WELLFLEET — Harbormaster Mike Cavanaugh and his assistant, David Dalby, have proposed a series of amendments to marina regulations that would significantly change the way boat slips are assigned and waitlists for vessels seeking long-term dockage at Wellfleet Harbor are maintained. The changes were discussed at a contentious meeting of the marina advisory committee on March 17.
Wellfleet Harbor
WELLFLEET MARINA
Cavanaugh Aims to Clean Up Harbormaster’s Act
He plans upgrades to infrastructure and a new approach to engaging fishermen
WELLFLEET — A Jan. 18 notice from the harbormaster raised eyebrows among shellfishermen here. Winter dockage fees for use of the pier, due on Jan. 31, were being increased dramatically — to more than $1,600 for boats exceeding 26 feet, more than doubling the previous fee of $750.
The new fee schedule included an overnight parking fee of $25 a day.
“Before, we left our boats in the parking lot for $530 all winter,” said Dave Seitler, a former shellfish advisory board member.
A new fee schedule had been approved by the select board on March 12, 2024, but the marina advisory committee thought it involved only a 7-percent increase, according to former member Will Barrio. In January, Seitler and Barrio began hearing complaints from other fishermen who were unaware of the increases until they went to the harbormaster’s office to pay for dockage.
Seitler went to Wellfleet’s new harbormaster, Mike Cavanaugh, to complain. Cavanaugh and his deputy, David Dalby, investigated and determined that the Jan. 18 notice was a mistake. By Jan. 22, it was corrected. Cavanaugh approved a new schedule with a much lower fee: $802 for big boats’ winter dockage, which reflected the agreed-upon 7-percent increase. He also promised to make refunds to fishermen who had already paid the higher amount.
Marina staff also determined that the $25 overnight parking fee applied only to those who do not already pay a launch fee. In that case, 18 hours of free parking is allowed, per state requirements.
“This is unprecedented in Wellfleet,” said Seitler about the quick resolution. “They heard us out.”
Barrio concurred. “I give them the benefit of the doubt, since everyone’s kind of new and figuring it all out,” he said of the new marina leadership. “I’m glad we’re working together.”
Cavanaugh, who started on Nov. 4, 2024, hopes to transform the marina into a safer and more enjoyable place for commercial and recreational users alike. “We walked into somewhat of a mess we’re working on unraveling,” he told the select board on Jan. 22, describing a neglected marina facility and “inconsistencies with collecting fees.”
Cavanaugh also hopes to establish more cordial relations with the marina advisory committee and individual fishermen.
Updates to Infrastructure
Cavanaugh’s plans for the marina are ambitious. This season, apart from the updated fee schedule, he is implementing new guidelines on year-round slip permits, has adjusted dates and dockage prices for the shoulder seasons in November and April, and plans a series of infrastructure upgrades, including renovations to floating docks and the harbormaster’s office, an ice house for shellfishermen’s use, and a fully staffed fuel dock. The dilapidated L-pier, with rusty nails jutting from its wooden surface, will require another round of permitting before the harbor can begin renovations.
Cavanaugh admitted ignorance about the minutiae of the local shellfish market. Though he does not have a background in marina administration or commercial fishing, he is a lifelong recreational boater in Wellfleet and is certified for a captain’s license with towing endorsement. After 27 years in financial management, including stints at Charles Schwab and TD Bank, he applied for the marina position in Wellfleet, where he and his wife had purchased a house.
For now, Cavanaugh’s immediate priorities are infrastructure. “We hope to complete the ice house and repair and put the floating docks back in the water before the season begins,” he said during a recent tour of the marina. “The next step would be fixing the permit fees.”
Barrio said the infrastructure changes would have immediate positive effects on his daily work schedule. Having an ice house on the pier, for instance, would mean he wouldn’t have to drive to Wellfleet Shellfish or a wholesaler to refrigerate shellfish within two hours of harvest.
Seitler, who has both wild-picked and farmed oysters in Wellfleet for more than a decade, hoped that the upgrades could soon include centrally located dockage reserved for commercial unloading. Unlike scallop or clam boat operators, he said, oyster farmers in Wellfleet must load and unload shellfish multiple times a day. He relies on the uncertain availability of the marina’s fixed docks and parking lot. Mooring in the harbor is an unattractive alternative.
Barrio agreed, comparing Wellfleet unfavorably to Chatham, which has more extensive unloading space for oystermen. He’d like to see the return of a rescue boat on the dock, too.
Worries About Fees Continue
While Cavanaugh cut back the most dramatic fee increase, the 7-percent hike was still substantial. When approving that change, the select board had left the base structure and categories of marina fees unchanged.
“We want to simplify this,” Cavanaugh told the Independent. “There’s no rhyme or reason to where this pricing came from.” Eventually, he said, he hopes to adopt a per-foot basis for dockage and then adjust winter fees to a proportionally lower rate. He plans to address summer slip permits and billing in March.
Fishermen who are encouraged by the renewed interest in upgrading infrastructure remain concerned about rising fees. Keith Rose, who lives in Wellfleet and operates the F/V Kimberly Ann, a 50-foot clam boat, is one of the few regular winter users of the troubled L-pier, where taxpayer winter dockage fees increased from $40 per foot in 2021 to $49 per foot in 2024. That adds up, said Rose, considering that the quality of the L-pier has deteriorated over the same period. The comparable rate in Provincetown is $55 per foot.
