Cape & Islands News

NOAA predict a bad future for Cape's rivers and streams

Report on nutrient pollution forecasts worsening health for nation's estuaries
Cape Cod to Chesapeake are the most impaired in America 

While moderate to high level nutrient-related impacts were reported in systems from all coasts, the Mid-Atlantic region, stretching south from Cape Cod to the Chesapeake Bay, is the most impairedThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today released a comprehensive assessment of estuarine eutrophication, or nutrient pollution, that clearly indicates linkages between upstream activities and coastal ecosystem health. The report shows that the majority of U.S. estuaries assessed are highly influenced by human-related activities and points out that eutrophication is a widespread problem globally.

“Observations have confirmed that our nation’s coastal waters are stressed,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “One thing we have learned from this study is that while the accumulation of nutrients in our estuaries has been stable in most of our estuaries, conditions are likely to worsen. The potential for serious degradation in most of our estuaries necessitates that we reinvigorate efforts to address nutrient pollution, and this study helps to confirm that an ecosystem approach is required for improving the health of our estuaries.” (Click NOAA image for a larger view of the grapic showing the current status of estuarine eutrophication in the United Statest.

Eutrophication is caused by excess nutrients in the water, which can result in increased blooms of algae, decreased dissolved oxygen and loss of seagrasses. The end result is loss of critical marine life habitat.

The NOAA report, “Effects of Nutrient Enrichment in the Nation’s Estuaries: A Decade of Change, National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment Update” is an update of the 1999 National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment, examining eutrophic conditions in 141 U.S. estuaries, and how and why conditions have changed in the decade between the early 1990s and early 2000s. Of the 99 estuaries that had adequate data for evaluation, 64 estuaries have moderate to high level nutrient related impacts.

"The team of scientists that worked on this assessment concluded that most of the problems in the estuaries are related to human activities," said lead report author Suzanne Bricker, Ph.D., of NOAA's Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment. "These impacts are occurring in a watershed that currently supports 53 percent of the nation's population, and excluding Alaska accounts for only 17 percent of the nation's land mass. The scientists' assessment is that the ecological health of our coastal waters is seriously threatened by nutrient pollution. We need to comprehensively address the influx of excess nutrients from upland watersheds to protect our nation’s estuaries."

While moderate-to-high-level nutrient-related impacts were reported in systems from all coasts, the Mid-Atlantic region, stretching south from Cape Cod to the Chesapeake Bay, is the most impaired. The North Atlantic region, from Maine to Cape Cod, was the least impaired proportionally. From North Carolina to Florida, a majority of estuaries have moderate or low eutrophic conditions. The Gulf of Mexico estuaries have very large watersheds with low to moderate populations. They are poorly flushed, and as a result have high level of factors that can cause eutrophication. Regardless, Gulf of Mexico estuaries are proportionally less impacted than those in the heavily populated Mid-Atlantic. The Pacific region has very little nutrient load data available, making it difficult to provide an overall assessment.

In looking ahead, the report predicts that conditions in 65 percent of the nation's estuaries are likely to worsen in the next decade, while only 20 percent will improve. The remaining 15 percent will remain unchanged. Read the complete NOAA report here. 
 

2 comments »

The Globe's stunning omission; Standard-Times' complete coverage

Dan Kennedy's MediaNation is counting the votes - all the votes
In 2nd ballot voters turned around and rejected the casino itself

"We're really encouraged. The town just said it doesn't want a casino. How can that not have weight?"Kennedy's second post today gives biting and  embarrassing details of how the major media outlets failed completely in their coverage of yesterday's Middleborough votes. 

Yes, there were two votes, and the second vote, many insiders agreed,  nullified the first. It makes  journalists recall when America's newspapers paid for enough local reporters to inform the public about vital debates like this one. Here's his column;

The Globe's stunning omission

I'm stunned that the Globe failed to report that Middleborough voters, shortly after approving the agreement with the Wampanoags, turned around and rejected the casino itself. Despite publishing two stories (here and here) featuring four bylines, the paper somehow couldn't find an inch to include that crucial fact. The Globe managed to do better in its online coverage yesterday. And as I've already noted, the Herald gets it right in its own Sunday story.

So, for that matter, does The Standard-Times of New Bedford, whose deep reporting on yesterday's proceedings shows that this fight is a long way from being over. First, consider this, from Steve Decosta's story:

After casting their votes on the agreement and before the final tally was announced, the body, on a hand vote, ironically rejected a nonbinding question to approve casino gambling in town. Only about half the voters remained on the high school athletic field for that tally.

"I don't think that's a true indication of how people feel, because so many people had left," said Marsha Brunelle, selectmen chairwoman.

Asked if that outcome tainted the vote on the agreement, Mr. Marshall [Glenn Marshall, the Wampanoag chief] said: "It's the end of a hot day, people get tired, people leave. The true number is the one that got counted."

But casino opponents would not minimize their victory.

"That's the root question," said Jacqueline Tolosko, president of the anti-casino group Casinofacts. "We're really encouraged. The town just said it doesn't want a casino. How can that not have weight?"

Think about the cluelessness of Brunelle's comments. Only 25 percent of the town's registered voters took part in approving the agreement with the Wampanoags. As has been meticulously and widely documented, turnout was held down because of the midsummer heat and humidity, which kept elderly residents and people with health problems away. People who had to work or who couldn't find child care were kept away, too.

As for people leaving, well, town officials all but told people to leave by staging a disgraceful signing ceremony with the Wampanoags as soon as the agreement was approved, but before the casino itself was put to a vote. That action in itself ought to be the subject of a legal challenge on the grounds that it was a ruse aimed at making people think the meeting was over.

Even so, the vote to reject the casino was a legal (if non-binding) vote on a warrant article properly put before town meeting. Officials have no right to pretend that vote never took place. Again, think about Jacqueline Tolosko's remarks: "The town just said it doesn't want a casino. How can that not have weight?"

The second Standard-Times story, by Steve Urbon, expands on Sabutai's report about improper influence on the part of casino proponents. Look at this:

Another opponent, Richard Young, pointed to Bill Marzelli and his dozens of orange shirted casino backers and complained that while they were allowed to wear the T-shirts and white hats that read, "Vote YES for Middleborough's future," the police confiscated his side's yellow leaflets, which explained a few opposition talking points. "I'm not allowed to give you anything to read," he said.

Do I need to point out that the town's two police unions have endorsed the casino? This strikes me as sufficient in and of itself to throw out the results of yesterday's vote. No wonder police didn't want the media watching.

Let me expand on something I wrote earlier. No doubt some people voted "yes" on the agreement because they would genuinely like to see a casino come to Middleborough. But there were others — plenty of others, I suspect — who voted "yes" because they were told, repeatedly, that the casino was coming whether they wanted it or not, and that they might as well negotiate the best terms that they could.

Last week, New England Cable News' "NewsNight" program devoted a half-hour to the Middleborough debate. In the first segment, Ted Eayrs, a town assessor and former selectman, debated Greg Stevens, a casino opponent. In the second, I debated town planner Ruth Geoffroy, who favors the casino.

If you watch both segments, you will see that Eayrs (an opponent until recently) and Geoffroy each talked repeatedly about the supposed inevitability of the casino as a reason for approving the agreement. Let me share something else with you that you will not see in these segments: As we were leaving NECN, Eayrs told me that though he favored the agreement as the best way of protecting the town's interests, he hopes the state will step in and stop the casino from ever being built.

Well, gee, that's exactly how Middleborough residents voted yesterday, isn't it? "Yes" on the agreement, "no" on the casino itself.

Gov. Deval Patrick will have a major say in what happens next. Without his wholehearted approval, a casino will not be coming to Middleborough. The governor needs to consider the fact that voters yesterday said "no" to the casino. Patrick should say no, too.

Update: This is really incredible. The Globe runs a slideshow of supporters and opponents of the casino — and the first two are of supporters wearing orange shirts! The message is cut off, but the first guy is also wearing a white cap that says "Yes to Middleborough's Future." Remember, the opponents' leaflets were seized by police.

Update II: NECN gets it right. This report is particularly good on how opponents were marginalized and shunted aside. It also mentions the "no" vote on the casino itself.

 Read Dan Kennedy's Media Nation here.

Leave a comment »

Barge sinks, spills diesel fuel into water; Two Medflights by CG from Vineyard to Boston today

Coast Guard airlifts two from Martha's Vineyard

An Air Station Cape Cod HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew airlifted two people from Martha's Vineyard Hospital to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston in separate flights this morning.

The first flight landed 3:13 a.m. after transporting a 76-year-old female suffering from a head injury after she slipped and fell.

The helicopter crew launched again from the island carrying a 77-year-old female suffering from internal bleeding and arrived at the hopital helipad, 7:40 a.m.

The current condition of both patients is unknown.

Private medical flights were not available due to poor weather conditions.

"In an emergency situation, the Coast Guard has the capability to fly in bad weather," said Lt. Mike Nalli from the First Coast Guard District Command Center in Boston. "Both flights landed safely and without incident."
_________________________

The Coast Guard responded to reports that the 180-foot barge Sei 17 sank in Quincy Shipyard in Quincy, with no one aboard, spilling an unknown amount of diesel fuel into the water at about 8:45 p.m., Sunday.

"Assets from Station Point Allerton arrived on scene shortly after the Coast Guard received notification, and we dispatched a petty officer from Sector Boston to investigate the situation," said Ensign Shelly Wyman, of Sector Boston's incident management branch.  

Shipyard personnel deployed fuel-containment boom and contacted Cyn Environmental, a private contracting company, to continue containment and clean-up efforts. 

The cause of the incident is under investigation.

Leave a comment »

State Transportation Dept. listens

But  concerned citizens have to help as well
Danger to school children at play remedied after cctoday asks

Back in June you may recall the photo above and the story about a car which crashed into the playground of the Orleans charter school on Route 6-A opposite the southbound on ramp to Route 6 at Exit 12.

At the time a member of our staff posted the below comment on the story  and sent the Mass. Highway Department a letter with the map on the right.

Comment;
What is AMAZING, is that no one was killed. Students from the Lighthouse Charter School play there most days. I have always been shocked that there is no guardrail there, just a wood split rail fence. I've been expecting this to happen for years. I just told the Mass Highway Dept. about this story and pleaded with them to quickly install a heavy duty guardrail there to protect the extremely vulnerable children.

I urge all of you to call or email them here to urge them to fix this long overdue oversight. See the website.

I contacted them and will report back here to let you know what their response was or wasn't. If I had a kid there, I'd be jumping up and down freaking out.

What the State did in response

 On Friday our staff member received the following email from the Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works and the result of his efforts are shown in the photograph below:

-----Original Message-----
From: "Feedback (EOT)" <Feedback.Eot@state.ma.us>
Subject: RE: missing guardrail kills student

Thank you for your e-mail.  Sorry for the delayed response.

Please know that the Massachusetts Highway Department installed a guardrail along this stretch in the past couple of weeks.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works

Below is what the state did at the accident scene.

1 comment »

A bridge never crossed

Above on the left an FBI Scuba Diver enters the half-sunken cardriven by Senator Kennedy in which Mary Jo Kopechne  met her death at age 28 on Martha's Vineyard. On right is the senator and hios then wife Joan leaving a courtroom at the inquest. The two books are part of the ongoing journalists effort to finally understand that night's event.

Analysis: "A Wake on Chappaquiddick"

By Jack Coleman

The Theories; a primer
By Jack Coleman
It's the last great Kennedy mystery -- what actually happened on Chappaquiddick?
   And was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy even in the car?
Yes, that's among the many theories bandied about in the decades since the fatal plunge that claimed the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, a secretary who'd worked in Robert Kennedy's doomed presidential campaign.
   The seemingly outlandish theory that Kennedy wasn't in the car was described by Jack Olsen in his book "The Bridge at Chappaquiddick," published in 1970 only six months after the accident.
   According to Olsen, Kennedy was seen stopped at an intersection just before making the wrong turn toward the bridge -- by a deputy sheriff in uniform, no less. Kennedy drove a short distance away and got out of the car, then asked Kopechne to drive on alone to avoid potential embarrassment if the deputy sheriff pursued them, Olsen maintained.
   This would explain why Kennedy waited nearly 10 hours to report the accident -- he wasn't aware of it until the next morning. Where the theory falls short is in Kennedy putting himself at a fatal accident he wasn't involved in, if the theory is correct.
   Olson wasn't the only proponent of the theory, however -- so was Zad Rust in his 1971 book, "Teddy Bare: The Last of the Kennedy Clan."
Was there "another woman"?
   Among the more persistent theories has Kennedy leaving the party that night, alone or with another woman not Kopechne, then driving off the bridge.
    Kennedy, or Kennedy and the other woman, managed to get out of the car, and neither person reported the accident because they weren't aware of Kopechne's presence in the vehicle.
   Among the more damning accounts came with the 1988 publication of the late Leo Damore's "Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Coverup." Damore, known locally for his book about P'town mass murderer Tony Costa ("In His Garden") and an earlier Kennedy book, "The Cape Cod Years of John Fitzgerald Kennedy," pulled off a journalistic coup with "Senatorial Privilege" -- he got Kennedy cousin Joe Gargan, who arranged for the party on Chappaquiddick and returned to the bridge with Kennedy in a vain attempt to rescue Kopechne, to go on the record.
Gargon asked to lie
  What Gargan claimed was explosive -- the morning after the still-unreported accident, Kennedy asked Gargan to go along with a cover story -- that Kopechne left the party alone and drove off the bridge. Gargan refused, according to Damore's book, whereupon Kennedy reported the accident to police.
Gargan was more like an older brother to Kennedy than a cousin (or at least then; perversely, the clan is said to have blamed   Gargan for what happened). If Kennedy couldn't get Gargan to go along, Damore reasoned, there was little hope anyone else attending the party would either.
   In all likelihood, the truth of what happened will never be known for certain. Only two people witnessed the accident, and one's been dead nearly 40 years.
   The other witness has hardly said a word about this in the decades since. And as far as Edward Kennedy is concerned, altogether too much has already been said and written about the worst night of his life, and the last of Mary Jo Kopechne's.When I first heard of a play called "A Wake on Chappaquiddick," I mistakenly thought it was written by someone attempting to make the island a setting for something other than, well, you know.

