All meetings in Wellfleet are remote only and can be watched online. Go to wellfleet-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch, then follow the instructions on the agenda.
Thursday, Feb. 3
- Board of Assessors, 9:30 a.m.
- Wellfleet Housing Authority, 10 a.m.
- Rights of Public Access Committee, noon
- Nauset Regional School Committee, 6 p.m.
Monday, Feb. 7
- Nauset Schools Subcommittee, 4:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 8
- Cultural Council, 5 p.m.
- Select Board, 6 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 10
- Town Administrator Search Committee, 1 p.m.
- Nauset Regional School Committee, 6 p.m.
Conversation Starters
Mosquito Control
Last summer a mosquito boom terrorized the town. The population explosion was abetted by an overwash at Duck Harbor. Things may be better next summer, according to entomologist Gabrielle Sakolsky, superintendent of the Cape Cod Mosquito Control Project, a Yarmouth-based quasi-governmental organization charged with managing mosquito populations on the Cape.
Sakolsky appeared before the select board on Jan. 25 and told board members something they already knew from experience: “The mosquitos last summer were salt marsh and brackish water mosquitos, the type that bite during the day.”
Sakolsky also reported that Mosquito Control has continued working with the National Park Service on a new tidal flow system, clearing 8,000 feet of access paths and removing dead vegetation and trees from ditches in order to increase tidal flow in the Herring River Estuary.
“We have the hope we can keep the water moving through there,” Sakolsky said, adding that, so far, the system is working, even with the recent high tides. “I’m seeing water move really quickly through that system and back out the Herring River,” she said.
The next step is for Mosquito Control to receive a permit from the Seashore to allow the team to apply larvicide in the still-standing pockets of water.
“We’re planning to be a lot more proactive this year, rather than reactive,” said the Park’s natural resource management chief Geoff Sanders. The permit process is timely, he added.
“We’ll have a lot less habitat for mosquitos to develop in, so I expect them to be a lot more manageable,” Sakolsky said. —Michaela Chesin