“I didn’t cause the problems at the pier,” said Rose in Provincetown, where the Kimberly Ann is now docked. “I shouldn’t be more responsible than anybody else for fixing them.”
Barrio noted that the market price for oysters had not kept pace with the rising fees for dockage, permitting, launching, and mooring. His four vessels — a bowtie, a pontoon, a skiff, and another sub-25-foot boat he uses as a mooring dock — were all out of the water, in part due to concerns over increased fees. Aaron Francis, a third-generation oysterman, also noted a stagnant market price of less than 60 cents per oyster in the winter. Francis used to keep his two vessels in the marina’s parking lot in the winter, given a lack of yard space, but had brought one home, partially to avoid fees.
“The price of oysters hasn’t gone up,” Seitler said. “The price of everything else has gone up. There’s not that many of us left. What we really need is dockage and infrastructure and reasonable fees so that we don’t have to operate in a gray area and be stressed out and worried all the time.”
THE SHIPPING NEWS
Wellfleet Harbors Mariners in Need
A modern installment of a traditional story of rescue and recovery
WELLFLEET — There is an expression in French for when all of the elements are against you, said Marie-Anne O’Reilly: “Contre vents et marées. Against wind and tide.” O’Reilly, her husband, Daniel Picker, and their two children, Ulysse and Achille O’Reilly-Picker, were beating their 42-foot C&C Landfall sailboat, Vallée du Vent, toward Provincetown in exactly those conditions. Their engine had been faulty since they’d left their home in Québec City on July 7, and now it was not functioning at all.
The family had set off with the goal of sailing from Canada to the Azores. The whole journey — they call it “a dream” — would take a year.
But by 3 p.m. on Sept. 26, it was clear to Picker and O’Reilly that they’d never make it without replacing the engine completely.
“We were going like this,” said O’Reilly: she zig-zagged her hand in the air, miming their fight against the currents around the tip of the Cape. Exhausted from two sleepless nights of rough sailing from Nova Scotia, at 8 p.m. they finally called the Coast Guard, who arrived in 30 minutes and towed them, for free, to the Provincetown Marina.
“We don’t save lives to make money,” O’Reilly said the Coast Guard captain told her.
They anchored in Provincetown for a week — but staying there proved too expensive, says Picker: “$280 per night.” On the Provincetown Marina’s website, the cost of transient dockage for a 42-foot boat is even higher than Picker reported: $315 per night, plus fees.
Picker would need time to rent a truck and go to Virginia to pick up a new engine.
They looked to Wellfleet, where the mooring fee was significantly lower: $87 per night.
On Oct. 4, a towing service towed the O’Reilly-Pickers into Wellfleet Harbor.
In Wellfleet, said O’Reilly, “every time we had a problem, someone offered their help and said, ‘We have a solution.’ ”
Wellfleet’s interim Harbormaster Stuart Smith towed them back and forth from their spot to the fuel dock. “It’s the worst thing in the world,” said Smith, “to be out in the middle of nowhere, and you’re having engine problems, and there’s no one around to help.”
Recently hired Assistant Harbormaster Jeff Kemprecos, whose grandfather served at the Pamet lifesaving station, said he took on the role of tour guide, showing the family around town. He speaks a little French, and his wife is fluent. He took them to PB Boulangerie. “I said to the kids, ‘This is our Eiffel Tower!’ ” said Kemprecos.
The family has walked on the beach and played on the playground. “We discovered the public library,” said O’Reilly, “which is really, really nice.” They explored the art galleries next, she said. “The kids love to draw.”
Each morning for about two hours, she taught the children: at the moment it was math and French. O’Reilly’s sister is a teacher and provided schooling materials for the year. But the curriculum is flexible. “Last week, we started a project on fish,” said O’Reilly. From the dock in Wellfleet there are plenty of fish to observe; birds and seals, too.
Just the other day, she said, they saw an ocean sunfish: another mariner in need of rescue. “A kayaker brought it up — it was stuck at low tide,” she said. “They’re waiting to have a boat so they can bring it back to the ocean.”
Kemprecos, whose family has lived on the Cape for generations, said the sheltering of the family from Canada is part of a Wellfleet tradition. “We’ve had shipwrecks and guys clawing up the beach,” he said. “But it probably happens all the time that somebody’s traversing Cape Cod Bay or the ocean and their engine blows, or they spring a leak.”
Wellfleet does have a storied history of assisting helpless mariners, albeit most stories are more dramatic than that of the O’Reilly-Pickers. According to the National Park Service, in the early 1800s an average of two shipwrecks occurred every month in the winter. The Cape has been the site of more than 3,000 shipwrecks in 300 years of recorded history.
In 1872, the U.S. Life Saving Service was created by the federal government, and nine staffed stations were built on Cape Cod, from Race Point to Monomoy Point.
Rescues by the Lifesavers of Cape Cod are the ones Wellfleet is known for, said David Wright, curator at the Wellfleet Historical Society and Museum. They involved surfboats launched on stormy seas and sailors pulled in from wrecked ships on rope lines.
By the beginning of the 20th century, shipwrecks happened less often — ships were sturdier and the Cape Cod Canal provided safer passage up the East Coast. In 1915, the Life Saving Service was incorporated into the newly formed U.S. Coast Guard.