Wishful thinking, it turns out. Chappaquiddick, as one of the play's characters observes, is "one of those places known for one thing, like Pearl Harbor or Waco."

For those who aren't aware of it, Chappaquiddick is known mainly for this -- late on the night of July 18, 1969, as two American astronauts sped toward becoming the first human beings to set foot on the moon, a lofty goal envisioned earlier in the decade by a slain president named Kennedy, that greatly mourned leader's youngest brother, Edward M. Kennedy, left a party on the remote isle of Chappaquiddick attended by six married men and six single women.

After departing with one of the party's female attendees, according to what Kennedy belatedly told police, he took a wrong turn and drove off a bridge into a pond. Kennedy, then 37, managed to escape from the car; his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, was not so fortunate. By the time Kennedy reported the accident the next morning, Kopechne had been dead in his rented Oldsmobile at least nine hours.
Politicians can survive anything, or so the old saw goes, except being found with a dead girl or a live boy. Kennedy proved an exception. Not only did he manage to avoid a mandatory jail term, the state's senior senator has been re-elected seven times since the accident, invariably in routs over sacrificial lamb opponents.

Yet for all its notoriety, few novelists or playwrights have dared venture near Chappaquiddick, a timidity not shared by writers of non-fiction expounding on any number of theories as to what happened that still, muggy night in the summer of 1969.
Playwright Jessica Provenz, a Long Island native born six years after the accident, shows no such hesitancy. Her play, "A Wake on Chappaquiddick," held its first staged reading last weekend at the Cape Cod Theater Project in  Famouth and drew strong turnouts all three nights -- "and we were competing with Harry Potter," Provenz quipped.

Contrary to what some may expect, Provenz did not approach her subject from the perspective of classic Kennedy hater -- far from it. Her first visit to the Dike Bridge, site of the accident and a structure long since replaced, came at age 7 or 8 during one of her family's annual sailing trips from Long Island to the Vineyard or Martha's Vineyard -- on a boat dubbed "Camelot."

Her interest was heightened by the ruminations of a lifelong friend. "She had every single book on the Kennedys, and there are plenty," Provenz said in a telephone interview earlier this week.
What Provenz seeks to accomplish is a difficult balancing act -- an unblinking portrayal of Kennedy's actions with a sympathetic view of him as a human being and liberal political icon.

"Had that night never happened, he would have become president," Provenz said over the phone. "And we would all be better off."

The play is comprised of three vignettes, each with three characters. The first vignette is set on the Chappaquiddick "compound" of the "Alexander" family just before a fatal party that night. The second vignette involves Chappaquiddick islanders and how the accident affects their lives; one of them, a boy among the first at the scene, later becomes a tour guide for morbid sightseers.

The last vignette, set in the present day and sharing the same name as the play, involves an older married couple on Chappaquiddick and an accident that leaves a young woman paralyzed and dependent on them for support.

Through all three vignettes, the name "Kennedy" is never mentioned while "Mary Jo Kopechne" is uttered only once. But Provenz isn't coy when it comes to what lies beneath -- references to "the compound" abound, as does the name of the island itself (one of those places "known for one thing"), along with "the Senator," a matriarch named "Rosealee," touch football games on the lawn and various "A-listers" like Joan Baez dropping by to hobnob.

When one of the Alexander women, Wendy, proclaims her intention to marry Michael, a talented artist and one of the family's hired help, sister-in-law Orianna laughs it off as quixotic.

"Marriage for love is not an option in the Alexander family," Orianna observes. "It's always a business transaction" (would that be Jackie, or more likely Joan ...?).

After each night's reading at the Cape Cod Theater Project, handled with aplomb by talented actors Mia Barron, Jason Butler Harner and Amy Ryan, the Project's artistic director, Andrew Polk, moderated a question-and-answer session between the audience and cast, Provenz and director Kyle Donnelly.

 What is the play about, Polk asked a full house on the night I attended.
The responses -- "Life and death" ... "being trapped" ..."the fallacy that we have control over our lives" ... "the death of hope..."

One audience member noted the last vignette's similiarity to the Edith Wharton novel, "Ethan Frome," which culminates in a disastrous sleigh ride that leaves a young woman paralyzed and the title character a shell of his former self. This, Provenz said, was an intentional allusion to a book she'd read years earlier in high school.

Despite the decades that have passed, said another woman in the audience, "there isn't a time I see Ted Kennedy on TV that my mind doesn't go right back to it ... I couldn't believe (the play) was being done, but I was glad to hear it was."

Others were less accepting and perceived the play as dredging up an ancient and unpleasant memory.  "We've had some really strong opinions about it," Polk said after the reading last Saturday. "Many people believe he (Kennedy) stands for something important."

Of the give-and-take with the audience, Provenz said,  "that was the part that was so thrilling.  Whether they liked it or thought it was despicable, they really cared about it."
Another theater in the state, one Provenz declined to name, turned the play down out of fear of angering the Kennedys.

Where does "A Wake on Chappaquiddick" go from here?
"You never know with theater," Provenz said. "But I think it needs to be accepted somewhere else before it comes back."

Jack Coleman writes about politics, offshore wind power and, occasionally, theater at capecodtoday.com. He can be reached at polnotes@yahoo.com.

Leave a comment »

New Bedford fishing boat sinks, spills fuel in harbor ; Buddy Cianci vsits The Cape

The 87-foot New Bedford-based fishing vessel Rianda sank with no one aboard at a pier in New Bedford Harbor around midnight Thursday, spilling approximately 100 gallons of diesel fuel into the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo

New Bedford fishing boat sinks, spills fuel in harbor 

Coast Guard investigators continue to oversee the cleanup of about 100 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled into the water after a New Bedford, Mass.,-based fishing vessel with no one aboard sank at a pier in New Bedford Harbor around midnight Thursday.

Coast Guard pollution investigators were immediately dispatched to the scene after the New Bedford police notified Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England about 9:30 p.m., that the 87-foot fishing vessel Rianda was taking on water and listing 35 degrees.

Frank Corp., a private contracting company, placed containment boom in the harbor, placed absorbent boom on the vessel, and plugged the vessel's vents.

The New Bedford Fire Department and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection also responded.

The cause of the incident is under investigation.
______________________

Buddy Cianci celebrates freedom after quick trip to Cape Cod
The Prince of Providence was back at his favorite Federal Hill restaurant

Former Providence Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci's road to freedom today included a stop on Cape Cod.  Cianci arrived at the Barnstable Sheriff's Office this morning, where staff there removed a monitoring bracelet.

Barnstable County Sheriff Jim Cummings' office handles monitoring of federal home confinement sentences in southeastern New England...

He was there eating lunch in Providence yesterday, just hours after his electronic monitoring device was removed by the Barnstable County Sheriff’.

Cianci was with five other men, including his lawyer, Charles Mansolillo. He was not wearing his trademark toupee, and was bald, except for close-cropped hair around the sides.

At this writing, he was sitting in a window seat at the front of the restaurant, with the curtain drawn. A horde of media were gathered outside.

 The former mayor was having haddock Sicilian, according to a kitchen worker at the restaurant, who told a Journal reporter that's what he always had when eating there...   Read the rest of the Providence Journal story here.

1 comment »

Cost to fill the inlet; Oprah picks Ptown author; Nauset Road turbines

Lower Cape Headlines, Friday, July 27, 2007

Headlines from the Cape Codder:
Officials weigh Beach Point development, water quality
- Fears of this part of Truro already being overdeveloped
Against the Tide: Wife's ordeal inspires husband to give back
- Owner of the Breakfast Room's involvement with Against the Tide honors wife
Cost to fill inlet: $4.1 million
- Now it goes to a vote
Revisions seek to boost accessory apartments
- affordable housing remains a challenge for young families
Wind turbine committee seeks compromise
- members of new ad hoc committee to review proposed plan and location
Alzheimer's benefit set for August 5
- Mary Houk, owner of Sandpiper Gallery in Wellfleet has raised thousands over the years
Unused groceries help stock pantry
- Family Pantry in Harwich encourages summer vacationers to donate unused food
Get ready for the Taste of Chatham
- This annual fundraiser is sure to please
Ptown author gets boost from the Big O
- Oprah chooses local author's book for her coveted book club
Orleans
- Wastewater meetings come up
Eastham
- Special town meeting warrant open
Wellfleet
- Affordable housing choices a big issue
Truro
- Plovers force closure of beach lot
Provincetown
- Should Commercial Street be repaved?

Read the rest in the Cape Codder here.

________________________________________

Headlines from the Provincetown Banner:
Belfry put back on top
-Belfry returns to grace the top of a once historic church, now the town library
Accentuate the positive
- School superintendent Waugh wants to redefine the small in small school
Victory of the Rose Dorothea, 100 years later
- Remembering the nexus of the age of sail & the age of fishing
Animal shelter gets new permit
- Zoning board hurdle passed, shelter moves forward
Sewer construction update
- check Banner for schedule
Trieff reflects on the human condition
- Revered painter rarely show signs of slowing down
Squidda raps around the sound
- Local boy band makes the club circuit

Read the rest of the Provincetown Banner here. 

Leave a comment »

Murdered family had just left Cape; New danger to Cape marine life; Chandler Travis still going strong

Prosecutors To Seek Death Penalty In Hartford Home Invasion Case
Couple had just returned from a Cape Cod vacation

CHESHIRE, Conn. -- From grocery store aisles to gun shop counters, shaken Connecticut residents struggled to comprehend the seemingly random attack that left a mother and two daughters dead in their burning Cheshire home this week. Many questions remain unanswered, among them what might have pushed two petty burglars to a night of kidnapping, rape, arson and murder.

Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevky face death penalty for three deathsProsecutors said they will seek the death penalty against the two, who were each charged Thursday with six counts of capital felony. They already faced charges of assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, arson, larceny and risk of injury to children. A public memorial service has been set for Saturday for school nurse Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters. Hayley, 17, planned to attend Dartmouth College to study medicine. Michaela, 11, wanted to be a gourmet cook.  Hawke-Petit was strangled and her daughters died of smoke inhalation as the house burned around them, according to autopsy results and police.

The lone survivor, Dr. William Petit Jr., was badly beaten but managed to escape. He remained hospitalized with serious injuries Thursday.  "He's doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances," said Petit's brother, Glenn Petit. "Emotionally, he's a mess. He is stunned right now. He's had his family taken from him."

The family had recently returned from a vacation to Cape Cod and had not even had a chance to develop their photos....  Read the rest of this WBNC story here.  
_______________________

Beautiful, but dangerous invader organisms threaten marine life
May cause huge economic impact found on Cape Cod this week


Didemnum found on Cape Cod this weekResearchers lay flat on their stomachs on floating docks at Boston's Rowes Wharf yesterday and scraped off clumps of the organisms with spatulas and their hands.  They were hunting for invaders that could destroy native plants and marine life in the Atlantic Ocean.  Art Mathieson, a seaweed specialist from the University of New Hampshire, held up a 3-foot-long strand of native seaweed as if he had caught a trophy-winning bass. The strand was beautiful, with brilliant shades of orange and red, but the bright colors were a bad sign, a symptom of invasion.

Mathieson is among a group of roughly 20 researchers sampling the Atlantic Coast from Woods Hole to Maine as part of a national effort to annually track the growth of invasive species...   The researchers made an alarming find this week on Cape Cod and in Boston Harbor, a form of red seaweed that has never been detected this far north. Scientists have found it previously in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.  The sea squirts also carry an economic price for regions like New England where fishing is a robust industry. Didemnum was found on Cape Cod this week..   Read the rest of this Globe story here. 
________________________________

Incredible Casuals; A crazy carnival of sound
Chandler Travis makes most of his eclectic ideas

There is no one quite as cracked as Chandler Travis. As the longtime leader of Boston's skewed power pop outfit the Incredible Casuals (which has held down a summer club residency at the Wellfleet Beachcomber on Cape Cod for more than a quarter century), Travis has toured Japan, opened for Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and his pal George Carlin, and even gotten a free haircut on "The Tonight Show" back when Johnny Carson was king.

His tenure with the cheekily monikered Chandler Travis Philharmonic Orchestra he founded in 1996 has been no less adventurous or eclectic.  Dubbed an alternative Dixieland band but so much more -- wild detours into rock, pop, spoken word, and experimental sound collages twist along the ensemble's path -- the Philharmonic was once described by the Village Voice as "a blend of Ringling Bros. and Ra," a subversively versatile unit that, according to the Voice, "puts the harm back in Philharmonic."  Read the rest of this Globe story here. 

1 comment »

P'town board won't investigate controversial arrest

P'town board will not investigate controversial police arrest

By Laura Kiritsy, Bay Windows

The controversy surrounding the arrest of popular DJ Barry Scott in earlier this month received a thorough airing at the Provincetown Board of Selectmen meeting July 23, with roughly equal numbers of people alternately criticizing officers for allegedly acting with unnecessary force in arresting Scott or defending the work of the Provincetown Police Department. The five-member board said it will not investigate whether police acted inappropriately during the incident, in deference to the ongoing legal proceedings.

