Harwich Task Force Restarts Wastewater Management Assessments

HARWICH – (10/06/10)The comprehensive wastewater planning process is beginning to flow once again with draft Massachusetts Estuary Project models completed in four of the five watersheds in town. The information will be used by the water quality task force and its consultant, Camp Dresser & McKee to being shaping community options. WQTF Chairman Frank Sampson was before selectmen Monday night to provide an update on the progress of the plan, which has been setback but a lack of data coming through the MEP program over the past two years. Delays may require the task force to go into town meeting next spring to supplement the consultants contract. But Sampson was excited about new information, especially relating to two studies done in Muddy Creek, separating Chatham and Harwich, by the Pleasant Bay Alliance. Those studies examined the hydrodynamics of a tidal cycle in the creek with a new culvert installed at Route 28 and water quality impacts from tidal flushing.

Sampson said a study of conditions in the creek done in 2006 showed severe nitrogen loading and the WQTF chairman said the hydrodynamics study shows a 24-foot culvert allowing for increased tidal flow will reduce levels of nitrogen there dramatically and could served to reduce the need for sewering on both side of the town line. The studies, Sampson said, are in additional to the earlier issuance of MEP models for Pleasant Bay. The alliance is looking at a third study to determine how much new salt marsh would be created through the new culvert and what the environmental impacts will be. Sampson told selectmen there may be a sizable grant available for this study.

The tidal fluctuation is three-and-a half to four feet in the bay, Sampson said and six inches in the creek and with a new culvert and greater flow the tidal fluctuation in the creek would be about a foot-and-a-half and go a long way to remove nitrogen. He said the increase in tidal range would have no impact on properties along the creek because of the steep banks there. “There’s a lot of support at the state level among regulators,” Sampson told selectmen. He also cited the interest of the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service in restoring salt marsh areas on the Cape and a funding program that agency has in place. He said NRCS’ interest is in restoring salt marshes and not the removal of nitrogen, but this is a program that would serve both interests.

The town has also received the draft MEP models for the Saquatucket, Wychmere andAllen harbor watersheds. The Herring River modeling is yet to be concluded, he said, explaining there are problems reproducing accurate tidal levels in the large tidal range north of Route 28. The area is so big and flat they need to do supplemental surveys to get a more accurate reading. It could be another three to four months before those models are done, Sampson said. But the WQTF chairman added they have enough information to begin moving forward and examining options for addressing wastewater in the town. He said the Herring River watershed is in very good shape so they are not as concerned there. Where Sampson did express concern is in the Wychmere watershed. He told selectmen 100 percent of the nitrogen levels have to be removed. He said there will be a meeting later this month with the Coastal Marine Science and Technology Department at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth, which developed the MEP modeling, to go over the findings.

The task force and its consultants will also move forward with developing options for addressing wastewater solutions. They will screen those options and through a series of workshops refine the approaches. He said in three to four months they could have three or four options lined up, whether it will be centralized systems or decentralized systems. Sampson said there will be plenty of public participation in this process. “We have a long way to go before we sleep because all of this has to be vetted in a public arena,” Sampson said.

HARWICH PORT — (3/30/10) Birders on Cape Cod are atwitter at sighting one of 57 piping plovers banded 1,225 miles away in the Bahamas earlier this year. Susie Gallagher of West Yarmouth and Ed Nash of Dennis, both birders, spotted the shorebird at Bank Street Beach on Saturday. Nash took a photo that captured the distinctive strip identifying the bird as one of those banded in January and February.

This particular bird was banded Jan. 17 on South Beach in New Providence, an island in the Bahamas. From Nash's photos, it appears to be a male, said Peter Doherty of Virginia Beach, Va., a certified bander and freelance ornithologist who worked on the banding project in the Bahamas. "The early migrants tend to be male birds looking to stake out the best territories on which to nest and attract females," he wrote in an e-mail. Gallagher was still excited yesterday. "I was hopping around like a madwoman," Gallagher, 60, said about her first spotting of a bird banded for research. "I can't believe I found the first (in Massachusetts) of only 57 plovers that were banded."

