to the following conclusions:

Because of an extremely heavy growth of the Green Algae, Ulva lactuca, (Sea Lettuce), oysters at Wellfleet were smothered and particularly those of larger size, which because of their larger size may have come in more direct contact with the weed which laid heavily upon them. All shellfish such as clams, oysters, scallops and mussels, require a considerable amount of oxygen to sustain life and when dissolved oxygen is absent in the water shellfish soon die.

The next question is – why is Wellfleet experiencing such a luxuriant growth of this weed?

Ulva and similar algae are stimulated by the presence of additional nitrogen compounds. Nitrogen is scarce in sea water. For this reason, Ulva and its relatives are often found in particular abundance at locations of moderate pollution. Mr. Snow informed me that pollution is entering your harbor from Duck Creek. Are there any other sources? Leakage from sewers, cesspool seepage, and agricultural runoff would favor the growth of Ulva.

One of the best known cases of this kind occurred on Long Island some years ago when nutrients from various duck farms entered Great South Bay causing excessive vegetative growth that put the oyster industry out of business there.

It appears that it would be well for you to make a thorough investigation of any sources of pollution into Wellfleet harbor.

If you can get pollution stopped by yourself, I urge you to do it. Otherwise the whole Wellfleet Harbor may be quarantined by the State Environmental Health Department.

Yours for less Ulva and more Ostrea virginica.

Sincerely,

J. C. Hammond



He was very concerned that no one had plans to his oyster floats. Months after our meeting, on one of my last visits we went across the Oyster Pond River where 4 or 5 old oyster floats had been abandoned on the salt marsh. In the January sun, with Clint holding my tape measure, we took off the plans. Only later did he reveal the urgency of this request. He wanted to make certain that people knew about these oyster floats believing sadly that in the future the bottom would be abandoned for oyster culture and a new generation of shellfishers might need them.

After my third meeting with Mr. Hammond I then met with Jack Clark, coastal Zone administrator of the Cape Cod Commission. The commission is one of the sponsors of several municipal meetings to gain public input was also concerned about nitrogen and the enhancement of vegetation in coastal coves. At the time, people (user groups and general public) wanted to know the source of all the nutrients. In the early 1980s, much of the study of eutrophication was on fresh water bodies, few realized that estuaries could be the subject of such widespread nutrient enrichment believing that coastal tides would flush (it) away. This was proving not to be the case and if what the fishermen were claiming was correct, the Cape was experiencing widespread climate induced habitat shifts. Mr. Hammond felt that fewer storms and milder temperatures had greatly speeded the habitat transitioning process (termed the law of habitat succession) and the future ahead to him looked “grim.”

He had given me a copy of the Army Corps reports about a new breach and his climate/temperature concerns even in the 1960s. He felt the Cape Cod fishers were caught in something they could not control a noticeable decline in storms and hotter summers. It was important to know your “shellfish history” (catch landings) he mentioned many times as it related to habitats and soil conditions much like agriculture, looking back he was correct.

I respond to all emails at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us










Appendix #1
The Sulfur-Sapropel Cycle
Shellfishers and Harvest/Cultivation Energy

In the marine environment habitats succeed also and the steady state snapshot of habitat value or type has an initial bias of time. Over time those habitats change or “succeed” and any policy connection to minimizing energy (or stopping it) like dams and breakwaters have themselves long-term habitat impacts. There is a constant bias about this. Few publications promote marine dredging as enhancing desired habitat types or as an energy pathway, but many clearly recognize what would happen to a residential lawn if the energy were deprived (mowing) for just a few weeks does the extent of this habitat bias come into full view. The reduction of energy (or increase) has huge implications for the marine environment as well, but this view is moderated by the sea itself - a huge heat sink and, at times, pump. What habitat succession we see taking months on land, takes years in the marine environment. It (the sea) also enjoys greater habitat stability and because of this, a much longer succession timeframe.