Investigation of what happened by selectmen “can only interfere”
    - Mary-Jo Avellar“It’s very easy to get caught up in the emotions of this,” said Selectwoman Mary-Jo Avellar, who chairs the board. But she added that investigation of what happened by selectmen “can only interfere” in the legal process that is currently underway. “We’ll be interested in the results,” said Avellar.

Scott’s attorney, Christopher Snow, said after the meeting that the board is now complicit in “the ongoing damage” to Scott and that the selectmen have given “their tacit approval, at least temporarily” to the allegations of police misconduct that have been made by witnesses to Scott’s arrest.

“offensive to the process that they felt they could sit on their hands while this civil rights violation germinates."  Selectmen continue "to hide the misdeeds of this department”
    - Attorney Snow“It was somewhat offensive to the process that they felt they could sit on their hands while this civil rights violation germinates and continues to cause harm to an otherwise law abiding individual under the auspices of a ‘continuing investigation’ … which I consider a temporary safe harbor for continuing to hide the misdeeds of this department,” said Snow.

During the meeting, Snow spoke up on Scott’s behalf and praised other witnesses for having the courage to show up and speak. He expressed concern that the meeting was stacked with “sympathetic members of the Blue Line.”

Scott, a homeowner and host of the weekly radio program “The Lost 45s with Barry Scott,” is facing charges of resisting arrest, disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct in Orleans District Court. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Aug. 1. The charges stem from an incident at the home of Ed Foley on July 14. Scott was deejaying Foley’s birthday party when police returned to the home for a third time that night to shut down the party because of noise complaints. At that point, according to Scott and guests at the party, Scott used his microphone to inform the 50 guests that the police had ordered an end to the festivities. Witnesses have said that Scott politely complained that taxpaying town residents could not enjoy a birthday party in their own homes.

Barry Scott alleges that police aggressively descended on him to make their arrest ... he suffered injuries to his nose, leg and toes.He and the witnesses allege that police then aggressively descended on Scott to arrest him, claiming that he was inciting a riot. Scott suffered injuries to his nose, leg and toes during the arrest. Scott and witnesses say that he did not resist arrest. His partner Bryan Richardson, who was taken into custody but charged with no crime, also alleges he was injured and mistreated by officers (See “Popular DJ Arrested In P’town, July 19 here.)

“Officers followed General Orders to the letter” - Chef Tobias

Addressing the board early in the meeting, Acting Provincetown Police Chief Warren Tobias said that after interviewing the officers involved in the incident, reviewing police reports and attending a meeting with Scott, Snow and Town Manager Sharon Lynn, he had determined that “the officers followed General Orders to the letter” during the incident. General Orders are guidelines designed by police departments to guide officers in carrying out their duties and responsibilities. Referring to media reports about the incident, Tobias said that thus far, “only one side [of the story] is being heard.” He disputed one news report that said that officers were responding to three noise complaints that came from one person. “There were six complaints actually,” said Tobias, made by multiple people.

In response to the controversy, Tobias said he is considering holding a public forum aimed at educating the town residents about the role and responsibility of the police department and to solicit citizen feedback about the department. Members of the board roundly encouraged holding such an event sooner rather than later. “I would just encourage a forum as soon as possible,” said Selectman Austin Knight.

No one who spoke at the meeting raised the issue of anti-gay bias on the part of the arresting officers, Michael Barone and Anthony Bova. Tobias has strenuously denied it was a factor in the incident. But Don Gorton, chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, was among those who had called for an investigation into the officers’ behavior, citing his concern that homophobia may have played a part in Scott’s arrest.  In an email to Bay Windows, Gorton said that, “A refusal to investigate means, of course, that the possibility of a hate motive for the violent assault and battery on Barry Scott cannot be ruled out. We are currently considering other ways of shedding light on the circumstances of this unlawful arrest and ’s apparently draconian policies of addressing noise complaints.”

John Donovan, one of the party organizers, had also requested a formal investigation into the behavior of the officers that night. Speaking at the meeting, he criticized the members of the board of selectmen and Tobias for not acknowledging receipt of his emailed complaint. The only person who responded, said Donovan, was board secretary Vernon Porter. Donovan went on to say that he had just purchased a home in about six weeks ago. “I’m questioning my decision now,” he said. Donovan asserted that Scott was “arrested and brutalized because the Provincetown Police didn’t like what he said,” noting that Scott politely told the crowd that the party was over.

“I am very concerned that nothing is going to be done,” said Donovan, adding that inaction by town officials may result in him putting his home up for sale.

More than one resident who spoke during the meeting raised concern that police officers are under increased stress because the force is understaffed. One man who said he attended the party where Scott was arrested said that the long hours and stress on police officers is problematic. The reaction of the officers to Scott’s comments, he said, “was beyond what I feel was an acceptable situation. … It was an overreaction. I was there.”

Earlier in the meeting, in response to a question from Selectwoman Pam Parmakian, Tobias had stated that the force was currently down three full time officers and a staff sergeant. He later said the vacancies accounted for one third of the force.

Another longtime resident expressed concern that the summer officers — who are typically college students with little law enforcement experience — and are hired to expand the force during the tourist season are not getting enough guidance from the more seasoned, year-round members of the force. “What I do not see this summer,” said the man, “I do not see the mentoring of the young police officers.” Both of the officers who arrested Scott were summer officers.

“People are entitled to peace and quiet”
    -Officer Jodi RaposeOfficer Jodi Rapose, a 22-year veteran of the force who was not involved in Scott’s arrest, blasted critics who charged that the police overreacted in their response to the noise complaints. In Rapose’s view, the officers’ only mistake was not shutting down the party sooner. “People are entitled to peace and quiet,” she said, prompting a smattering of applause from the audience.

Officer Caitlin Kennedy, one of the town’s summer officers, disputed the characterization of Barone and Bova as young and inexperienced, calling them instead “calm, patient and knowledgeable.” Kennedy, who was not at the scene of Scott’s arrest, said she shares a residence with Barone and Bova in addition to working with them. “Their integrity should be spoken about,” she said.

2 comments »

Cape Cod Art Association presented the Founders' Choice Exhibit

Carol Wyckoff, long time member and former art director in both New York and Boston donated this brilliant watercolor filled with a red rose bush beside a green Adirondack chair; beautifully depicting a warm, sunlit summer day in a back yard on the Cape.

Leave a comment »

Christy's for Chatham; Town Meeting on Beach Break; Painting fish; Relocating wetlands; Unsed groceries

  Headlines, July 25, 2007

CHATHAM
Christy’s Market Proposed For North Chatham
The long-rumored proposal to convert the North Chatham Citgo station to a Christy’s Market is finally seeing the light of day.

Ohio University Players Mark Half A Century At Monomoy Theatre
Behind the garden courtyard, a group of actors are rehearsing a scene from next week’s play.  Down back, scenery is spread on the ground and two students with paintbrushes in hand consider the best angle of approach.  Others rummage around in the costume shop or wipe off tables in preparation for lunch.

Special Town Meeting Tuesday to  decide on Beach Fill
On Tuesday, voters at a special town meeting will decide whether the town should use dredged sand to try to close the new inlet in North Beach, and whether to commission a detailed study of the inlet’s impacts on the mainland, the waterways and the barrier beach.

Renovations Will Preserve Town's Rail History
Larry Larned climbs up the stepladder and carefully adjusts the hands of the old clock hanging on the wall above the ticket window inside the building that was once the town’s main railroad station.  It would not do, after all, for the train station clock to display the wrong time.

Obama To Attend Chatham Fundraiser
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will make an appearance in town next month to attend a $500 per person fundraiser. The Illinois senator will fly into town for the Aug. 12 brunch at the home of Helene and Grant Wilson, overlooking Stage Harbor, and then leave again for another event in New Hampshire that evening.  Obama is not expected to make any public appearances in Chatham.

Affordable Housing Session Planned
Before they can agree on specific changes to the affordable housing section of the zoning bylaw, town officials first must agree on the best strategies for creating affordable units.  To that end, members of three groups will be holding a special Saturday meeting to consider the town’s options.

Taste Of Chatham Marks Two Decades
After 20 years, the best place to sample all the cuisine Chatham has to offer in one location is still the annual Taste of Chatham.

HARWICH
Town Compost Used For Junk Yard Capping Project
The compost pile at the town transfer and recycling center is being used to cover the 14-acre Marceline Salvage Company property at the corner of Route 124 and Headwaters Drive, raising questions about preferential access to the community resource.

Harwich Gets A Lesson In Offshore Beach Nourishment
It is no surprise that the beaches along Nantucket Sound are losing ground to erosion and selectmen would like to put a plan in place to reverse that trend.

Fine May Be Leveled For Clear Cutting
The conservation commission is considering fining a property owner along Muddy Creek and quite possibly the landscaper who allegedly clear-cut between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet of woods within the riverfront buffer zone to Muddy Creek.

Historic Home To Be Razed
The historical commission cleared the way for demolition of the Rufus H. Small homestead at 928 Route 28 in South Harwich this week, agreeing not to invoke the 90-day historic structure demolition delay period for razing the building.

Plans For Old Schools Change
Plans to restore two of the town’s historic schoolhouses and add affordable housing units have been refined, with a commercial/studio component for the Sisson Road property eliminated.

Sprinkler Saves Elderly Residents
Imagine the scene: an elderly tenant of an apartment complex accidentally leaves the tea kettle on before going to bed.  At 4 a.m., when she and her neighbors are fast asleep, flames erupt from the stovetop and ignite the cupboards above.  The flames quickly spread to the attic, a wide, common area above all 10 units, and the entire building is engulfed.

Read the rest of The Chronicle here.
______________________

 

  Headlines, July 25, 2007

Out of the clear blue water
Some artists specialize in oil paints, charcoal or clay. For John Doherty, it’s all about fish - catching them, reeling them in and then painting them. His artistic strokes are placed on gills and scales, which create unique images from the sea... Doherty paints the fish he catches from the waters around Monomoy Island and Nantucket. The actual painting takes about 20 minutes. Afterward, he serves them up for dinner or gives them away.

Bank St. review locates wetlands
A consultant’s review to determine whether the town-owned land on Bank Street is buildable found there is a 5,126-square-foot area of wetland that must be protected under municipal regulations, selectmen learned at a meeting Monday. Two additional wetland areas were found in that 2.4-acre parcel, but two are undersized and do not meet conservation commission protection.

Five Mariners selected to represent team at All Star game
With numerous scouts expected for the annual event, the Harwich Mariners will send five of its everyday players to represent the East Division during this year’s All Star game on Saturday in Wareham.

Unused groceries help stock pantry
When the vacation is over, don’t let unused groceries go to waste. That’s the message The Family Pantry in Harwich and five Harwich real estate agencies are sending to summer renters.  Under a program called Pantry Partners, summer visitors are urged to donate any unused, unopened, nonperishable food to the pantry

Beach erosion
Engineers detail beach replenishment
The majority of beaches in Harwich are eroding between 2 and 4 feet a year – a manageable level compared to some other coastal regions, such as parts of Louisiana, which are losing 60 feet per year, a coastal engineer told a community gathering last week.
Tom Campbell, president of Coastal Planning and Engineering, a Florida-based consultant, said erosion in Harwich is occurring because Nantucket Sound sand is making a “literal drift” west to east along the shoreline.

Read the rest of The Oracle here.
_________________________

Leave a comment »

Sandwich dunes; Landfill filling up; Woods Hole dredging

News from the towns of the Upper Cape, July 24, 2007

Headlines from the Upper Cape Codder
BOURNE COURIER:
Historical center springs new leak; emergency repairs due
- Jonathan Bourne Historical Center will need repairs and soon
Landfill filling up faster than expected
- If current filling rate continues, facililty will be to capacity in 13 years
Old idea for boulevard traffic is in vogue again
- 45 year old vetoed plan resurrected
Profit margin, traffic still factors in CanalSide
- Review of permitting continues Wednesday night
Dealing with the unexpected: Bourne soldier will disarm bombs in Afghanistan
- Army Specialist Mike Faria to spend next 15 months defusing Taliban booty traps
SANDWICH BROADSIDER:
Are dunes doomed, or destined for improvement
- bring sand to the Sandwich beaches
In Sandwich, Route 6 is a mixed blessing
- you can't live with it, you can't live without it
Brown guilty in drug case
- Convicted on 27 separate counts
Teen writer finds inspiration, motivation in Sandwich
- Fourth grade writing contest winner, Elizabeth Esborn

Read more in the Bourne Courier  here and in the Sandwich Broadsider here.

________________________________________

Headlines from the Enterprise:
Funding approved for design of housing at VFW
- VFW to become affordable housing
Woods Hole  Dredging May Begin in Fall 2008
- channel must be dredged to accommodate R/V Henry B. Bigelow
Sandwich Town Hall A Rich History Remembered
- Town hall history compiled by town's historical commission

Read more in the Enterprise here.

Leave a comment »

PCCS Opens Marine Mammal Exhibit with book signing

Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies Opens Marine Mammal Exhibit
Exhibit opens with a book signing Thursday by Neil Baker

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies will open a new marine mammal exhibit at 115 Bradford Street, on July 27, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. with a book signing by photographer Neil Baker.

The hands-on exhibit features interactive touch-screen technology and provides an overview of marine mammals and sea-life found in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.  Plankton samples and whale disentanglement tools, baleen and whale bones are also on display.  