Other Bahamian plovers were sighted on Little Talbot in Duval County, Fla., and on Topsail Beach, Kiawah Island, S.C., earlier this month. An unconfirmed sighting was reported Saturday in Sandwich. Alerted by e-mails, birders up and down the East Coast have been watching for the banded plovers, part of research done by Dr. Cherie Gratto-Trevor of Environment Canada, the equivalent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

It's been years since researchers tried to track specific Atlantic Coast plovers during their migrations between winter grounds and summer nesting sites, said Ellen Jedry, associate director of Mass Audubon's Coastal Water Bird Program, which watches over piping plovers on Cape Cod. "We are all absolutely thrilled that they are doing this," Jedry said yesterday. "There's a great deal that can be learned from banding."

Do plovers come back to the same place, year after year? How long do they stay? Do they switch mates during their lifetime? Do they rebuild if a nest is destroyed by storms, predators or humans? "We think we know the answers to many of these questions, but research like this would inform us," she said. The answers also may help beach managers who, under federal and state rules, must close popular beaches each year to vehicles as plover chicks hatch. The closings are required because the Atlantic piping plover is listed as endangered in Canada and threatened in the United States.

Banding fell into disfavor in the early 1990s because aluminum bands damaged the legs of roughly 5 percent of the banded plovers. The new rubber bands have been successful in tracking, without harming, endangered plovers in the Great Lakes region and Northern Great Plains. Gallagher just started her third year of work as a plover monitor who watches over the 16 beaches in Dennis for the Coastal Waterbird program. Nash is an Audubon volunteer and birding colleague who joined her for a walk Saturday at the beach.

Gallagher believes she can recognize pairs of plovers by their collars and facial markings when they return to the same beach, even the same spot, year after year. "Usually three to four plovers nest on this beach," she said yesterday about Bank Street Beach. "Cross your fingers that this is one of them so we can watch it all summer."

There is another Cape link in the project. Doherty and his brother David, of Chatham, spent many summers here, sailing and looking at birds. The spring migration is just beginning, Doherty wrote in an e-mail yesterday. Most of the plovers that wintered in the Bahamas are still there, watched by observers. Plovers on three Bahamian islands were banded.

HARWICH — (2/19/10) Although the recent talk of the town has been on waterways pollution, another kind of emission has permeated the night sky: Light pollution.

As Harwich’s population has grown, so have its subdivisions, street networks, stores and shopping plazas. With these changes have come widespread outdoor lights, illuminating everything from intersections to flagpoles to car dealerships and churches. A handful of interested parties have raised the concern that many of these outdoor lights point skyward and are causing a collective glow, effectively blocking out what used to be an unobstructed view of the stars and planets. These residents are asking the town to draft a bylaw to impose new limits on outdoor lighting. The changes could require downward pointing lights and may reduce the total number of lights in a defined area.

An article titled “General By-Law Amendment – Lighting” appears on the draft warrant for the Special Town Meeting on May 4 but it includes no details to date. Tom Leach, the town harbormaster, is a leading advocate on this issue and proposed the article. Leach is also the town’s natural resources director and an amateur astronomer. He’s an active member of the Cape Cod Astronomy Club, which is in support of a bylaw. The planning board holds the regulatory powers to develop a proposal of this kind.

Leach made a pitch to the planning board back in June on the subject. As a resident of East Harwich, he indicated that he has witnessed a substantial growth of light pollution in the last three decades. “I moved to East Harwich in 1977, when the intersection of Routes 137 and 39 was four vacant corners. The brightness of that area now is so great you can see it from Harwich Port and my office,” he said. “We want businesses to control their lighting and simply aim it downwards to limit its cast,” he said. “Quite simply, many of the existing lights with a cap with sides would make a huge difference.” Leach said that, given the right equipment to direct existing lighting, property owners could also lower their individual light wattage and save money over time.

Town planner David Spitz confirmed that he was asked to do some research on the issue by the planning board. He has looked at other town bylaws. “The intent is to have something ready by March,” he told the Oracle last week. “I am not sure of the extent yet. I’m done with my research and need to get something proposed.” Spitz said that he had come across lighting bylaws that run up to 20 pages in length, describing in great detail what types of lights are permitted and how they should be placed to limit upward glare. “I think we’re going to be closer to three pages,” he said, but emphasized that the planning board still needs to review and approve a proposal before it reaches voters. He did not indicate if the bylaw would seek retrofits of existing lighting. Often, a bylaw such as this would apply only to new projects or significant renovations.