Wright said it’s hard to know how many sailors have pulled into the harbor — or been pulled — with mechanical issues like that of the O’Reilly-Pickers, “any port in a storm” style. Kemprecos said that in every port on the Outer Cape, “We’ve all been involved in helping people arrange for repairs and getting them fixed up.”
With Vallée du Vent securely anchored in Wellfleet Harbor and calm water all around, Picker got to work extracting the old engine — a crane lifted it from the boat — and installing the new one.
In the cabin, the dining table was flipped up to reveal the engine underneath. Green and shiny in the noon light streaming through the slim windows, “it’s so clean we can eat on it,” said Picker. “That’ll last maybe three days.”
At the helm, the wheel was detached and off to one side. Tools littered the floor. “I do mechanics, electronics, programming,” said Picker. He learned the trades from his father. “We had a small sailboat when I was young. I learned to make a sail at the age of six.”
He expected the family would have to stay in Wellfleet until Oct. 23. The rest is a relief, said O’Reilly, “but we prefer to be sailing.” Picker gave her a reassuring smile. “That day is approaching,” he said.
The two met more than a decade ago as chaperones on a school trip to the Îles de la Madeleine with their older children, who were in the same class at school. “We met on a boat,” said O’Reilly with a laugh. They began dating in 2014.
The living space on the Vallée du Vent — meaning “Valley of the Wind,” in honor of Hayao Myazaki’s film Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind — is small but bright. The kids have their own bunk room in the fore: the two small beds were strewn with paper airplanes and other toys. Sometimes they put up blankets and make the space into a fort.
O’Reilly and Picker have a bed tucked behind what they call “the captain’s desk.” The kitchen is tiny but big enough to cook a meal. O’Reilly was making “a local dish”: canned clam chowder. “It’s from Maine,” said Picker.
When they’re sailing, they spend most of their time on the deck and at the wheel. The kids aren’t yet big enough to steer. But Achille likes to help his father lift the anchor, and Ulysse can throw lines to his mother when they dock.
Before they left Québec City, they sold their house and paid off the mortgage on their boat. This year on the sea won’t just be an adventure — “It’s a test of a way of life,” said Picker. There is no guarantee, both O’Reilly and Picker agreed, that they’ll return anytime soon to a life on land.
Out at sea, with no land in sight, “you sort of blend with nature,” said O’Reilly. “It’s not that you are the master. It’s something you are working with. It gives you a sense of empowerment, but at the same time, vulnerability.”
“One day you wake up,” said Picker, “and forget where you are. You open the door — ‘Oh, here we are.’ We’re always at home.”
The family left Wellfleet Harbor for the sea on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 29.
THE WATERSHED
Wellfleet Moves to Replace Cesspools and Old Septic Systems
The plan responds to state requirement to bring harbor nitrogen levels down
WELLFLEET — The board of health unveiled new regulations on Aug. 27 aimed at reducing nitrogen levels in Wellfleet Harbor and its estuaries. These regulations mandate cesspool removal and will prompt upgrades to septic systems; they are part of the town’s targeted watershed management plan, created to bring the town into compliance with state regulations on nitrogen in the embayment.
If approved, the regulations will require that properties in the Wellfleet watershed and outside a planned sewer district get upgraded septic systems under certain conditions. Upgrades will be triggered by new or additional development on the property, an upgrade or relocation of a septic system, change in use of the property, transfer of ownership, or failure of a septic system. And since cesspools are classified as failed septic systems, this effectively means that cesspools in the watershed must be removed.
The board aims to adopt these new regulations at its Oct. 23 meeting, according to Health Agent Heith Martinez. Written comments on the rules will be accepted until Sept. 18, and in-person comments will be accepted at a public hearing on Sept. 25.
Septic Systems and Cesspools
Currently, 176 pounds of nitrogen enters Wellfleet Harbor every day, according to a report by the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection, and 82 percent of it is from septic systems.
Excess nitrogen in the harbor system has led to harmful algal blooms, periods of low oxygen, reductions in seafloor animal populations, and loss of eelgrass, according to the report. The DEP report mentions that if nitrogen increases, it could trigger fish die-offs, algal blooms, destruction of seafloor animal communities, and “unpleasant odors and scum.”
The system was declared a “natural resource nitrogen sensitive area” in September 2023 by the DEP. In its report, the department found that Wellfleet Harbor’s nitrogen concentration was 0.665 mg/L. It would need to be lowered to 0.53 mg/L in order to restore the health of the system.
This designation gave the town two options: submit a notice of intent to file a watershed permit application, which would allow the town to implement its own plan for getting nitrogen levels down, or the state would mandate that all properties in the watershed upgrade their septic systems to the “best available nitrogen reducing technology” by September 2030.
The town chose the former and submitted a notice of intent on May 17. Town officials are now in the process of designing and implementing their targeted watershed management plan, which includes these new regulations as well as construction of a waste treatment facility at the transfer station and a sewer system in the town center. The sewer system will include properties around Main Street, Commercial Street, East Commercial Street, and Holbrook Avenue; houses along West Main Street and Pole Dike Road will be able to attach to it as well.
The town will also construct smaller treatment facilities for the Maurice’s Campground site and at Lawrence Hill to serve both new and existing houses in those areas as well as the nearby police and fire stations, for which the town received a $3-million MassWorks grant in fall 2023.
Striving for ‘Best Available’
According to Martinez, over 75 percent of Wellfleet properties lie within the watershed. But
the regulations apply only to those that fall outside the planned sewer district. Exemptions can also be sought due to a lack of available space on the property or demonstrated financial hardship without eligibility for assistance.