The Grand Opening celebration is free and open to the public.  A visit to the PCCS exhibit is a great place to learn more about marine mammals and various species observed aboard a whale watch cruise. 

The book signing will be from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. “The Quality of Light” by Neil Baker is accompanied by text from contributing Poet/Essayist, Will Walker.  Nearly every photo was taken in Provincetown, highlighting a stretch of beach extending from the East End. 

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies was founded in 1976 and is dedicated to researching and protecting marine mammals in the Gulf of Maine through applied research, conservation, environmental and education programs.  Our world renowned whale disentanglement team coordinates disentanglement efforts along the East coast of the United States and operates under a federal permit.  To learn more about PCCS, visit us on the web here .  For more information about this event please contact Tanya Gabettie at 508.487.3622 Ext. 103

Leave a comment »

EPA to test bullet catcher at MMR

Pilot Program Will Test Innovative Lead Bullet Capture System
Concern is preventing pollution in Upper Cape

In addition to an innovative rubberized bullet catching system, the  approved program also calls for recycling of spent ammunition and  regular testing of soil and water resources with reporting to state and federal environmental officials to ensure that land and water resources are not significantly impacted by the reintroduction of  lead bullets to the range.EPA has approved a pilot program for the Massachusetts National Guard to evaluate a state-of-the art  lead bullet capture system on one small arms range at Camp Edwards,  in Bourne, Mass.

In addition to an innovative rubberized bullet catching system, the  approved program also calls for recycling of spent ammunition and  regular testing of soil and water resources with reporting to state and federal environmental officials to ensure that land and water resources are not significantly impacted by the reintroduction of  lead bullets to the range.

“By working collaboratively with a variety of other agencies and groups, as well as the nearby communities, we’ve been able to find a promising solution that we hope will satisfy everyone’s needs,” said Robert Varney, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.

“While our top concern is preventing pollution for the Upper Cape’s land and water, EPA also recognizes that the Massachusetts National Guard has taken great strides in balancing environmental mandates with providing realistic training for our troops."

As part of the Mass. National Guard’s request to resume use of lead bullets at Camp Edwards, several studies were submitted to EPA in June regarding potential of water contamination by lead.  A careful review of this information indicated that the former use of lead bullets has not significantly contaminated groundwater at Camp Edwards or elsewhere on the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR);  and potential significant impacts to groundwater and drinking water sources under MMR would be a very long-term concern, and can be controlled by using lead capture technology.

In order to ensure that the new lead capture techniques work effectively, EPA and state environmental officials are requiring that pollution prevention measures be put in place, coupled with regular environmental monitoring to evaluate if traces of lead are impacting  water or land resources.  Under this program, the Mass. National Guard will also remove traces of residual nitroglycerin (used as a propellant) found near firing ranges.

Camp Edwards will be one of only a few military bases across the country to incorporate the innovative new “STAPP Environmental Bullet Catcher” system at firing ranges. The STAPP catcher has two rubber membranes surrounding a layer of granulated rubber. Test range bullets are encased within the system and prevented from reaching the surrounding soil and water.

The Guard will be required to test groundwater and soil for lead and other pollutants annually, and soil pore water (water approximately four to five feet below the surface) three times a year.  EPA will monitor this environmental testing along with state environmental experts. Further, the National Guard will collect and treat any water that penetrates the STAPP system, and dispose of it as a special waste. In addition, the Guard is required to periodically sift out and recycle trapped bullets.

   EPA worked closely with a number of agencies to resolve issues related to reintroduction of lead bullets at the Tango Range on Camp Edwards.  These include the Massachusetts Environmental Management Commission (EMC), which is comprised of the commissioners of the Mass. Depts. of Environmental Protection, Conservation and Recreation, and Fish and Game.  EPA also worked closely with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard command centers.

Camp Edwards is part of the Massachusetts Military Reservation, a 20,000-acre area of Upper Cape Cod that also includes command centers for the Massachusetts Air National Guard, U.S. Air Force and Coast Guard. The training facility is located above the Upper Cape Water Supply Reserve, which is the sole source aquifer that provides drinking water for the Upper Cape.

The pilot program will be allowed between Aug.1, 2007 – Dec. 31, 2008.  EPA will ensure that the surrounding communities have an opportunity to review information about the reintroduction of lead bullets at Camp Edwards, and to provide input regarding the results of the trial period.

More information:

• EPA information on MMR (epa.gov/region1/mmr/index.html)
• EPA Authorization document (epa.gov/region1/mmr/263794.pdf)
  

Leave a comment »

Cape beach picked as #3 in nation, again

    Shermans Travel picks Coast Guard Beach in Eastham as #3 in the nation. 

America's 10 best family beaches
... and we're #3, and the ONLY one in New England


Here's what they wrote;
Shermans Travel Guide wrote, "It’s no wonder that after all these years, the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts still lures families in droves – after all, aren’t vast beaches, pounding surf, fried seafood, and ice-cream shops what vacation dreams are made of? But of all the Cape’s beaches, the National Seashore’s Coast Guard Beach stands out – not only for the large waves begging to be body surfed, but also for its educational and natural attractions.  Ahhh . . . the family beach vacation. It’s as all-American as apple pie, a time-honored tradition where some of the best childhood memories are made. Everyone has their favorite sands, but when it comes to family-friendly options, not all are created equal. We’ve picked ten great family beaches across the country that parents and kids alike are guaranteed to love – whether for their gentle surf, range of activities, sand-castle potential, or educational elements. So pack up the car, hit the road, and, whatever you do, don’t forget the SPF.

That's the way this consumer-created travel site writes about America's best family beaches. 

Here's their list;
   1. Cannon Beach, Oregon
   2. Cape May, New Jersey
   3. Coast Guard Beach, Cape Cod Massachusetts
   4. Coronado, California
   5. Daytona Beach. Florida
   6. Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
   7. Newport Beach, California
   8. Orient Beach State Park, New York
   9. Poipu Beach Park, Hawaii
  10. Sanibel Island, Florida

Leave a comment »

What Cape Codders can expect from Heathcare Reform

It's here, and like it or not, you must join
A half million Bay Staters are still not insured

By Diana Woebcke 

Like it or not, as of this past July 1st, everyone who lives in Massachusetts, 18 years of age or older, must sign up for health insurance. 

In 2006 there were 495,000 uninsured citizens in  the stateIn 2006 there were 495,000 uninsured citizens in Massachusetts. The goal with new legislation is to bring that number to zero.  To achieve this new goal some of the most aggressive reforms include required insurance for all Massachusetts residents, steps towards elimination of racial and ethnic differences in care and mandatory employer to employee contributions. 

By requiring insurance coverage for all its citizens, the Commonwealth is able to provide insurance for everyone. If all goes well people who need health insurance and those who take the risk of not having it will draw from the same pool of benefits and everyone will be covered, regardless of income.
Good news for Cape Codders who have been without insurance
For Cape Codders who have been without insurance, this is good news.  Vision, dental, medication and emergency care are all part of the new plan.  The co-pays are very minimal.  The difficult part is finding a provider.  There is currently a shortage of primary care physicians statewide and with only a few on the new plan accepting new patients, there are wait lists and doctors already turning people away. 

According to statistics from Claire Goyer, Executive Director of the Duffy Center 32% of individuals who used free care in the past, (uninsured), have enrolled into the BMC Health Net Plan. The State is currently tracking the number of people who are leaving free care and signing up for the new Commonwealth Care Plan.

Meanwhile, here on Cape Cod

The Duffy Center in Hyannis, adjacent to Cape Cod Hospital has been in service for two and a half years. Part of their program involves getting the most needy population on the Cape health care.  They provide care for homeless and those at risk of homelessness. Their services include the walk-in clinic, group therapy for addiction and an outreach program.  Some of the individuals they try to treat live in camps in the woods or over by the railroad tracks in Hyannis.  Administrators are on hand to insure they get enrolled
for care on the spot.  Since they became providers in October of last year there has been "a steady growth of patients," says Ms. Goyer.

"Cape Cod Health Care is committed to expanded insurance for everyone"
   - David ReillyDavid Reilly, spokesperson for Cape Cod Healthcare, says "Cape Cod Health Care is committed to expanded insurance for everyone."  With the mandate for insurance requirement for everyone who is 18 years or older he states, "In the long term there are still a number of questions," and he is for "responsible reform that is sustainable."   He thinks the fact the State wants to reduce the number of people who are uninsured is a good first step." He also notes there are many details that are still being worked on and it's early to tell if the plan will work.

What about those who can not afford it?

For Cape Codders with limited or no income the State will subsidize plans through Commonwealth Connector.  For those who earn less than 100% of the federal poverty level ($9,600), there are also subsidized insurance rates.  The new Commonwealth Care Plan provides individuals in need coverage including no premium, little to no co-pay,($2-3 dollars), medication and dental coverage and no deductible. 

And individuals who relied on free care in the past will still be covered through free care in the future. Regardless of residency or insurance status, there will be free care available for emergency room visits. The only difference is there will be a change in funding from what is now known as the Uncompensated Care Pool to the Health and Safety Net Trust Fund.  Both funds will remain in place until October 1st.

In the past a total of $600 million dollars has been budgeted to partially fund free care programs for hospitals.  The plan hopes the use of free care will begin to decrease as the result of an enrollment increase.  October 1st, 2007 is the scheduled date the funding will shift from the Uncompensated Care Pool to the new Health and Safety Net Trust Fund, administered in the office of Medicaid.  The new Health and Safety Net Trust Fund will provide funding for individual health plans like Commonwealth Care through Commonwealth Connector, an organization which provides individuals and groups with the new health care.  As it stands now the fund will also provide reimbursement to hospitals for free care.

The new health care reform bill in Massachusetts is also working toward equal treatment for everyone.  Studies have raised questions why there are higher rates of certain illness among African Americans, Latinos and Asian populations.  This section of the bill puts into action a plan to collect and evaluate how these populations are treated in an health care setting.

If this section of the bill is passed, providers will be reimbursed for language interpretation services and there will be support for community health care workers.  The program will also provide services to help people manage their illness and education programs to increase awareness of health risks in communities with high rates of certain illness, like diabetes and asthma.

Employers fined if this section passes

With the new bill in place employers must provide coverage if they have eleven or more employees or pay a fine.  The Fair Share Contribution is required for employers who do not provide for or contribute to an employees health insurance.  An estimated $295 per year, per employee will be assessed and charged, pro-rated for seasonal and part-time employees.  This fee will go directly into the Health and Safety Net Trust Fund.

The new plan requires everyone to pick a primary care doctor.  There are providers on Cape, but only a few taking on new patients and the waiting lists are getting longer, so it's important to schedule first time appointments as soon as possible.  Each provider has a limited number of slots for Commonwealth patients. They are already turning patients away stating they have "reached their cap" or  "closed their panel" meaning they have a limited number of Commonwealth patients they can add to their practice. 

According to patient representatives at Commonwealth Care this number is entirely up to the individual physician or practice.  With sometimes only one or two doctors in a given area accepting Commonwealth patients, and the new open enrollment in place, the waiting lists are increasing rapidly. They are also increasing at Commonwealth Care listed dental offices. Some are now booking into December and January 2008, unless there is an emergency. 

Mass Health is starting to provide more coverage than it did in the past.  Dental and vision, cut in 2002 will be reinstated.  People with disabilities, HIV and unemployed will also receive an increase in enrollment and benefits.  The new plan does provide coverage for individuals whom Mass Health did not cover in the past; single individuals with no dependents, who are neither disabled nor have a limited work history.

For more information and resources go to:
www.hcfama.org
www.macommonwealthcare.com
www.massmedicaid.org
www.mahealthconnector.org
www.bmchp.org

Leave a comment »

Fun, food & frenzy at the Barnstable Fair this week

   The Barnstable County Fair runs through next Saturday, and if you ride to the top of the Ferris Wheel you can see the entire fairgrounds the way a seagull sees it. Story & photos are by Diana Woebcke.

 Sharing Thrills, Making Memories is this year's theme

 By Diana Woebcke

From high atop the ferris wheel there is a birds-eye view of all the rides and most of the grounds at the Barnstable County Fair.  One of the oldest running fairs in our country, The Barnstable County Fair was established in 1844.  It is run and funded through the Barnstable County Agricultural Society as a non-profit
organization.

The ferris wheel is the tallest ride at the fair. Other rides include the Sizzler, the Zipper, bumper cars, a giant slide and a small roller coaster. 

At the fair, food consumption is an event all to itself.  There is so much to choose from and what appears to be an endless supply: fresh lemonade, frozen ice, corn dogs, smoothies, cotton candy, roasted meats, popcorn, sausage, hot dogs and so on.  There are a wide variety of french fries: german fries, curly fries, and onion fries.  There is a burrito stand and roast beef sandwiches. One vendor boasts having "the worlds best sundaes - undisputed".

The booths are full of games from shooting a fake rifle, to mastering the dunk shot, swinging a bat, squirting a squirt gun into a little round hole, popping a balloon with a dart, all to win the colorful stuffed animals in all shapes and sizes.  There is a man who claims he can guess your age within 2 years and your weight within 3 pounds.

There are music performances, farm animals and vendors selling jewelry, hand bags, clothing, all the usual stuff.  There is a puppet show, display of beekeeping, blacksmith, chain saw carver, spinning and weaving demonstration, and a livestock show. 

You can have your fast ball assessed in mileage and if you are feeling up for some physical exertion, you can climb Mount Rushmore.  There's a batting cage and a place where kids can get their faces painted or even get a fake tattoo.   The fun times are endless.  And in case you missed the circus this year, there is a tiger show.

