‘Put Your Money Where Your Mud Is’
To the editor:
In his July 4 letter, Joe Aberdale, chair of the Wellfleet Marina Advisory Committee, says that Wellfleet Harbor could accommodate “350 boats when fully dredged” [“Not Guesswork,” page A2].
I find this difficult to reconcile with the 275-boat capacity cited by the harbormaster, not to mention the maximum of 245 moorings noted in the “Wellfleet Harbor Dredge Feasibility Study” by Bourne Consulting Engineering.
That 2012 study notes that the south anchorage’s last dredging in 1957 provided “moorings for 200 vessels ranging in length from 13 to 39 feet and drafts from 1 to 5 feet.” Those moorings were installed before the Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) was established in 1989. Today, the moorings would “extend some distance beyond the southern boundary into the ACEC.”
The study found that the “historic footprint is not large enough” to accommodate 200 vessels and “could ultimately result in the loss of 50 moorings” without a change in configuration. The study concluded that a reconfigured mooring field for 200 vessels would be “extremely tight,” “present difficulties for boats navigating through the field,” and “would also require complete replacement of all existing moorings and different equipment for installation and removal.”
Taxpayer alert: the cost of creating new moorings is in addition to the cost of dredging.
Even expanding the mooring field further into the ACEC, dredging to two depths to minimize environmental impacts, and grouping boats by size to allow for denser spacing only increases the “maximum total number of moorings to 245 vessels.”
As a former boat owner, I say to dredging proponents: put your money where your mud is. Raise marina and mooring fees to cover the expenses associated with your activities.
Mike Shannon
Wellfleet
Try the Jelly Donut
To the editor:
I dove into your ice cream survey [“The Scoop on the Outer Cape’s Scoops,” July 4, page A12] with delicious anticipation, only to find my expectations somewhat dashed.
My ice cream credentials date back to 1912, when my Italian grandfather, Bartholomew Ristuccia, opened Bob’s Spa in Jamaica Plain. He was known across the city for his homemade ice cream and I and my eight siblings all grew up with a keen understanding of what makes really good ice cream. When it comes to the swoon factor, you may not be able to explain it, but you know it when you taste it.
I invite you to walk the few steps from the door of the Independent to the Nut House and taste their singular jelly donut ice cream. It is to die for.
The Nut House used to be known as the only place in town serving Toscanini’s ice cream, made in Cambridge. Now the ice cream is from the Local Scoop in Orleans, with locally sourced ingredients: lavender and honey, bourbon and rum from a Truro distillery, and my beloved flavor from a donut bakery in Eastham.
I learned something new: you do not have to be Italian to make really good ice cream.
Michelle Haynes
Provincetown
Editor’s note: A review of the Nut House, which was omitted from last week’s ice cream roundup, has been added to the online version of that article.
Not Front-Page News
To the editor:
Re “When Recreation Wrecks Your Erection” [July 4, front page]:
Is this the kind of headline your new journalists enjoy writing? Why is this front-page local news?
I don’t think your readers want to know about priapism or about erectile dysfunction and the hows of fixing it. A medical journal would be a more appropriate place for this article. Or Provincetown Magazine could work.
Dotti Freitas
Provincetown
*****
Letters to the Editor
The Provincetown Independent welcomes letters from readers on all subjects. They must be signed with the writer’s name, home address, and telephone number (for verification). Letters will be published only if they have been sent exclusively to the Independent. They should be no more than 300 words and may be edited for clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and good taste. Longer pieces (up to 600 words) may be submitted for consideration as op-ed commentary. Send letters to [email protected] or by mail to P.O. Box 1034, Provincetown, MA 02657. The deadline for letters is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.