If a change is required and the property owner is not eligible for an exemption, the septic system installed must use “best available nitrogen reducing technology,” or BANRT, which means it emits less than 10 mg/L of nitrogen. That’s significantly less than statewide-standard Title V septic systems, which emit between 65 and 75 mg/L, according to Anastasia Rudenko, a water resources engineer with the engineering firm GHD, which helped design the town’s targeted watershed management plan.
Cesspools are a major target of these regulations. Technically, cesspools are already prohibited, said Martinez, but there is no program to remove them, nor does the town even know how many cesspools there are — thanks to a 1960 town hall fire in which many property records were lost, he said. So, Martinez and his team are beginning to inventory the town’s more than 4,000 properties and assess their septic systems.
Once that process is completed — Martinez thinks it will be done by the end of the year — they will begin notifying homeowners that they have two years to remove their cesspools before they start accruing fines. Martinez said the town modeled its strategy on the one Truro used to begin tackling its cesspool problem starting in 2021.
According to the town’s website, BANRT systems can cost as much as $42,500 for engineering, components, and installation. But there are several ways homeowners can offset those costs. The town is offering one-time $12,500 grants; Barnstable County’s AquiFund is offering zero- to 4-percent interest loans to offset septic upgrade or sewer connection costs; and the Martha’s Vineyard-based housing nonprofit The Resource Inc. is offering up to $50,000 in zero-interest forgivable loans. State tax credits are also available to offset costs, according to the board of health’s web page.
The new regulations will stay in place for 20 years or until nitrogen levels have been sufficiently lowered. Martinez said there will be a reassessment every five years and regular monitoring in between to see if healthier levels have been reached.
WELLFLEET HARBOR
Hydraulic Fluid Spills; Oysters Deemed Safe
Wind, tides, and the movement of boats disperse a slick over 2 acres
WELLFLEET — Local and state agencies sprang into action when a sheen — later identified as spilled hydraulic fluid — was seen coating the surface of Wellfleet Harbor on the morning of Aug. 18. The spill expanded to cover approximately two acres from the L-pier, past the jetty, and out into the bay.
A swimmer who had encountered the slick in the water went to the harbormaster’s office around 8 a.m. to report it. “We jumped in a launch to confirm it,” said Jeff Kemprecos, the town’s assistant harbormaster. The harbormaster’s office notified the town’s fire dept., and from there word went out to the shellfishing and health depts.
Health Agent Heith Martinez said that the fire dept. was responsible for informing local, state, and federal agencies, which extended beyond Wellfleet to include the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection, the state Div. of Marine Fisheries, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
By 3 p.m., according to an Aug. 19 statement from Wellfleet Shellfish Constable Nancy Civetta, she and MassDEP inspector Jaime Goncalves had conducted a shoreline survey in the harbormaster’s boat and, in consultation with the DMF, had determined that Wellfleet’s commercial shellfishing beds were not at risk of contamination.
No remnants of hydraulic fluid were found during that survey. “It was agreed that there were no risks to public health and no further impacts to recreational use of the harbor,” Civetta wrote.
Local authorities had done what they could, but wind, the tide, and the movement of boats helped to disperse the material and push it toward shore as staff from the harbormaster’s office and fire dept. worked to contain the spill before staff from the MassDEP and Coast Guard arrived on the scene.
By the time they came, town staff had deployed booms around the L-pier, sectioning off the docked commercial fishing boats, and applied oil pads — large rectangular sheets engineered to absorb the oil but not water.
Interim Harbormaster Stuart Smith told the Independent that these tools work best when the spill is confined. He characterized this spill as so large and dispersed that neither booms nor pads could fully contain it.
“This fuel spill was massive, so we could only contain certain small areas with the number of booms that we have,” said Deputy Fire Chief Joseph Cappello at the harbor on Sunday.
MassDEP maintains an online database of chemical-specific reportable quantities and concentrations that instigate an assessment and clean-up process.
For diesel fuel, which Smith said he first suspected as the spilled material, the reportable quantity is 10 gallons. For petroleum-based hydraulic oil, the reportable quantity is 10 gallons, and for vegetable-based hydraulic oil, it is 55 gallons.
Spills believed to be in excess of these amounts must be reported to MassDEP within two hours of their discovery, and Wellfleet met that requirement. MassDEP Public Affairs Director Edmund Coletta told the Independent that MassDEP was notified of the spill in Wellfleet Harbor at 9:35 a.m. on Aug. 18.
Both Smith and Cappello told the Independent on Aug. 18 that they thought the spill was caused by a vessel that had departed the harbor around 7 a.m. and was fishing in the bay during the clean-up efforts.
Neither would name the vessel’s owner, and Cappello said it was possible that the boat’s captain was unaware of the leak. “Sometimes, the vessels don’t realize it is happening,” Cappello said.
The Coast Guard is leading an investigation into the source of the spill but as of this week’s deadline had issued no news, and a public affairs officer had not responded to the Independent’s requests for information.
According to Civetta’s statement, water and bilge samples were collected from the harbor as well as from several commercial fishing vessels to see if the source could be identified.
Coletta of MassDEP said that three vessels had been boarded and inspected by Goncalves and local officials. At that time, “It was determined that there was nothing that could identify the boats as the source of the spill,” Coletta said.