Nerger's Tigers

Nerger's Tiger and Lion Show is a glimpse of the circus with live tigers and a lion.  The professional  lion tamers with 20 years experience are a couple from Germany who, with mastery, grace and
humor, take the cats through a series of jumps and poses.  The show is fast paced and in a very safe and secure cage located in the West end of the fairgrounds.

The cats are well fed and cared for, despite some criticism from onlookers wondering if they are alright.  After the show they are brought to their cages where they rest and are fed.

(There have been studies of longevity comparing animals in captivity to those in the wild.  Typically cats in the wild have higher mortality rates due to disease and famine.)

In the kids section is a petting zoo with lamas and baby goats.  As you walk further inside you will find such exotic animals as the Scarlet Macaw,  Australian Red Kangaroo,  South American Squirrel Monkey,  Argentinean Mara, Australian Emus and the African Serval - (a species of cat listed on CITES - the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species.) 

Some more highlights of the fair include: the 4-H club horse competition and show continuing on two rings throughout the week.  On Friday there is horse pulling and on Wednesday there will be a demolition derby.

Also on Wednesday there will be a bagpipe show. On Tuesday there is Championship figure eight race car racing in the Main Arena.

So, there is hours of fun to be had at the Barnstable County Fair.  Parking is limited, so try to arrive early as the free parking lot fills up first. Otherwise parking is $10.  Admission is also $10, children under 12 are free and seniors and those with a military ID admission is $8.

The photo montage on the right shows only a few of the many activities, performances and rides.  Corn Dogs and Funnel Cakes, Hot Dogs and Cotton Candy are always fair favorites, but there are concerts and animal acts as well as daily events in the area as well.

And be sure to let that man try to guess your weight within two pounds or your age within two years. 

Schedule:

Monday, July 23, 6:00 pm & 8:30pm - Syndicate
Tuesday, July 24, 7:30 pm - Championship Double Figure 8 Race
Tuesday, July 24, 6:00 pm & 8:30pm - Living Proof
Wednesday, July 25, 7:30 pm - World’s Largest Demolition Derby
Wednesday, July 25, 5:30 pm - Blue Montuna
Thursday, July 26, 7:30 pm - The Blues with Dan Lawson
Friday, July 27, 7:30 pm - The Oak Ridge Boys
Saturday, July 28, 7:30 pm - “American Idol’s” Bucky Covington

LINKS;
Barnstable County Fair site and YouTube at the fair

 The History 

The Barnstable County Agricultural Society held its first fair, consisting primarily of livestock and handicraft exhibits, in October of 1844 at the County Court House in Barnstable Village.

By the late 1800's and early 1900's, the County Fair had become the most popular annual event on Cape Cod. Some of the attractions were Grange exhibits, trotting horses, sulky racing, vaudeville acts, motorcycle racing, livestock exhibits, horse and oxen drags, fireworks and food tents, featuring clam chowder, homemade doughnuts and pies, and coffee, sponsored by local organizations. The children's Day and the Salt Hay Stack at the East Sandwich Grange were annual favorites.

Proceeds collected from ticket sales and exhibitor fees are re-invested in the Fairgrounds for capital improvements and mortgage repayments, awarded as scholarships to young people pursuing careers in agriculture, conservation or elated fields, or distributed to charitable causes.

2 comments »

Eating the night away at St. George's Greek festival

   The Greek Festival is all about the wonderful cusine of these sunny isles.

"Life is too short not to be Greek" on Cape Cod in July
The 25th Annual Festival was this past weekend

By Diana Woebcke 

Going to St Georges Grecian Festival is like savoring a piece a baklava without worrying about the extra calories.  No need for tourists or Cape Codders to make an expensive trip to the Greek Isles when it is right here in Hyannis.   And today is the last day to enjoy the festivities:  food, spirits, music, imports from Greece and very special greek pastry made and served with a smile by women from the church: baklava (phyllo dough layered with honey and walnuts), kourabiethes (shortbread butter cookies with powdered sugar) and Rizogalo or greek rice pudding.   A slice of Greek culture, cuisine and heritage and more can be found on the grounds of St. George's Greek Church in Hyannis.

Location: St. George Greek Orthodox Church, Route 28 & Strawberry Hill Road, Centerville. 508-775-3045
As you walk up the driveway and through the parking lot the air is thick with the smell of roasting marinated beef for shish - kabab.  It is traditional Greek fare, along with stuffed grape leaves, spanikopita (spinach and cheese pie), roasted half chicken, greek salad.  There is a tent devoted solely to Gyro's (pronounced guy-ro) - a pita bread rolled sandwich with seasoned beef, topped with onions and tsatziki sauce.  The shish- kabab meat is marinated for 30 hours before being open roasted with vegetables on a charcoal grill outside, constantly being turned over to retain its moisture and tenderness.  There is greek coffee inside in the far corned of the room filled with boutique items and more greek foods - like imported olive oil and special Greek cookies and other culinary delicasies.

"Life is too short not to be Greek", reads the t-shirt on a table at one of the many boutiques inside the church.  There are several jewelry tables with both imported gold and silver jewelry.  Books and CD's from Greece are next to a corner filled with art work.  There are more t-shirts and lovely sun-dresses,  ornamental vases and a wide variety of other great things to buy from Greece.  Down a hallway leading to the chapel is a room marked "attic treasures," stuff to rummage through like books, kitchen items, clothing and glass and table ware. There's even a raffle for a chance to win a trip to Greece.

If you go to the back of the church there is an area to make a small donation and light a candle.  Inside a member of the church is available to give an informal talk about the church with questions and answers toward the end.  Ornately designed with original, brightly colored frescos brought directly from Greece, as well as colorful stained glass windows.  Its a moment to sit and rest and enjoy the beauty of the church.

At 4pm on Sunday get a rare glimpse of a Greek folk dancing given by the St. George Dance Troupe performed by some of the younger members of the church. They are as talented as they are energetic and fun to watch with traditional costume.

Join the crowd and clap along to timeless Greek music. Traditionally audience members will place dollar bills in the ground during or after a performance to mark their appreciation.

Many Cape Codders and summer visitors make it a point to be a part of the festival every year.  Some large extended Greek families like the Grigoropoulis and Colovos family from the Boston area come every year, filling their plates with food and enjoying the family atmosphere in the large tent outside. (pic 0032)
   
A typical phrase you hear walking around is "boy am I stuffed."  The food is that good. So, whatever you do, don't leave your appetite at home.

Leave a comment »

Dennis theatre owner Hanney saves a RI landmark

Curtain rises by the sea
Cape moviehouse owner is a hero in Kingstown

By Channing Gray, Providence Journal Theatre writer 

KINGSTOWN RI - When tickets for the reopened Theatre by the Sea went on sale last Monday, no one expected the crush of fans. The line of customers snaked from the box office out past the gazebo and down the garden path toward the restaurant. That first day the theater logged about $100,000 in ticket sales.

Bill Hanney, the new owner of Theatre by the Sea, plans four shows next summer, its first full season, plus a return of children’s shows and the restaurant and cabaret, and possibly a theater camp.“I thought maybe there was a decimal point in the wrong place,” said Bill Hanney, the new owner of the South County landmark. He bought it less than a month ago and decided to squeeze in one show before the season ends, Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

So far the response has been overwhelming. People are signing up for their old seats, telling box office personnel that they got them though a divorce settlement, or were left them in a relative’s will.

“It’s like Red Sox tickets,” said Hanney. “I could be out front scalping them.”

Hanney, 38, is sitting in the empty Seahorse Grill and Cabaret, which is part of the theater complex at 364 Cards Pond Rd., in Matunuck. The restaurant has been closed for three years and smells pretty musty. This is one of the projects on Hanney’s to-do list, renovating the place during the winter so it will be ready to reopen next season as Bistro by the Sea.

“Right now it looks a little tired,” he said.

The theater, restaurant and cabaret will all be up and running next month, however, when the show opens Aug. 10, he said.

But Hanney, a Massachusetts resident who has a house on Cape Cod and owns a string of movie complexes, (including the new Entertainment Cinema in Dennis), said the last thing he wants to do is “reinvent the wheel.”He also has other plans for the 73-year-old venue, including adding air-conditioning and turning it into a nonprofit so, like Trinity Rep and the Providence Performing Arts Center, he can go after grants and hold fundraisers. He envisions award-winning talent, maybe a Tony-winner, appearing in a one-man show on a night the theater would ordinarily be dark, to help meet expenses.

But Hanney, a Massachusetts resident who has a house on Cape Cod and owns a string of movie complexes, including an eight-screen cinema in South Kingstown, said the last thing he wants to do is “reinvent the wheel.”

“That would be the dumbest thing I could do,” he said.

He is in close touch with the theater’s former owners, particularly Renny Serre, picking Serre’s brain for advice on how to run the place. If Serre has tried something and it hasn’t worked, Hanney wants to know about it.

Hanney is planning a season of four shows next summer. None have been selected, but he’s expecting to put together a mix that would include a classical musical, a more contemporary Broadway offering, a straight play and something more cutting-edge. He’s also interested in mounting shows he can take on the road.

“A show takes four weeks to prepare, it’s up for a little while and then turns to dust,” he said. “There must be some place that we could tour these shows.”

THEATRE BY THE SEA CLOSED in 2003 after the owners, Serre and Laura Harris, decided they had been in the theater business long enough and wanted out to publish children’s books. They left on a high note, filling 93 percent of the seats.

The theater and several other properties initially went on the block in July 2003 for $5.9 million. But after selling off a motel and inn where the actors stayed, the price dropped to $1.795 million. Town records show that Hanney bought it for $1.5 million.

“It wasn’t so much about the money,” he said, “but about finding someone who could carry on the legacy of the theater. And they thought I could do this.”

Hanney ran his first movie theater while he was in high school, and leased his first multiplex, in Quincy, Mass., when he was 19. Since then he has built and sold a string of cinemas, including Apple Valley and the Swansea cinemas. He never went to college, and, truth be told, he said, barely made it out of high school.

“As a matter of fact, I think I got thrown out of drama club,” he said.

In the 1980s, Hanney produced some touring musicals in the Springfield, Mass., area, in theaters like PPAC, where he did truck-and-bus tours. Those were easy, he said: The trucks rolled in with shows that were well-oiled from months on the road.

At Matunuck, things will be built from scratch — except for A Funny Thing.

Since there was so little time left to mount a show this summer, Hanney went with a production that his artistic director, Amiee Turner, had been involved with for a couple of years in New York City. She knew the Sondheim show inside out and they were able to rent sets and costumes, rather than construct them.

The show was mostly cast in New York, with three parts recruited locally.

TURNER AND JOEL KIPPER, managing producer, form the core administrative team, along with Hanney, the producer. Turner and Kipper wanted to buy the theater but couldn’t swing it. They contacted Hanney, looking for positions.

With Hanney so busy managing his movie theaters, whatever made him take on such a demanding project as Matunuck?

“I’ve always loved the theater,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do a Broadway show.”

He has a similar project under way in Ipswich, Mass., where he is converting the old town hall into a movie theater, stage and restaurant. But he has had to put that on hold to deal with Matunuck.

At this point, an elderly lady popped her head into the restaurant, commenting on the lush gardens and asking if the restaurant would be open when Funny Thing opens. Yes, Hanney told her.

Another couple came by to cheer Hanney’s efforts and to urge him to “keep up the good work.”

It seems everyone is happy Hanney has decided to buy the place, right down to the Web site designer, the plumber and town fathers. He had dealt with town officials when he built his movie theater in South Kingstown, a project not all residents favored. But now, when he went for a change of permit, he said, the “whole place clapped.”

Former employees have returned, and one couple who have always loved the theater plan to get married there in September.

Hanney also plans to bring back children’s shows next season and is even thinking about running a theater camp, possibly in the fall, to train students in acting and technical work.

Hanney had been interested in Matunuck ever since it went on the market in 2003. He had called Serre and was asked to put together a proposal, but was busy and never got around to it. Then last February he was reminded the property was still on the market, decided to check it out, and found it had been kept up.

“It didn’t need a ton of work,” he said.

He signed an agreement, then began running the numbers to make sure it was feasible. He said he used to visit the property once a week during that period for a “needed boost.”

“I wanted this to happen. Then I’d drive away and say I got my shot, I’m good.”

Tickets for the preview performances, Aug. 8-9, are $35; all other performances $39-$49, except for opening night, Aug. 10, $75, includes a champagne reception. Performance times are Tues., Wed., Thurs., and Fri., at 8 p.m.; Wed. at 2 p.m.; Sat. at 5 and 9 p.m.; Sun. at 5 p.m.; and Sun,. Aug. 12 at 3 and 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the box office window 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon.-Sat., by calling (401) 782-8587 during those hours, and online 24 hours a day at their website. The box office will also be open an hour before performances.

Owner Bill Hanney is planning a season of four shows next summer: a mix that would include a classical musical, a more contemporary Broadway offering, a straight play and something more cutting-edge.

Leave a comment »

I (used to) only believe what I read in the paper

Things that go bang in the night...
A Pit Bull unleashed, and for good reason

By Peter Kenney, capecodtoday.com

A front page story in the Cape Cod Times for Thursday, July 19, tells of a police raid  in Hyannis. Police had conducted an eight month investigation into drug activities involving individuals known to be living at 254A Mitchell's Way.

