After a lengthy public hearing process, the Tisbury Select Board unanimously voted to deny an application to relocate a shellfish propagation area in Lagoon Pond during a Wednesday, July 26, meeting.
Jeffrey Canha, owner of Husselton Head Oysters and a Tisbury waterways committee member, applied to relocate his shellfish propagation lease area to a new 1.33-acre place in Lagoon Pond that has a hard bottom, with an average depth of 10 feet. The plan was to raise oysters and bay scallops in bottom cages.
His current shellfish propagation area has an average depth of 15 to 27 feet, with a bottom that has six feet of sulfidic mud. The sulfidic mud prevents oxygen levels needed to sustain healthy shellfish.
According to Canha’s application, earlier efforts to move the current site were “met with resistance,” and prevented his company from utilizing the best possible area.
While Canha’s plan received support from the Tisbury waterways committee, shellfish constable Danielle Ewart and harbormaster John Crocker expressed concern about the proposed new location, such as proximity to an area where juvenile quahog and bay scallop seeds were being planted.
A large number of letters were submitted regarding the application. While some supported the relocation, others, including some abutters, opposed the idea. Some concerns listed included interference with vessel access and recreational activities, and possible environmental impact of a relocation.
A large number of supporters sent in letters prior to the first public hearing in June. However, after the first public hearing, a large number of letters came in from people against the proposal, pointing out that the area Canha wanted to place his equipment would interfere with vessel access and watersport businesses.
It took the select board three separate meetings to come to a decision.
When Canha came before the board on July 26, the proposed plan had been altered to be one acre, split into two halves, with an access point that is 20 feet wide and 75 feet long.
“That’s pretty much where we’re at,” Canha said.
Additionally, Canha said, 200,000 oysters had to be relocated from the pond because the current location wasn’t providing enough oxygen.
“They’re suffocating and they’re starving,” he said. “They’re bleached white from the sulfur and the sulfidic mud interacting with the carbon in the shell.”
Canha also said suspended gear cannot remain partly submerged in the water during the winter, and is expensive.
Crocker gave a report to the board regarding the proposal, and said nothing had “substantially changed” in his view that the proposed location could be hazardous to vessel navigation. Ewart raised the point about the town-managed shellfish seeding area, and said the proposed location was already “teeming with life.” She recommended looking for a relocation site in deeper waters.
An attorney representing abutters emphasized that while they were not against oyster farming in general, the proposed area was “not suitable,” and suggested the shellfish constable work with Canha to find a possible alternative.
Doug Reece, an abutter and member of the Lagoon Pond Association Board, said he would support the relocation if it did not affect existing waterway activities or docks.
“As you make this decision, I want you to start thinking forward that the pond needs to be looked at in a zoning standpoint,” he said, pointing out there are different areas for docking, swimming, and commercial activities that shouldn’t overlap.
After closing the public hearing, the board took time for further discussion.
Board member Christina Colarusso made a point that there are at times conflicting interests for limited areas, and a balance needs to be found. “I believe oyster farming on Martha’s Vineyard should be a higher priority than it is,” she said. “It’s obviously just one piece of the puzzle.”
Board member John Cahill called the hearings a “learning exercise,” adding that a further discussion on shellfish propagation may be needed for the town.
Board chair Roy Cutrer said this had been an “extremely difficult process.” He also made a point that a bigger discussion on how to address the nitrogen and other issues of Lagoon Pond is needed. “The lagoon is in serious trouble,” he said. “Pretty soon you’re not going to be able to have any shellfish in there. That lagoon is dying.”
Cutrer also highlighted a need to balance the varying interests of Lagoon Pond. “It just may not be the right place,” he said about the proposed relocation.
After further discussion, the board unanimously voted to deny the application.
If the lagoon is dying shouldn’t solutions be top priority? Then wouldn’t everyone benefit.
Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries there was a waterway right where Water St is now. The lagoon circulated from up near the drawbridge through what was Bass Creek. The filling of the tidal marsh (now Veterans Park) and the filling of Bass Creek brought this doom to the lagoon.
Today a solution is needed and we need strong leadership to bring ideas to the fore front. My suggestion is to figure out how to get water flowing in and out down by the Shell gas station via culvert, large pipeline or other to circulate the water.
Stopping the nitrogen outflow from homes nearby. Instal a good watershed area and think how the lagoon is finite.!
I just read through the article and I don’t see any information as to the proposed area for relocation of the oyster farm.
It is to be expected that people who have enjoyed their docks and other recreational activities and amenities on Lagoon Pond for generations may be inflexible in their idea of “pond-use planning”; of course they would like to see their own and their family members’ preferred uses be enshrined in zoning law.
I don’t think this is a good idea. Time change. Priorities change. I think that the request to move the oyster farm to a spot where the oysters can “breathe” is perfectly reasonable. Raising oysters is arguably of greater importance than private recreational uses that can’t coexist with oyster farms.
Re “Lagoon Pond is dying,” that is the big picture. The Lagoon is an estuary. What does it mean if an estuary is “dying”?
In Feb. 2022 I wrote to the Tisbury Conservation Commission:
“. . . The Lagoon’s water quality has been a pressing concern for decades. A 2010 study by the the Massachusetts Estuary Project concluded that a system of culverts would reduce nitrogen loading in the West arm of the Lagoon by 28%. One of the culvert locations is basically at the site of the proposed [Vineyard Wind] O&M terminal.
The Lagoon Pond estuary is a precious asset with clearly established value to two towns and as as an element in the ecology of Vineyard Haven Outer Harbor and Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds. Preserving and improving its water quality is a higher priority than allowing an industrial expansion of dubious value to the town, . . .”
The oyster farm may be a kind of “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to thinking about and planning for the future of the Lagoon. We need to plan for a Lagoon that is home to healthy oysters and other wildlife, whether we profit directly from these organisms in terms of $$$ or “just” from the healthy environment they help to create. If that means building a culvert then we should build a culvert.
Agreed and healthy oysters can only help. I hope the town will make relocating the farm a priority. I understand the consents of abutters but oysters actually clean the water. That’s a win in my book
Why aren’t the Oak Bluffs and Tisbury shellfish departments working together to make sure that the water quality is in a good place?
WHAT HAS TAKEN SO LONG FOR THIS “bigger discussion” to have taken place BEFORE the pond bottom has become suffocating to the shellfish?
Shouldn’t a priority be placed on cleaning up and protecting the ponds water quality?
For the shellfish, animals and sea creatures (including humans) to thrive and survive and use.
Why would this board not want to work with Mr Canha?
It figures that the wealthy people who live on the pond hire a lawyer to save their docks. If they just continue to contaminate the pond with their boats and their septic systems and ground maintenance chemicals and pesticides that have been seeping into the pond for years or generations.
They are a very large part of the problem and they should have to contribute financially to the cleaning up of the pond.
I guess they are not aware that if they continue to add to the contamination of the pond they won’t be able to use it either.
We need to spend even more tax money.
I always thought oysters were filter feeders and did a great job at cleaning and improving water quality. Would a healthy oyster farm not be a benefit to the Lagoon and it waters?
Yup!