In the coming days, as the Coast Guard’s investigation continues, the responsibility of both the harbormaster’s office and fire dept. is to monitor the situation. “If we see any further oil sheens, and if it’s something we can confine and clean up, we will,” said Smith.
Anyone witnessing a spill, Cappello said, should make a video record of what they see so the source can be more quickly identified and the problem addressed.
THE DREDGE REPORT
In Wellfleet, Mooring Means Your Rudder’s in the Mud
The upside: there’s no waiting list for a spot in the field
WELLFLEET — It’s been so long since the mooring field in the harbor was dredged that those most familiar with the marina can only guess how many boats it might hold. The 24-acre mooring field is clogged with 67 years’ worth of mud.
INTO THE MUCK
Wellfleet Board Delays Dredging for Another Year
A stalled $4.5-million override request risks the loss of a $2.5-million grant
WELLFLEET — The harbor mooring basin here was last dredged in 1957. The job, which has been on the town’s agenda for a decade, will now be delayed for yet another year — because the select board has decided not to ask town meeting voters for $4.48 million to pay for a permit.
The delay means that the town will likely lose a $2.5-million MassWorks grant awarded in 2022 when the dredging was originally set to start. The state had previously agreed to extend the deadline until this coming June 30. But it is unlikely to extend the grant for another year, said former dredging task force chair Chris Allgeier.
“I would be surprised if they even entertained a conversation about deferring it again,” Allgeier said. The town will most likely have to reapply for the grant, he said, but “the risk now is how many more grants will we get from the state?”
At its March 12 meeting, the select board agreed to scrap a warrant article authorizing payment of a $4.48-million fee imposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to receive a dredging permit. The Corps maintains that dredging the 24-acre mooring field would disrupt fish habitat there.
The select board spent the last year working with the town’s dredging task force to develop a mitigation plan as an alternative to paying the permit fee. That plan involved dedicating 28 acres in Blackfish Creek to an oyster restoration project, but the board ultimately rejected the plan because of doubts about its viability. Last November, the board decided that the town should just pay the $4.48 million.
But scheduling issues and fear that the request for so much money would be turned down by voters have now led the select board to withdraw the request.
The board voted to move town meeting to May 20 after Town Administrator Rich Waldo and Assistant Town Administrator Silvio Genao both resigned and the board fell behind in preparing the warrant for an April town meeting. The new date meant that a ballot question seeking approval for a Proposition 2½ override for the dredging fee would have come before voters at the April 29 town election before they could debate the issue on town meeting floor. Select board members worried that would decrease the likelihood of the override’s approval, said vice chair John Wolf.
Select board chair Barbara Carboni said that the town will revisit the dredging fee request at a special town meeting in the fall. Between now and then, Carboni said, the town and the dredging task force “will be reviewing options.”
Allgeier had developed the mitigation plan with dredging task force member Curt Felix. They both resigned from the task force following the select board’s Aug. 22 vote to abandon the plan. The current task force, made up of chair Joe Aberdale, Chris Merl, and Alfred Picard, has not met since October, according to agendas posted on the town website.
Without a state grant, and with the effects of inflation, the cost of dredging the mooring field could rise to around $10 million, Allgeier said. The town currently has $2.9 million left in its funds for dredging, which means it would need about $7 million more to complete the project — in addition to the permit fee.
And the permit fee itself is set to increase this year, Allgeier said. Last October, a spokesperson for the Div. of Fish and Game, the agency that administers the fee through a state program, told the town that the agency is looking to increase its fee structure by 30 percent in 2024. That means the cost of the permit could balloon to $5.8 million.
“By kicking the warrant article to the fall, there is a greater likelihood that the fee will increase,” said Allgeier.
One Option: Do Nothing
If voters reject an override request this fall, then the town can either go back to developing a mitigation plan or continue putting the request on the ballot until it does pass, Allgeier said. “The other option,” he added, “is to do nothing.”
But doing nothing would mean that the 8 to 12 feet of black custard currently sitting in the mooring basin would continue to spill into adjacent shellfish beds and funnel into the federal channel, which the Army Corps spent $5 million to dredge in the project’s first phase in 2020.
The buildup of muck in the mooring basin has cost the town $80,000 a year from the loss of 270 moorings that cannot be accessed. Wolf, who runs a commercial charter from the harbor, said that the mooring field is inaccessible for two hours on either side of low tide.
In 2015, when the town was petitioning the Army Corps to commit funds to dredge the federal channel, town officials wrote that the “economic ripple effect” has meant “tens of millions of dollars in lost opportunities for local businesspeople.” Various businesses, including Bay Sails Marine, Wellfleet Marine Corp., and Billingsgate Charters, wrote supporting letters saying that revenue has decreased by over 50 percent in recent years.
The Shellfish Advisory Board also submitted a letter to the Corps, saying that the sediment “poses a risk to the overall health of our shellfish, specifically by the possibility of it sliding off the top of the current channel banks and smothering many of those oysters that have begun to establish themselves in Chipman’s Cove and Duck Creek.”
Shellfisherman William “Chopper” Young, whose aquaculture grant directly abuts the mooring field, said that the silt is knee-high in parts of his grant. “When it gets to that level, everything dies,” Young said. “Nothing can live in it.”
Is Another Way Possible?
At its March 21 meeting, the select board authorized Wolf to engage the town’s Congressional delegation to ask the Army Corps to remove the mitigation requirement altogether.