Suzanne Ireland, her son 17-year old Sean Ireland, Sean's Girlfriend 18-year old Carly SchofieldAt 5:30 am on Wednesday, July 18, Barnstable police entered the house and arrested four people. Among the people arrested was a mother and her son. Various drugs and cash were found on premises. There were also two dogs in the house.

Eighteen year old Carly Schofield was among those arrested and according to the Cape Cod Times claims that Barnstable shot and killed a pit bull who had not been aggressive toward them. The Times story states, "A teary Schofield said outside court yesterday that the dog did not attack officers. It had been jumping on her leg, and it barked twice and was shot twice, she said."

And now the rest of the story
At no time as police entered the house did Schofield or any of the other residents give verbal commands or take any other action to restrain the pit bull. It was clear to them that the purpose of the dog was to attack anyone who entered the (drug)  premises. The pit bull did exactly that. A high ranking member of the Barnstable Police Department tells a different story. He said, "We knew that dog was in the house and we always carry a fire extinguisher when we know there is a dog."

He went to say that the fire extinguisher is used to control dogs during arrests and raids. By discharging the extinguishers at the dog the police are usually able to render the dog harmless and secure him without further  use of force.  "The dog just runs into a corner and calms right down; we grab him, and no one gets hurt." he said.

The pit bull police found inside 254A Mitchell's Way was sprayed twice with the fire extinguisher, but each time he retreated only briefly and charged back at officers snarling and barking. "He was barking the whole time from entry until they shot him.

"He never once slowed down," according to the police version of events. "That's what actually happened. Our guys did what they were trained to do and handled the situation perfectly. That dog had to be taken down or somebody would have been hurt. But of course that didn't make it into the paper."

Barnstable Police also report that at no time as they entered the house did Schofield or any of the other residents give verbal commands or take any other action to restrain the pit bull. It was clear to them that the purpose of the dog was to attack anyone who entered the premises. The pit bull did exactly that.
_____________________
See the original story here.

4 comments »

No CC Commission question on ballot this year for Barnstable; Dennis garden resurrected after vandalism; The future for Route 6

  Headlines, July 20, 2007

No CC Commission question on ballot this year
After two hours of comments and discussion, the town council voted 7-5 against placing a non-binding ballot question on withdrawing Barnstable from the Cape Cod Commission on the November ballot. Lou Gonzaga (above), who submitted the petition to the council, said last night that a group of volunteers would begin the process of gathering signatures from 10 percent of the town's voters to require a question be placed before voters, perhaps at a special election in the spring.

Stop & Shop to lift downtown market ban
When Stop & Shop left downtown Hyannis for Southwinds Plaza on Route 132 in 1986, it left behind what some consider a poison pill: a condition of sale of the North Street property that said it could not be used as a supermarket.

County looks to redefine human services role
Len Stewart could be the last director of the county human services department.

Crocker Neck gate reopens
It was open, then ordered closed by the conservation commission, kept closed, then reopened by the town manager’s office.

“I do believe in wind power,” Mihos said in a phone interview Tuesday morning.  To prove that, Mihos has plans to install wind turbines at nine of his 15 Cape locations, including the Christy’s overlooking Hyannis Inner Harbor and at the corner of Route 28 and Falmouth Road at the Hyannis/Yarmouth border.Wind a convenient truth for Christy’s
Christy’s of Cape Cod is finding a convenient truth about wind power: it can help pay the bills. As co-chairman of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and with expensive real estate on Yarmouth’s Great Island, convenience store magnate Christy Mihos has often been in the cross-hairs of the supporters of the Cape Wind Associates project for Nantucket Sound.

Cape Cod’s ‘biggest summer party’ opens today
Barnstable County Fair offers music and marvels
Barbara Streisand, in one of her earlier and better recordings, asked if she’d stayed too long at the fair.  Stay too long? Obviously she was not musically wondering about the Barnstable County Fair.  Stay too long? How could it be, when the Barnstable County Fair is chockfull of more thrills and spills, chills and frills than there were at Paris Hilton’s trial?

Vonnegut lives!
Barnstable Comedy Club will present three short stories by former member Kurt Vonnegut Aug. 17, 18, 19, 24 and 25. Look for “The Handicapper General,” “Who Am I This Time?” and “The Euphio Question.” The program will include readings from the late Villager’s works

Read the rest of the Barnstble Patriot here.  
________________________

  Headlines, July 19, 2007


   Route 6 is the country's second-longest route. It runs from Ptown MA to Long Beach CA

Get your kicks on Route 6:
Cape’s main highway is USA’s second longest
The U.S. Route 6 Tourist Association Web site is route6tour.com.  The organization, with little to no budget, provides signs to communities at a cost from $95 to more than $200, but Massachusetts’ sign regulations could drive up those costs to as much as $8,000.

The Route 6 of the future
The Route 6 of the future probably will look much like the Route 6 of today, according to Robert Mumford, Transportation Program Manager for the Cape Cod Commission.  “I think we may see better breakdown lanes and paved shoulders in some areas, but I don’t see additional travel lanes for Route 6,” Mumford says.

Community cleans up: Garden resurrected after vandalism
You can help.  Donations to the wildflower garden may be made to Jon Thatcher, Box 888, Dennis, MA 02638.  Flowers may be dropped off at the site at Route 6A and Seaside Avenue in East Dennis.

Read the rest of The Register here.

Leave a comment »

Vineyard closes Sengekontacket Pond; Film Highlights Role of Sharks; Not Too Many Fish in the Sea to Count

  A few miles across The Sound, the coliform levels on beautiful Sengekontacket Pond on the beach road between oak Bluffs and Edgartown, will be closed to shellfishing all dummer.

  Headlines, July 20, 2007

Closed to Shellfishing: Sengekontacket Pond Discussion Begins in Earnest
The pond bottom and shoreline rocks below Rick Karney and Dave Grunden as they sit, discussing the reasons for this week's closure of Sengekontacket Pond to shellfishing, are green with weedy marine growth.  Nearby a duck, which has been feeding on the weed, raises its tail and drops another little contribution of fecal matter into the water. Right on cue, as if to underline the point that Mr. Grunden, the Oak Bluffs shellfish constable, has just made.

His point is that the increasing number of birds feeding and nesting on the pond are responsible for the bacterial contamination which forced state fisheries managers to decide, for the first time in Island history, to close Sengekontacket until the end of September. Sengekontacket will be closed to shellfishing for four months, from June through September the future.

Oak Bluffs in Ten Years: Island Version of Big Dig?
Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday looked ahead to an unsettling future, one in which the landscape of the Island is strewn with construction sites, construction trucks and traffic jams. But instead of pondering some hypothetical or even worst-case scenario, they were staring in the face of reality.

YMCA Backers Pitch Wastewater Solution
At times on Wednesday backers of the YMCA and members of the Martha's Vineyard Commission appeared to be as much at a negotiation table as a public hearing, as both sides took positions and made requests while being careful not to upset an overall spirit of goodwill that permeated the meeting.

Film Highlights Role of Sharks on Eve of Yearly Tournament
Most people think of the shark as the ultimate symbol of dread, giants with cold lifeless eyes who cruise the ocean looking for swimmers they can tear from limb to limb. The very word itself is used to describe people in society who prey on others or who engage in deceptive practices.

As With His Buildings, Architect for Ground Zero Bends Ideas
The toes of Daniel Libeskind's black elkskin cowboy boots curl up like those curved walls he so loves - spiralling curves that cross a void of history in the Jewish Museum he designed in Berlin, bathtub-like curves beckoning 75 feet down into bedrock in his master plan for the Ground Zero memorial, a curve inspired by a shard of earth to house exhibits in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England, where even the floor curves six feet down.

For Ben Taylor, Musicial Moxie Is Family Affair
Is there a gene for how you play a D chord on a guitar?

Headlines for Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Sengekontacket Pond to Close Permanently in Summer Months
Sengekontacket Pond will be closed to shellfishing for four months each year in the peak summer season on a permanent basis, as a result of intractable problems with high levels of dangerous bacteria.

Radio Station WMVY Online Shares Reprieve in Fee Hikes
Barbara Dacey is relieved.

Lost and Found: World War II Shipmates Reconnect in Chance Internet Encounter
After 62 years of being out of each other's lives, World War II shipmates and old friends Ray Ellis and Bill Sprague reconnected to find that despite the many years gone by, their friendship was still intact.

Vineyard House Marks Ten Years
Residential Recovery Program Considers Decades Ahead
In the two years before Vineyard House opened, there were two dozen alcohol and drug-related deaths on the Island. The founders of the nonprofit sober house never did a formal needs survey - the need seemed clear enough. There was a cavernous gap in health services between the hospital's three-day detox and the return to everyday life.

He's Outta There - Gary Cohen Takes All-Star Break in Chilmark
It is a misty Tuesday night in Chilmark, the kind of evening when the Vineyard seems a million miles from the rest of the world.

Not Too Many Fish in the Sea to Count
The Vineyard Conservation Society met Thursday for its annual meeting and to hear about the Marine Life Census, an ambitious and inspiring global project that is attempting to catalogue and identify every life form in the planet's oceans.

Read the rest of these Gazette stories here.

Leave a comment »

Toolan at Max Security MCI-Cedar Junction

Toolan incarcerated at Cedar Junction
Opportunities and freedoms are slim; daily schedule is rigid

By Mary Lancaster, Nantucket Independent

Thomas Toolan, III, convicted on Nantucket June 21 of first degree murder conducted with exreme atrocity in the fatal Oct. 25, 2004 stabbing of Elizabeth "Beth" Lochtefeld, spent about a week in an evaluation process at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Concord, Mass., beginning the afternoon following his sentencing to life in prison withot parole.

Subsequently, he was sent to MCI-Cedar Junction (shown on right), an old maximum security prison in South Walpole that opened in the mid-1950s and has 20-foot walls topped with layers of live electrical wires. This is where Toolan may spend the remainder of his life.

According to Diane Wiffin, Director of Public Affairs for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, who noted that state law prohibits the release of information on individual inmates, all cells in the state's maximum security prisons are single. Cedar Junction inmates sentenced to life behind bars begin their terms in an orientation section where they are screened for suitable placement in one of the prison's three general population units. Cedar Junction has a current count of 729 inmates with prison capacity standing at 816.

Wiffin explained that the daily schedule for general population inmates begins at 7 a.m. when they go to the facility's chow hall for breakfast. Lunch is from just past noon to 1:30 p.m. and dinner begins at 5:15 p.m., but since there are so many prisoners to feed, individually they only receive about 20 minutes to eat during each meal. The usual time allotted out of their cells is six hours per day, when inmates may shower, use the phone, visit the prison law library or engage in prison programs or employment. Programs include substance abuse education, vocational skills, life skills and religious meetings. Employment opportunities include making vehicle license plates, working in janitorial or food services or becoming library clerks. Inmates in employment or other programs may remain out of their cells longer than six hours a day. While lockdown is at 9:30 p.m., general population inmates control their own cell lights and may stay up after lockdown to read, for example.

The Department of Corrections Web site outines security levels at maximum holding facilities as reflecting the need to provide the tightest "external and internal control and supervision of inmates, primarily through the use of high security parameters and extensive use of internal physical barriers and check points. Inmates accorded this status present serious escape risks or pose serious threats to themselves, to other inmates, to staff or the orderly running of the institution. Supervision of inmates is direct and constant." The control and supervision in a medium security prison is the same, although inmates at these facilities are considered less of an escape risk or threat than at the maximum level. Medium security inmates who are willing to comply with the institution's rules are offered more choices for employment and prison programs.

Wiffin explained that all first and second degree 'lifers' stay in maximum security prisons for a minimum of two years, but all inmates are reviewed every six months, according to their offender classification, to determine suitability of institutional placement. That evaluation is a point-based score system to allow officials to decide if inmates should remain where they are presently placed or if they should be moved to another maximum security facility or a medium security jail. Since Toolan was sentenced to life in prison without parole, Wiffin said he will not be transferred to a minimum security prison.

Leave a comment »

Attorney/landlord Mycock's condemned waterfront property, $77K tax woes

Local attorney Frederick "Rick" Mycock is the owner of a property at 765 Santuit Road, Cotuit, deemed uninhabitable by the Town of Barnstable. 

by CCToday

Local defense attorney Frederick Mycock owns another uninhabitable property in addition to the rental unit at 245A Mitchell's Way in Hyannis, according to the Barnstable Registry of Deeds.  The Mitchell's Way property was the scene of a recent drug arrest of a mother and her two sons.  During the arrest, a pit bull was shot, three younger children were taken into custody by the DSS, and the property was immediately deemed uninhabitable due to garbage and filth.

Mycock's waterfront property at 765 Santuit Road, Cotuit on right below the rental property, has an abandoned white Cadillac parked in front and at least two small boats on the ground  in the back of the house.

Overlooking the Santuit River, the house has a  garage  with no back wall, strewn with refuse.

Next door to the property is a large house,  #762, pictured below.

Mycock has had numerous tax liens over the years, totaling more than $77,000,  according to the Registry of Deeds.

IRS tax liens:

• $33,775    assessed 5/31/04
• $474           assessed 5/30/05
• $8,207       assessed 5/29/05
• $109             assessed 11/25/91
• $14,813       assessed 6/14/93
• $16,358       assessed 5/31/93
• Massachusetts Department of Revenue  $3,348 

View through the garage.  

Unregistered, abandoned Cadillac. 

The house next door at 765 Santuit Road.  

 

The view from Mycock's Cotuit property. 

3 comments »

Chatham break fix will cost $4M; Complaint Targets Church; Harwich rocks; Where's that black-bellied plover?