The concept of classifying sediment as soil types has also caused a bias between disciplines. Biology, which now contains an energy bias, and engineering, which describes soil holding and mechanical weight bearing attributes. This is clearly delineated between biology descriptions of “bottom sediment” and Army Corps Engineers as soon as this sediment breaks the surface now becomes acid sulfate soils. There is this strange relationship that the engineering field has more aptly described biological relationships and function of Sapropel than those in the biology fields. The dredging process, for instance, contains much more negative information about “sediment” when dredged as “acidic sulfate soil.” Even the classification of marine soils has been slowed from a bias involving potential treatment or improvement. This has changed recently when researchers in Maine “discovered” what had been known for a century: oyster shell (bivalve shell) can change (buffer) acidic conditions on tidal “sediments.” Shellfishers have noticed this as also the concept of working the bottom a soil cultivation aspect long associated with agriculture, including the addition of lime to modify pH.

The ability to use marine soil cultivation equipment has been classified “dredging” which has recently exposed a bias in the dredging window policies themselves. Dredging windows need to be classified upon the percent of organic matter in the soil and temperature. There is little relationship to timing dredging around reproductive capacity of species as this policy contains an energy bias. Some habitats greatly benefit from energy (cultivation) events, like the hard clam or winter flounder or even bay scallop. One of the largest habitat biases is the eelgrass/disturbance policies. In fact, the largest eelgrass populations follow colder and energy-filled periods. It is in these periods that eelgrass does so well, in soils rinsed of organic matter from storms. Dredging or the mechanical removal of organic matter and increasing soil porosity can help eelgrass; minimizing energy helps eelgrass habitats to succeed to high, organic putrefied soils that generate ammonia (high heat) and purge sulfides (low heat). This is equivalent of a promising residential lawn and then prohibiting the use of a mower. In a heavy growing season the promise of a guaranteed habitat type soon collapses.

What I find in the literature is a bias toward describing “sediment” as just one type, positive. Other than describing contamination by human interaction as far as sulfide purging (winter) and high heat ammonia generation in summer, these “negative” natural characteristics are rarely described (omitted) as impacting biological organisms. This follows the anti-bottom disturbance dredging policy formation of the 1950s and 1960s that all bottoms are “good” and anything that disturbs it is “bad.” When it was first proposed to remove black mayonnaise, this argument was used on the Cape – dredging or permitting for it. You rarely find today any reference to the positive habitat impacts of dredging in the marine environment other than for pond and lake management. However, a growing body of evidence indicates habitat or “harvest energy” is beneficial, even shellfishing/harvesting equipment to break up and dislodge Sapropel formation. One of the factors that upon review this occurred was the prohibition of small trawls in Cape Cod salt ponds for winter flounder, or even the practice of winter crab dredging. We need to know more about Sapropel and energy impacts in cold /oxygen rich seasons. In areas on the Cape and Long Island once baymen were prohibited from certain fishing practices, habitats succeeded “faster.” In other words once harvest energy stopped so did the positives habitat benefits of the energy. Our bays and coves are susceptible to any change in energy.

Here over time these habitats age or “succeed,” they fill in New England with mostly leaves and residents collectively pay to have these leaves removed (often by dredging) to restore the previous habitat values. Many pond and lake associations also discourage “leaf litter dumping” for obvious reasons, such organic inputs would cause those habitats to succeed faster or “fill in.” This is a long-term natural process called the law of habitat succession. Habitat succession came from foresters who examined old growth forest tree growth rings and others who observed transitional habitat succession of agricultural fields to low canopy woodlands.

Oxygen does play a key role in habitat stability as it drives what bacteria decomposers consume organic matter, human or natural. It therefore has an impact when it is introduced into sediments much like the aerators in the Hyannis Waste Water Plant by shellfish equipment in use by Cape Cod shellfishers in 1982.

In reality, Cape Cod shellfishers had two issues one dealing with habitat quality and the other overcoming three decades of a bias regarding bottom disturbance when they attempted habitat intervention. One of the first series of “open arguments” in the press revolved damage to eelgrass from shellfish harvesters from using pumps. In all likelihood jet clamming acted to keep those shellfish habitats viable longer in the intense heat. They were in fact “good” for the marine environment in terms of shellfish.