The Corps has argued that, because the mooring field has not been dredged in more than 50 years, it has become an essential habitat for marine and estuarine finfish and shellfish species. Invoking the Clean Water Act, the Corps said that dredging would result in adverse effects on aquatic resources of national importance, and the town would need to mitigate the effects either through a restoration project or through paying a fine.
But Wolf believes that the Army Corps’s determination that the mooring field is a productive habitat is wrong. Various studies conducted by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) and the town’s engineering firm for the project, GEI Consulting, back his claim, Wolf said.
GEI’s 2018 study concluded that “very few living organisms were found” in the basin, and that dredging would have “no permanent significant impact to essential fish habitat.”
A 2019 CCS study titled “Benthic Habitat Mapping in Wellfleet Harbor and Vicinity” found that 31 invertebrate species made up 95 percent of all individuals in the black custard. And a CCS study the subsequent year found that black custard is “low in species diversity” — roughly 90 percent of documented species were sea worms.
But the town’s previous attempts at persuading the Corps to lessen its demands failed. Those attempts included efforts by lobbyist Ray Bucheger of FBB Federal Relations with support from Rep. Bill Keating and senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren. The Corps did not budge, however, and in 2021 the agency formally imposed the mitigation requirement.
Wolf said he believed the town’s failure to influence the Corps was because of a mix-up in communications. While Bucheger was lobbying the Congressional delegation, GEI had already started engaging with the Corps to develop a mitigation plan.
“We had two negotiations going on at the same time,” said Wolf. He added that the mix-up resulted in Bucheger severing ties with the town. “Now it is up to me to make a case.”
Allgeier said he is not optimistic about chances that the Corps will bend. “The discussion has been held many times with the Corps,” he said. “I consider it a long shot.”
THE DREDGE REPORT
Final Dredging of Wellfleet Harbor Is Put Off for a Year
Corps of Engineers insists on land exchange or $14.5-million ‘mitigation’ fee
WELLFLEET — The dredging of the mooring field at Wellfleet Harbor will not happen this fall.
The final phase of the $20-million three-year project to clear silt and muck from the harbor was supposed to begin in September but has been postponed for a year because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not issue a permit for it.
The select board was updated on what has been happening with the project on Aug. 2, just weeks before the final phase was expected to begin and only days after the state announced a $2.5-million grant for the dredging. The news, from project manager Dan Robbins of GEI Consultants and Harbormaster Will Sullivan, was not good.
Years of behind-the-scenes negotiations between U.S. Rep. Bill Keating’s office; the town’s lobbyist, Ray Bucheger of FBB Federal Relations; and the Army Corps were not successful in persuading the federal agency to classify the final phase as “maintenance” dredging. Instead, the Corps insists that because the mooring field known as Area 2 — containing 250 moorings — has not been dredged since 1957, it must be considered “improvement” dredging. The agency ruled that Area 2 has had nearly 60 years to revert to its natural state.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, projects that disturb a natural environment or a threatened species require a tradeoff, or “mitigation,” consisting of either money or conservation land. The town had already paid a mitigation fee of $30,000 for affecting the habitat of the diamondback terrapin during the dredging of the federal channel two years ago, Sullivan said.
If the Army Corps and the town cannot agree on acceptable parcels of land to be placed under conservation restrictions as mitigation, the town will have to pay $14.5 million to go forward with dredging the mooring field, Robbins said. Town Administrator Rich Waldo told the Independent this week that there is no way the town will pay that much, and so negotiations on possible conservation land designation continue.
The select board members expressed shock that town officials had received contractors’ bids in July to dredge the 23.8 acres of the mooring field while knowing that the mitigation requirements had not been met. The contractors were supposed to stage their equipment in September to begin dredging, said John Wolf, who is the select board’s liaison on the dredging task force.
“I am seeing a lot of carts before a lot of horses here,” Wolf said on Aug. 2. “We had the contract out to bid and contracts back and we don’t have a permit. I’d like an explanation for the delays.”
The Explanation
Waldo said requests for proposals went out in June to position the town to move quickly in case “we get traction with the Army Corps. We wanted to be ready to move forward as quickly as possible.”
The town has known since 2017 that the Army Corps deemed the mooring field plan improvement dredging, Robbins said. That is why, in 2020, the Corps granted permission for the project to be split into two areas, Sullivan said. Area 1 encompasses the federal channel and the area around the town pier.
Area 1 was dredged in 2020 and 2021. Town officials, meanwhile, were working with a supportive Congressional delegation including U.S. senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Keating’s office to address the sticky problem of mitigation for Area 2, Sullivan said. Those negotiations progressed quietly with Sullivan, the town’s consultants and lobbyist, legislative staff, and a revolving door of town administrators — Dan Hoort, Maria Broadbent, Charles Sumner, and now Waldo — in the loop. With Markey’s, Warren’s, and Keating’s support, the town’s position for years has been to offer no mitigation, Sullivan said.
The select board — and the public — was not informed about all of this because the officials were trying to find a way to avoid mitigation without it appearing that they were working around the rules, Sullivan said.