Although Planning Board Chairman Matt McCaffery wouldn’t put the proposal at the top of his priority list – the board is in the midst of a major revision to the local comprehensive plan – he felt that the board was open to Leach’s ideas. “I appreciate the sky just as much as any other casual observer, but a proposal needs to be fully evaluated,” he said. McCaffery thought that any limit needs to not impose too high of a burden on a project. “We’re in a tough enough economic climate as it is, [and] I am not interested in making things worse,” he added.

Town Planner David Spitz said the subcommittee doesn't yet need to have a detailed plan for the land, as long as it can demonstrate to voters that the property has great potential for improving aesthetics along Route 28, protecting wetlands, and possibly providing some opportunities for business development.

Subcommittee member Dean Knight of the conservation commission suggested that the group propose a menu of three potential ways the property might be used by the town, from the least expensive to the most costly. The simplest use might be to clear the land and allow parking there for cars or boat trailers; it might also be possible to build a simple park on the site, or to use it as part of a broader plan to redesign Saquatucket Harbor as a destination for pedestrians and shoppers. “Hyannis has done this with Bismore Park,” Knight said. There, the town of Barnstable built a promenade of small seasonal shops—housed in removable garden sheds—leased to local artists looking to sell their wares. “And they used Urban Self-Help money,” Knight added. A similar concept might be used for the edge of the current Saquatucket Marina parking lot which is closest to the water, creating an attractive walkway with small shops or even restaurants. The Downey property could be used to offset the parking lost in such a reconfiguration. The concept of such a promenade is just one idea the subcommittee is brainstorming, Ballantine stressed. There are many other possibilities that justify the purchase of the Downey land, and he said voters should focus on the property's potential, not any particular use being discussed.

Conservation Administrator John Chatham said it might be possible to use the land acquisition to improve the flow of the old river that currently runs through a pipe under Route 28, improving the health of the wetland. It is also worth noting that the land remains a hazardous waste site, and “until it's cleaned up, Mass DEP isn't going to let go of it,” he said. But by the same token, an opportunity to purchase land near the harbor may never come up again, Chatham said. “You shouldn't let this get away.” Subcommittee member Matt Hart of the planning board said the Downey purchase might allow the town to maximize revenue opportunities for the town, and voters should see that possibility. They should be told “that this is going to lower your taxes,” Hart said. But subcommittee member Angelo LaMantia, a selectman, said that kind of project would be expensive and complicated. “There isn't a lot of money around,” LaMantia said, and a project that involves spending more taxpayer dollars could run into opposition.

Some birds have a broken compass that sends them off in the wrong direction when they migrate, he explained. They're known as "vagrants," and they pile up along the East Coast in the summer months, unwilling to challenge the Atlantic Ocean.Usually, they end up in the Southeastern states. Cape Cod is way off course, Bonter said, especially for Allen's hummingbirds, which spend most of the year along the California coast. They winter in south central Mexico, where it averages 70 to 80 degrees, and are rarely found east of the Rockies.As holidays came and went, Omar expected the bird would leave. But he was there for Halloween, then Thanksgiving. When a pre-Christmas storm dumped more than a foot of snow in her yard, and the winds howled more than 50 miles per hour, she saw it fly to the feeder, besting the winds and snow."It is an incredibly strong flier," said Bonter.

Around 2 inches long, weighing about as much as a penny, hummingbirds are tough, and can fly hundreds of miles without rest. But the price for beating their wings at a blurring 50 or more beats per second is the requirement for constant fuel. In summer, they visit more than a thousand flowers a day for nectar and insects.At this point, Omar's guest is completely dependent on her feeder and visits it every five to 10 minutes from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m."We're not going anywhere," Omar said. "At this point, I couldn't leave."

During the storms, Omar went out every half hour to brush snow off the feeder. She panicked one day when she broke the only feeder, and sent her husband, Richard, out to buy more. Two now hang inside as back-ups should the feeder water freeze up."At night, I wonder where he actually is and how he keeps warm by himself," she said. Local birders, some of whom recently trapped and banded the tiny bird, believe he may be finding refuge in an old juniper tree in her yard.Hummingbirds are able to survive colder weather by slowing their body temperatures and metabolic rates, and going into a deep sleep that uses little energy.Bonter believes there is just a slim chance the bird can survive the winter, but if he lasts until March, he'll be OK, he said.