    ^{The new inlet in North Beach is slowly widening, and filling it with dredged sand would now require a far deeper financial commitment from the town—up to $4.1 million, about twice the initial estimate}

   Headlines, July 18, 2007

CHATHAM
New breakthrough Inlet-filling Plan Could Top $4 million
The new inlet in North Beach is slowly widening, and filling it with dredged sand would now require a far deeper financial commitment from the town—up to $4.1 million, about twice the initial estimate. That was the news Coastal Resources Director Ted Keon delivered to the waterways advisory committee Monday afternoon.  If the proper permits could be obtained, Keon said the dredging project is still physically possible, though he doubts there is the political will in town to appropriate that kind of money. “If people were not comfortable with $2 million, I’m sure they’re not going to be more comfortable with [an amount] twice as much,” Keon said.
AC Noise Forces Relocation Of Summer Town Meeting
A delay in the installation of equipment needed to reduce excessive noise from the air conditioning system at the new community center will require that the annual summer town meeting be moved to the high school auditorium.
Swap May Save CG Boathouse
Town officials are hoping to facilitate a deal between Stage Island property owners and the federal government which could save the old Coast Guard boathouse from the wrecking ball, giving it a new future as an equipment storage facility for the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge.
Extras Recall Filming 'Chatham'
For those who followed or participated in the filming of the movie “Chatham” here last winter and spring, the big question is “when?” When can audiences expect to see the movie?  According to Tony Raine, one of the locations managers for “Chatham,” the answer is this fall.
Complaint Targets Church
A self-proclaimed “watchdog” group out to protect the town’s character picked an unlikely first target: a church.  A group calling itself “Chatham Coalition for Regulatory Compliance” sent an unsigned letter to St. Christopher’s Church earlier this month warning that unless sandwich board-type signs prohibited under the town’s sign code were removed from the church’s front lawn, a complaint would be filed with the town.
South Cape 40B Moves Forward
Though several ZBA members remain unconvinced that the property has the requisite sewer flow, a 12-unit condominium complex proposed for the South Cape Seafoods site appears to be inching closer to its long-sought comprehensive permit.
Bookstores Go Potty Over Potter
Fans and fanatics from around the world are anticipating the release of the seventh and final installment of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.  “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” promised to readers over eight years ago, will be released on July 21.
Liberty Commons Gets High Scores
A state department of public health “report card” on nursing homes ranks Liberty Commons Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center first among Cape nursing homes, and was among the top 3 percent of nursing homes in the state in a concurrent consumer satisfaction survey.

HARWICH
History Confronts The Future With Computer Firm’s Plan
Local history will be confronted by the future this week in a small room in Albro House, when the historical commission acts on a request for determination under the town’s historical structure demolition delay bylaw to raze a large home built in 1870 to make way for an expanding IT company.
Harwich Get Glance At Commission’s Land Use Mapping
There seemed to be a tidal shift to a more cooperative Cape Cod Commission when staff members appeared before the planning board to make a presentation on mapping designed to create a Capewide vision for land use.
Wequassett Inn To Expand, Build Plant
The planning board approved a plan to add 12 units to the 104-room Wequassett Inn Resort and Golf Club, with the understanding a wastewater treatment plant will be put in place by 2009.
Pleasant Bay Alliance Seeks Input
Boating activities have increased in Pleasant Bay over the past five years, members of the resource management alliance agreed this week in a forum called to update the resource management plan for the Pleasant Bay Area of Critical Environmental Concern.
Marini project May Become Cluster
For more than a year Marini Nominee Trust has been battling to obtain permits for the Monomoy Landing subdivision along Muddy Creek in East Harwich, but the planning board has approved the proponent’s request to withdraw plans for developing the 14-acre parcel.
Successful Turtle Search In Harwich
Bob Prescott led 10 volunteers on a successful eastern box turtle search last Saturday at the D. Isabel Smith Monomoy River Conservation Lands in  East Harwich.

Read the rest of these Chronicle stories here.  
__________________________

  Headlines, July 18, 2007

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Tonight” is a rockin' good time!
On a recent Saturday night, an intergenerational crowd mingled at the Harwich Junior Theatre, filling barely half the house. What a waste.  I don’t know what other people were doing that evening, but those empty seats meant they could have been enjoying a night of great music, high energy and darn good singing.  “Rock ‘n’ Roll Tonight” is not about plot or even choreography, but about belting out the soundtrack to three generations.
Harwich Chamber Chat:
Congratulations to the Harwich Port Merchants Association and its primary sponsor, Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, for a terrific 2007 Musical Stroll kickoff. Route 28 was brimming with families and visitors all enjoying a number of bands sponsored by various Harwich Port merchants.  People strolled, ate and shopped while bands played a diverse mix of folk, bluegrass and rock.
At Your Library:
Summer’s here, and we welcome the return of seasonal residents and visitors! You don’t need to be a resident to get a library card. Just bring some identification and sign up.
Ask the Bird Folks:
Dear Bird Folks, I was wondering if anyone reported sighting a black-bellied plover (Pluvialis squatarola) at Duck Harbor in Wellfleet. I spotted one flying over the surf. I'm not a bird expert, so I checked out my field guide when I returned home and it seemed to be a perfect match. Are they usually found around here?

Read the rest of The Oracle here.  

Leave a comment »

Tidal energy project proposed for Nantucket Sound

Tidal energy project proposed for Sound
Nantucket waters among first for tidal energy

BY PETER B. BRACE Nantucket Independent

Clean, renewable energy in Nantucket Sound using the natural ebb and flow of the tides is being proposed for Muskeget Channel.


A visual of the type of undersea project proposed for the area around Tuckernuck.The use of tidal flows to generate electricity is a technology that is catching on as one of many renewable energy options in the early years of mainstream global warming awareness.

Natural Currents Energy Services, LLC, a Highland, N.Y.-based firm, is proposing to generate three gigawatts of power annually by placing tidal energy generators in Nantucket Sound between Nantucket and Chappaquiddick on Martha's Vineyard. That is about 4.2 times the amount of electricity - around 70 megawatts - flowing to Nantucket right now via two underwater cables.

Calling it the Nantucket Tidal Energy Plant, Natural Currents Energy Services President Roger Bason said that his company is in the preliminary permitting phase of the project that, under ideal review and permitting conditions, would have the tidal generators online by 2011.

Bason filed for a preliminary permit with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on June 13 to explore possible sites in the Muskeget Channel and is awaiting the expiration of a 60-day public comment period in mid-August when he expects to get his preliminary permit.

The FERC, which in February generated protocols and parameters for reviewing, permitting and monitoring tidal energy projects, granted a second company, Oceana Energy Company of Washington, D.C., a preliminary permit to explore a location in Vineyard Sound on May 31. Both saltwater hydroelectric power companies are required to file progress reports with the FERC every six months.

When Bason gets his preliminary permit, he can begin scouting his area for the right project location.

"Ideally, we'd like to finish all the preliminaries and public hearings in less than three years and have a plan to move forward," Bason said. "We feel that it will have a very minimal fish impact and would have to be proven by some sort of pilot installation."

Bason said his company would use unidirectional tidal generators, essentially turbines enclosed in short tubes or double-ended funnels, or open rotors anchored to the bottom that would be turned by tidal currents of three to eight knots (2.6 to 6.9 miles per hour). Unidirectional turbines are built to rotate and generate electricity in either direction, switching automatically as the tides change direction.

Because he is in the very early stages of planning this installation, Bason could not say which of four brands of generators he would employ, how many would be placed in the Sound or how many homes would be powered.

"The choice of the generator type is going to be a product of what we find out in detailed studies that we follow, but we do have a pretty good idea of what we want to do there," said Bason.

Although three gigawatts is the output Bason is shooting for, it is tough to estimate how many generators would be installed since Bason said they come in so many different sizes and he has yet to explore his chosen area. Bason's company has or is working on tidal energy projects in New York Harbor, off Long Island and in Florida and is pursuing another installation in the Cape Cod Canal.

Once Bason finds a site he thinks will work in the Muskeget Channel, he wants to deploy 25-kilowatt pilot systems that are enough to power 10 to 12 homes to test the viability of the site. Once satisfied that he has found a site for his installation, Bason would then file with FERC for a license to build and run the tidal energy project. He is banking on a more favorable reception for tidal hydroelectric power generation than Cape Wind Associates is getting for its 130 wind turbines proposed for Horseshoe Shoal because Bason's generators will not be heard or seen, and are expected to be fairly benign in terms of environmental impact on the bottom of the channel.

"The thing that people need to be aware of is when the energy policy isn't working, it needs to be changed," said Bason. "Maybe to benefit from these high energy prices we need to look at options and opportunities for change."

Leave a comment »

Upper Cape News from five local weeklies

  Headlines, July 17, 2007

FALMOUTH
Questions Remain About Fatal Accident
The investigation is far from over on the six-car accident on Saturday night at the intersection of Route 151 and Sandwich Road that killed two people.  Falmouth Police Sergeant Brian D. Kinsella said Massachusetts State Police are still working to determine the speed of the car that caused the accident by first driving through the Town of Sandwich gate for the Massachusetts Military Reservation and then through the Falmouth gate at the end of Sandwich Road.

Insects Prove Effective Tool For Controlling Loosestrife
The purple loosestrife plants in the marsh along Surf Drive appear to be in crisis, and that makes Richard E. Payne very happy.

DNR Officer Hopes For Stricter Laws Regulating ATVs
Think all-terrain vehicles are not dangerous? Spend five minutes talking with R. Charles Martinsen III, assistant director of the Falmouth Department of Natural Resources.
“They are extremely unsafe,” he said. “There are so many hazards out there. Just myself, even riding for work, I had an incident where I was thrown from the ATV and dislocated my shoulder and broke my fingers.”

MASHPEE
Another Petition Article Reopens Rift Between Town And Schools
“Highly disturbed,” was Selectman Theresa M. Cook’s response. “Disappointed,” was Selectman Don D. Myers’s. “I am just totally disgusted with the whole thing,” was how Selectman Wayne E. Taylor described his reaction to the latest maneuver in the ongoing budget battles between the town and the Mashpee School Department, a petition article for October Town Meeting to guarantee $279,000 in state aid to the schools.

Tense Pow Wow Incident Ends Without Any Arrests Or Injury
Four members of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe who were banished from the tribe for suing its political leaders violated the terms of their punishment by attending their annual summer pow wow last Saturday, drawing a heavy response from dozens of officers from the Mashpee and at least four other local police departments.

Pow Wow Offers Tribe Opportunity To Educate, Lead On Environment
Ask a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe what pow wow is about, and many will respond that the three-day annual summer event is a time to be with family and friends, to be together as a tribe, to celebrate Native American traditions. The more practical will also point out that it has been a major fundraiser for the nonprofit tribal council for many years.

Selectmen, Water District Plan To Rescind Petition Article
Members of the Mashpee Board of Selectmen and the independent Mashpee Water District Board of Commissioners last Friday reached an agreement that is hoped will prevent any possible unintended negative consequences of a petition article passed at May Town Meeting.

School Dept. Takes Responsibility For Medicaid Shortfall
“This did not work out…if we had known how complicated this would be, we never would have taken it on.”  That was Ann M. Bradshaw’s assessment of the Mashpee School Department’s attempt to process in-house Medicare reimbursement billing for special education services, a “good faith effort to save $20,000” in costs that may wind up costing the town hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SANDWICH
Exploring The Old Burying Ground
Russell A. Lovell Jr., historian and the author of Sandwich: A Cape Cod Town, has been giving tours of the Old Burying Ground, now commonly referred to as the Old Town Cemetery, off Grove Street, for five years now.

Raising Strong And Resilient Daughters
Poor role models for girls: they’re not tough to find in popular culture. All it takes is a minute or two of bopping around the Internet or thumbing through magazines at the newsstand. They are there in abundance.

Autumnwood Decision Overturned
The Housing Appeals Committee handed down its decision on the Autumnwood development, proposed near Quaker Meetinghouse Road, and it was not what the zoning board had been hoping for.  In its decision, the Housing Appeals Committee approved the 40B development just off Quaker Meetinghouse Road in East Sandwich, which calls for 272 units to be built on a 47.5-acre parcel.  Twenty five percent, or 68 units, will be slated as affordable.

Remembering Hazel Blake French
Moving the crumbling bricks of the old furnace from the Sandwich and Boston Glass Factory, amidst a sea of marsh grasses, Hazel Blake French discovered something jagged, thick, and cool to the touch: a large shard of world-renowned Sandwich glass—just what she was looking for.

Sparks Fly Over Electrical Upgrades At Town Hall
An eyesore. The bastardization of a historic building. This is how Selectman Frank Pannorfi described the gray metal electrical box and conduit that were recently installed on the side of Town Hall facing Water Street as part of a project to upgrade the building’s electrical system.

BOURNE
Landfill Recycling Area To Close On Tuesdays
The Bourne landfill’s residential recycling area will be closed on Tuesdays for a trial period, beginning after Labor Day and running until April 1.
The landfill, as a whole, will remain open seven days a week.

Kids Cross Roads At Parker’s Cataumet Boat Yard Hosts Day Of Fun For At-Risk, Inner City Youths
It was Sharmaine Darden’s first time on a boat, and the 11-year-old from Roxbury had earned it. Sharmaine and about 70 other at-risk inner city campers from Crossroads for Kids in Brewster were in Cataumet Tuesday because they had demonstrated both good leadership skills, as well as the desire to make good choices at camp, and in life.

Subdivision Project Resurrected, Irks Neighbors
Ocean Pines LLC is now ready to complete a subdivision off Route 3A in North Sagamore,  21 years after it was first approved by the Bourne Planning Board, and 18 years after the last work on the condominium portion of the development was done.