That silence ended on Aug. 2. That’s when Joe Aberdale, co-chair of the Wellfleet Dredging Task Force, complained at the select board’s meeting that Sullivan and Robbins had failed to respond to a Oct. 27, 2021 letter from the Army Corps. The letter formally notified the town that it would have to provide mitigation for the dredging of Area 2. Aberdale said no one filled out the accompanying mitigation forms as required. So, on March 8, 2022, Robert J. DeSista, chief of policy and technical support for the Army Corps, informed the town it had “closed” the permit application for Area 2 “without prejudice.”
Aberdale told the select board the failure of communication had caused a significant delay.
Aberdale’s complaint prompted Wolf to order town officials to provide the select board with all of the correspondence related to the dredging of Area 2. On Aug. 2 the select board received nearly 1,000 pages of emails, letters, and permits.
Aberdale declined to speak to the Independent, citing a Jan. 2 email from Assistant Town Administrator Rebecca Roughley chastising him for breaking the “chain of command” and speaking to the town’s lobbyist and others in Washington, D.C. about the project. The select board in May 2021 had made Sullivan the only point of contact.
Officials’ Defense
Sullivan contradicted many of Aberdale’s assertions. First, Sullivan said, “closing” the permit application does not mean it is dead in the water. It is just the way the Army Corps puts the project on hold until a mitigation plan comes together, he said.
Sullivan acknowledged that he and Robbins did not respond immediately to the letter from the Army Corps. He said they “missed it” for about two weeks. But even after reading it, the officials chose a strategy of not responding because they still hoped for a work-around, Sullivan said.
Behind the scenes, Sullivan said, the consultants never stopped working on potential areas for mitigation. These included the two parcels that the town placed in the custody of the Wellfleet Conservation Commission at the June 2022 town meeting: 2.06 acres of wetlands in Blackfish Creek and 3.26 acres of wetlands in the Fresh Brook Estuary off Lieutenant Island Road. Sullivan said officials did not explain publicly that these properties were potentially part of the mitigation plan to complete the dredging. He said they wanted the conservation efforts to stand on their own merits. If there had been opposition to the transfers, Sullivan added, they would have explained the mitigation issue at town meeting.
The other area they offered as potential mitigation is the 254.5-acre HDYLTA (How Do You Like Them Apples) shellfish flats off Indian Neck, which the town bought in 2019 for $2 million to protect them from being bought by unnamed out-of-town entities. Early communications with the Army Corps indicated that those three parcels would earn nearly all the “mitigation credits” necessary to do the dredging, Robbins said.
But on Aug. 2 the select board balked at using the HDYLTA flats in that way. Board member Ryan Curley said he worried it could lead to shellfishermen being denied access to their grants.
Next Steps
The select board instructed town staff to offer as mitigation a list of all the properties that the town has transferred into the custody of the conservation commission.
The three bids to begin the dredging this fall ranged from $3.7 to $4.9 million, from Burnham Associates, Jay Cashman, and Robert B. Our. The town will now have to put out a new request for proposals next year.
The town remains eligible for the $2.5-million state grant as long as there is a dredging contract in place by June 30, 2023, Waldo said.
“So, we would need a permit before that,” Waldo said. He hopes that the Army Corps and town can reach a mitigation agreement before town meeting in the spring.
Wolf and Curley both insisted that Sullivan update them regularly on progress.
THE DREDGE REPORT
Shellfishermen, Scientists Study Wellfleet’s Goo
‘Black custard’ isn’t toxic, but it can be perilous
WELLFLEET — Chopper Young was working on his oyster grant one day when a shrill note pierced Chipman’s Cove. Stranded in the mucky tidal flats was a woman in a kayak. She puffed on her whistle, over and over. “Fire and rescue were down there already,” Young said, “but they couldn’t reach her.”
He decided to take matters into his own hands. Wading out into the gummy harbor, Young tossed the woman a rope and tugged her out of the mud.
But not without sinking in himself, said Young, “balls deep.”
This Week In Wellfleet
Meetings Ahead
Meetings are held remotely. From wellfleet-ma.gov, hover over a date on the calendar on the right of the screen and click on the meeting you’re interested in to open its agenda and find out how to view and take part remotely.
Thursday, March 25
- School Committee Superintendent Search Subcommittee, 10:15 a.m.
- Zoning Board of Appeals, 7 p.m.
Friday, March 26
- Bike and Walkways Committee, 9 a.m.
Monday, March 29
- Dredging Task Force, 7 p.m.
Tuesday, March 30
- Elections: Districtwide Nauset Regional H.S. Project and Special Town Election, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Conversation Starters
Curley Report Revisited
The Natural Resources Advisory Board (NRAB) and the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) hope to replicate a 1972 survey of marine resources in Wellfleet Harbor. Owen Nichols, director of marine fisheries research at the CCS, and John Riehl, chair of NRAB, presented the proposed project at the Shellfish Advisory Board meeting on March 17, and the board voted to support it.
The original survey, known as the Curley Report, was conducted by the Mass. Div. of Marine Fisheries and involved systematic sampling and inventorying of species. The authors recommended replicating the study every 10 years. Now, nearly 50 years later, the NRAB is drafting a warrant article seeking funds for the project at town meeting this spring.
As recommended in the March 2021 Harbor Management Plan, the year-long project would investigate the flora and fauna in the harbor. This would, as written in the draft article, establish a “basis for future actions to preserve and enhance this environment.”