Ironically, vagrants don't learn their lesson, he said. They'll return to the same spot the next year, no matter how bad the previous winter."They have a very high fidelity to that site," he said.But even if this one doesn't return to her feeder one day this winter, Omar won't think the worst. "I would assume he's moved on to his next trip," she said.

HARWICH PORT, Mass - (12/20/09 Barnstable Patriot) Sometimes you get to choose either to walk the walk or talk the talk, and both are good. From now through early March, the Harwich Conservation Trust (HCT) is offering free guided winter walks in its town, and winter talks that are also free except for a live owl program on March 6 ($5 under 12 and $10 over). The walks occur at a variety of locations and the talks are offered in the shelter of the Harwich Community Center at 100 Oak St., not far from Route 6’s Exit 10. All are open to the public.

A walk coming up this Tuesday (Dec. 22) at 7 p.m. is an astronomy night (weather permitting) in the HCT’s Bank Street Bogs Nature Preserve, led by Harwich’s harbormaster, Tom Leach, whose interest in navigating by the stars led him to study astronomy seriously. He also serves as president of the Cape Cod Astronomical Society (CCAS). On a recent sunny and warm afternoon, Leach returned the harbormaster’s boat to its official berth in Saquatucket Harbor after a trip to retrieve some channel markers for the winter. Leach and others unloaded the colorful buoys from the white boat as the harbor’s waters sparkled under a blue sky. It had been a good time to go out. The high winds and intense rains had taken a break, and the calm sea had cooperated with their work. Back in his office, Leach described what he planned to offer if weather permits his astronomy walk; for obvious reasons, cloudy weather cancels the venture.

Because winter offers perhaps the most identifiable constellation of them all, Orion, that hunter along with his faithful dog, the bright star Sirius, are bound to be a find on the walk. But many people don’t know, said Leach, that Orion’s sword contains the breathtaking M42 cluster, known as a “nursery” for stars. Good binoculars, which Leach encourages walkers to bring, will show M42 clearly but Leach, on behalf of the Astronomical Society, has an even more exciting offer: a 14-inch Dobsonian telescope hand-built by CCAS members in the 1980s. They even ground the mirror. The beauty of “Dobs,” as they are affectionately known, is that they can gather a tremendous amount of light and make celestial objects clear and bright to human eyes. To prepare for his walks, Leach reads up on the mythology of the sky. Many constellations are named for characters in ancient stories. Orion is one. The nearby Gemini, the twins, were even minted onto Roman coins. There are Hercules, Perseus, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda, all with their stories.

Leach got interested in astronomy as a little boy when the adults around him were looking up trying to find the recently-launched Sputnik and when, spending most of his Augusts in a cottage down-Cape, he and his family would go to rangers’ lectures in an amphitheater in the new National Seashore and he could look out on both the Atlantic Ocean and the stars. “We’re losing stuff like that on the Cape,” he said. The harbormaster leads his astronomy walks in a retired cranberry bog that was bought by the HCT and is now used for walking and, because of its relative protection from light pollution from malls, airports, and other sources, for Leach’s astronomy walks. (“Actually, though,” he noted, “Stop and Shop does a pretty good job” of shielding its lights in East Harwich to keep the illumination on the ground and not in the sky. He said that he doesn’t think so well of some other businesses.) The bog where Leach is scheduled to lead his walk can be reached by taking Bank Street south from Harwich Center and then parking on the left at the Harbormaster’s Workshop at 203 Bank St.

Leach has a ten-inch telescope in a dome on his own property. What’s the most exciting thing he’s ever seen with it? “Well, the moon,” he answered after some thought, and to prove his point he brought up on his computer a movie of Earth’s satellite that he took via a Web cam hooked up to his telescope. “There are places you can see here where astronauts have set foot.” HCT literature says that the organization, founded in 1988, “preserves land to protect woods, water, wildlife, and our shared quality of life.” Other HCT walks explore conservation areas, and talk topics include turtles, fishers, Cape Cod geography, Africa, and – the one program with an admission fee – owls. For more information, the Harwich Conservation Trust can be reached at 508-432-3997 or via www.HarwichConservationTrust,org. The Cape Cod Astronomical Society’s Web site, which includes instructions for up-to-the-minute “sky tours,” is www.ccas.ws