The survey would develop a framework for long-term monitoring, said Nichols. In planning the project, they are seeking input from the community to determine which questions should be asked. “As we plan this project, you will have a say in what happens,” said Riehl. —Tessera Knowles-Thompson
ECONOMY
For Wellfleet Shellfishermen, Farmers Market Is ‘Pure Good News’
On the town pier: oysters to go
WELLFLEET — For local shellfishermen, good news this fall was in short supply. Covid’s shuttering of restaurants across the country had wreaked havoc on the wholesale distribution chain, usually a reliable summer boon. Winter — a tight season, even in the Before Times — loomed with no chance of a national reopening by Christmas.
The market, said Wellfleet Shellfish Constable Nancy Civetta, “had just crashed.” That left farmers, draggers, and foragers strapped for cash and short on hope. And efforts to regain their footing proved limited by, of all things, their home state.
Other New England states allow commercial shellfishermen to sell directly to consumers. Even if restaurant sales dry up, fishermen can offer their product to friends, family, and neighbors. Massachusetts takes a different approach. It restricts the sale of shellfish to licensed wholesale dealers, whose distribution patterns Covid-19 left in tatters. This fall, Wellfleet’s shellfishermen found themselves faced with a pileup of legal, viable, delicious product — and no way to sell it.
“There’s a lack of parity with the other states, which is a real problem,” said Ginny Parker, president of the Wellfleet Shellfishermen’s Association (WSA). In November, Parker said, she petitioned the state Div. of Marine Fisheries (DMF) to temporarily allow direct grower sales. The division denied her request.
That led to a brainstorming session with Civetta, Selectman Ryan Curley, Assistant Harbormaster Will Sullivan of the Wellfleet Shellfish Advisory Board, and Joshua Reitsma, a fisheries and aquaculture specialist with the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension.
From that meeting emerged the Wellfleet Shellfishermen’s Farmers Market, a collaborative effort in which the town handled negotiations with DMF and the state’s Dept. of Public Health along with inspections, WSA serves as the promoter, and Wellfleet’s Holbrook Oyster Company, a licensed distributor, is acting as the dealer of record.
The first shellfish market was held on the Wellfleet pier on Dec. 12, the second a week later.
“We know what it’s like to not have a market,” said Zack Dixon, a co-owner, with Jacob and Justin Dalby, of Holbrook Oyster. “So, if there’s anything we can do to help create a market, of course we’re going to do it.”
The market is open to all Wellfleet commercial shellfishermen, who can opt in on a week-by-week basis. Their names, products, and prices are posted on WellfleetShellfishermen.org, where customers can order oysters and clams until 10 a.m. on market days (upcoming dates are Dec. 30, then every Saturday starting again Jan. 9).
Three vendors participated in the market’s first go-around on Dec. 12. Holbrook Oyster sold its own product, as well as distributing other shellfishermen’s. Evan Bruinooge of Outta Bed Oyster Company offered farmed oysters and will have cherrystone and topneck clams, too. Austin and Jared Ziemba sold wild Wellfleet oysters. Three additional shellfishermen joined for the operation’s second week, on Dec. 19: Sonya Woodman, a wild picker, and farmers Jeremy Storer and Pete Brundage.
The variety of vendors and the chance to learn about them is a good thing, said Civetta. She also made the point that oysters from different locations can taste different, even though they are all grown in Wellfleet. The market, she said, “offers a taste of all the different nuances and flavors and nooks and crannies of Wellfleet Harbor.”
“Each oysterman and woman is kind of developing his own following,” said Parker. And just two weeks in, business is strong. Civetta said Dec. 12 saw about 65 preorders and a few dozen walk-up customers. On Dec. 19, over a hundred preorders and a fresh slew of walk-in customers generated so much traffic that a line of cars stretched all the way from the pier to Mayo Beach; the next market will take place at the bandstand to avoid a pileup.
The organizers would not provide exact numbers on how many customers came or how much shellfish was sold. But Civetta did say that the first market sold more than 2,000 oysters and clams and that number jumped to more than 5,000 on Dec. 19. Parker said that, both weeks, every vendor completely sold out of his or her product.
Each shellfisherman sells any preordered product to Holbrook Oyster before it gets distributed to customers. Oysters go to consumers for a dollar a piece; Holbrook collects a nickel per oyster, and credit card processing fees shave off a few more cents. So, although their market reach is reduced, the shellfishermen’s per-oyster profits are high.
For all its success — Civetta called the market “extremely well-supported” by the community, and Parker called it “pure good news” — worry is still a constant.
That’s because the market doesn’t come close as a replacement for the kind of business shellfishermen are missing right now. “I don’t ever see this taking the place of the normal commerce that happens,” Civetta said.
THE WATERFRONT
Dredging of Federal Channel Begins at Last
Army Corps arrives to launch three-year harbor project
WELLFLEET — It took a town-wide effort, a federal campaign, and 26 years, but the dredging of Wellfleet Harbor’s federal channel is set to begin on Oct. 1.
“It’s just incredibly exciting,” said Wellfleet Harbormaster Michael Flanagan. “It’ll be absolutely night and day.”
WHALEWATCH
Young Humpback Stranded at ‘the Gut’ Succumbs
WELLFLEET— A juvenile humpback whale that was stranded on Saturday, Feb. 8, inside the sandbar known as “the gut” by the Herring River was found dead on Monday afternoon.
The humpback was 25 feet long, about half the size of a full-grown animal, and a health assessment conducted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) stranding network on Saturday found it to be “severely emaciated,” said Nicole Hunter of IFAW.