Parade Draws More Than 10,000 Spectators
They came wearing Uncle Sam hats and waving American flags, more than 10,000 people, comprising mostly Bourne residents, lined Main Street in Buzzards Bay Wednesday morning for Bourne’s first townwide Independence Day parade and celebration in many, many years.

Young Sailors Set To Sea
Laughter, shrieks, and the soon-to-be-forgotten prediction, “I’m gonna die,” came from the dozen young middle schoolers, many of whom had never been in a sailboat before, as they learned how to tip over their small vessels on their first day of sailing lessons.

Read the rest of these Enterprise Newspaper stories here.
_______________________

  Headlines, July 17, 2007

Re-thinking Buzzards Bay
Theater owner: Main Street needs more than movies
Buzzards Bay Theater owner Jeff Avery says it will take more than the mystical powers of Harry Potter and Johnny Depp’s latest swashbuckling celluloid adventure to attract people to Main Street’s west end.

Public meetings will help to forge a plan for Buzzards Bay Main Street
Three days of public meetings may help determine what must be done to revitalize Main Street, Buzzards Bay.  The Bourne Financial Development Corp. has hired Stantec Planning and Landscape Architecture to develop a vision and design concept for Buzzards Bay.

Mullin is named Bourne DNR director
Timothy Mullen has been appointed the fourth director of the Bourne Department of Natural Resources, which was created in the early 1970s and recently survived an 18-month stretch of political turmoil as well as an exhaustive review of its makeup and structure.

Bourne’s new gem of a diamond: Doran Park is dedicated
What could be better? A sunny afternoon at a Cape Cod baseball park in early July; lazy clouds overhead and 395 feet to dead center field. This was the backdrop Sunday when the new field built for the Bourne Braves was dedicated and Sagamore Beach arrived in force to honor one of its own.

Bourne Fincom looks at fiscal realities
The new fiscal year is only six weeks old, but the Bourne Finance Committee is offering pragmatic suggestions to selectmen about how to prepare for fiscal 2009, when a Proposition 2½ override may be nee

Read the rest of the Upper Cape Codder here. 

Leave a comment »

New NOA A research vessel named for WHOI scientist

   Named for the founder of the WHOI, the NOAA vessel Henry B. Bigelow will primarily be used for government researchers studying fish populations and ocean trends from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to Nova Scotia in Canada. Because it is quiet, scientists can more accurately monitor fish in their natural habitat 

Quiet ship commissioned for NOAA scientists
Named for WHOI's Henry B. Bigelow

Billed as one of the quietest ships in the world, the Henry B. Bigelow was christened in Norfold VA Monday amid loud praise and promise for a new class of research vessel that will help scientists better understand the Atlantic Ocean.  Costing $55 million and measuring 208 feet long, the high-tech Bigelow is primarily for government researchers studying fish populations and ocean trends from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to Nova Scotia in Canada.

WHOI founding direct Henry Bigelow at the wheel of the schooner Grampus. He died forty years agoThe noise radiated by the 208-foot vessel was carefully compared by the Navy to noise recommendations established by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, a respected international organization that includes more than 1,600 marine scientists from 20 countries that surround the North Atlantic.

The spiffy white vessel, three decks high and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will not be in Norfolk long, however.  After its commissioning ceremony Monday, the ship was scheduled to leave Norfolk today to continue its first research venture of analyzing fish stocks from Virginia to the Grand Banks off Massachusetts.

During a media tour Monday, NOAA’s Rear Adm. Samuel P. De Bow Jr. was asked if the Bigelow is really that quiet.  “We were going 14 knots the other day, and I couldn’t even tell we were moving,” De Bow said. “I couldn’t believe it.”  The Bigelow will call New England home, probably Massachusetts, for its proximity to NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass.

It was named after Henry B. Bigelow, the founding director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution near Cape Cod.  Read the rest of this NOAA report here. 

Leave a comment »

WHOI finds that seafloor faults tampen earthquakes

   This bathymetric map of the seafloor shows the Siqueiros transform fault in the eastern Pacific Ocean, illustrating the fragmented structure of the fault line 

Fragmented Structure of Seafloor Faults May Dampen Effects of Earthquakes
Studies of gravity fields suggest volcanism may smooth rough edges of tectonic plates

Many earthquakes in the deep ocean are much smaller in magnitude than expected. Geophysicists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found new evidence that the fragmented structure of seafloor faults, along with previously unrecognized volcanic activity, may be dampening the effects of these quakes.

Patricia Gregg studies marine geology and geophysics in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanopgraphy and Ocean EngineeringExamining data from 19 locations in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, researchers led by graduate studentPatricia Gregg have found that “transform” faults are not developing or behaving as theories of plate tectonics say they should. Rather than stretching as long, continuous fault lines across the seafloor, the faults are often segmented and show signs of recent or ongoing volcanism. Both phenomena appear to prevent earthquakes from spreading across the seafloor, thus reducing their magnitude and impact.

Gregg, a doctoral candidate in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography and Oceanographic Engineering, conducted the study with seismologist Jian Lin and geophysicists Mark Behn and Laurent Montesi, all from the WHOI Department of Geology and Geophysics. Their findings were published in the July 12 issue of the journal Nature.

 

Oceanic transform faults cut across the mid-ocean ridge system, the 40,000-mile-long mountainous seam in Earth’s crust that marks the edges of the planet’s tectonic plates. Along some plate boundaries, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, new crust is formed. In other regions, such as the western Pacific, old crust is driven back down into the Earth.

If you imagine the mid-ocean ridge as the seams on a baseball, then transform faults are the red stitches, lying mostly perpendicular to the ridge. These faults help accommodate the motion and geometry of Earth’s tectonic plates, cracking at the edges as the different pieces of rocky crust slip past each other.

The largest earthquakes at mid-ocean ridges tend to occur at transform faults. Yet while studying seafloor faults along the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise, Gregg and colleagues found that earthquakes were not as large in magnitude or resonating as much energy as they ought to, given the length of these faults.

The researchers decided to examine gravity data collected over three decades by ships and satellites, along with bathymetry maps of the seafloor. Conventional wisdom has held that transform faults should contain rocks that are colder, denser, and heavier than the new crust being formed at the mid-ocean ridge. Such colder and more brittle rocks should have a “positive gravity anomaly”; that is, the faults should exert a stronger gravitational pull than surrounding seafloor region. By contrast, the mid-ocean ridge should have a lesser gravity field, because the crust (which is lighter than underlying mantle rocks) is thicker along the ridge and the newer, molten rock is less dense.

But when Gregg examined gravity measurements from the East Pacific Rise and other fast-slipping transform faults, she was surprised to find that the faults were not exerting extra gravitational pull. On the contrary, many seemed to have lighter rock within and beneath the faults.

“A lot of the classic characteristics of transform faults didn’t make sense in light of what we were seeing,” said Gregg. “What we found was the complete opposite of the predictions.”

The researchers believe that many of the transform fault lines on the ocean floor are not as continuous as they first appear from low-resolution maps. Instead these fault lines are fragmented into smaller pieces. Such fragmented structure makes the length of any given earthquake rupture on the seafloor shorter—giving the earthquake less distance to travel along the surface.

It is also possible that magma, or molten rock, from inside the earth is rising up beneath the faults. Earthquakes stem from the buildup of friction between brittle rock in Earth’s plates and faults. Hot rock is more ductile and malleable, dampening the strains and jolts as the crust rubs together and serving as a sort of geological lubricant.

“What we learn about these faults and earthquakes underwater could help us understand land-based faults such as the San Andreas in California or the Great Rift in eastern Africa,” said Lin, a WHOI senior scientist and expert on seafloor earthquakes. “In areas where you have strike-slip faults, you might have smaller earthquakes when there is more magma and warmer, softer rock under the fault area.”

The findings by Gregg, Lin, and colleagues may also have implications for understanding the theory of plate tectonics, which says that new crust is only formed at mid-ocean ridges. By traditional definitions, no crust can be created or destroyed at a transform fault. The new study raises the possibility that new crust may be forming along these faults and fractures at fast-spreading ridges such as the East Pacific Rise.

“Our understanding of how transform faults behave must be reevaluated,” said Gregg. “There is a discrepancy that needs to be addressed.”

^{Funding for this research was provided by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute, the NSF Ocean Sciences Directorate, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Awards for Innovative Research.}

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.

Leave a comment »

Rocks for North Chatham; Selectmen OK Sewer flow; Harwich gets Orleans Assistant Administrator; Dirt bike, ATV ban sought

  Chatham & Harwich Headlines, July 12, 2007

CHATHAM

• New Rock Revetment Planned For Minister’s Point
  Though first proposed long before the new inlet cut through North (Nauset) Beach, plans to build a rock revetment protecting two properties on Minister’s Point have now taken on a new urgency.  The properties, owned by Gerald Milden and Mary Holmes, are currently protected by timber bulkheads.  Milden, at 2 Salt Pond Rd., said his bulkhead is 20 years old and starting to fail because of its age.  The Klein property to his south already has a rock revetment, but the next property to the south, the Holmes property at 26 Salt Pond Rd., has wooden bulkhead.
• Tsongas Running For Congress
  Niki Tsongas Won’t Be Spending Much Time In Chatham This Summer.  She’s running for Congressional seat recently vacated by Marty Meehan.
• Post-parade Party Successful
• Mystery Of Stepping Stones
• Selectmen OK 40B Sewage Flow
• South Chatham Fire Substation Delayed
• Marconi Group Unveils Plans
  

HARWCH

• Orleans Manager Is Harwich’s New Assistant Administrator
  It’s been 15 months since the town of Harwich has had an assistant town administrator, but Nanette Balmer, an Eastham resident and office manager for the town of Orleans, was selected from among 84 candidates and three finalists to fill the position.
  The recent improvements to Cranberry Valley Golf Course are already paying dividends with a rating of “excellent” from Zagat Guidebook for America’s Top Golf Courses
• Residents Seek Enforcement Against Dirt Bike, ATV Use
  The Six Ponds District of Critical Planning Concern was created several years ago to protect the sensitive environmental landscape in East Harwich, but the open space has attracted illegal use by dirt bikers and ATV enthusiasts.
• Turbine Permit Appealed
  Efforts to harness the wind in the industrial zone in North Harwich have been stalled by a lawsuit filed this week by Davenport Realty Trust against the planning board and property owner.
  
• Passports At Com Center?
  The photo machine is already in place.  Community Center Director Carolyn Carey wants to establish a passport processing center in the Oak Street building.
  
• Zagats Lauds Cran Valley
• Industrial Development Coming
  

Read the rest of this week's Chronicle here.
_______________________

  Harwich Headlines, July 12. 2007 

• Bylaw urged to deal with dirt-bikers
  In a combined effort the town is moving forward to crack down on riders of all terrain vehicles and dirt bikes. Elizabeth Dubuque, owner of a private horse farm that abuts Hawksnest State Park, appealed to selectmen previously in writing and in person Monday night to take action against dirt-bike riders who, she said, spook her horses and tear up the park’s walking trails.
• Chase stays focused on ‘the wake-up call’
  Fighting cancer is a difficult battle at any age. Seventy-two-year-old Jane Chase of Harwich doesn’t show any scars after winning her fight – twice
• Angier property going up for sale
  Sunny Meadows, the 11-acre property at 236 South St. owned by the Angier/Harwich Trust, will be put up for sale. The last member of the Angier family to live there, Ralph “Bud” Angier, died last month at age 97. His two sons, John Loveland Angier and Frederick Cushman Angier, and his daughter, Ruth Bancroft Angier Salinger, now control the trust.
• Petanque, anyone?
  Twenty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong. That’s how many people play petanque in France, according to Harwich’s Francois Marin. He’s slowly but surely introducing the sport, a French variation of bocce, on Cape Cod.
• The price of education
  The education cost per pupil in Harwich is slightly higher than the state average, but lower than some neighboring school districts, a Harwich High School student research project found.
  

Read the rest of the Oracle here.

3 comments »

Bush blocks new regs needed to save whales

White House blocks sea speed limits for saving whales
Foreign Shipping Companies Opposed; Council of Economic Advisors Involved

Washington, DC — A proposed plan for ship speed limits in order to protect the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale is being held up by White House officials due to opposition by foreign shipping interests, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which has been campaigning for adoption of these measures.  In an unusual move, the White House Council of Economic Advisors is now reviewing causes of right whale deaths, a task already done by marine experts.

On June 26, 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) proposed speed limits of 10 knots (or 11.5 miles per hour) for shipping along the eastern seaboard during the migration of right whales between Florida and New England.   No action has been taken on the plan more than nine months following the end of the public comment period, despite the urgency of the need stated by NOAA.

Ship strikes are the leading cause of death for the right whale, considered one of the planet’s most endangered speciesShip strikes are the leading cause of death for the right whale, considered one of the planet’s most endangered species with fewer than 300 animals left in existence.  Last year, there were six known right whale deaths – four from collisions with ships.  Right whale calves are particularly vulnerable to ship strikes due to their undeveloped diving capability.

“Speed limits are the indispensable ingredient in a winning recovery strategy for the right whale,” stated New England PEER Director Kyla Bennett, a former federal biologist, who has waged a three-year long effort for speed limits and other ship strike reduction measures.  “The current official ‘Potential Biological Removal’ level for the right whale is at zero, meaning that the premature loss of even one more whale could tip the species into a tailspin toward extinction.”

“The Bush administration should listen to our own experts rather than corporate lobbyists representing largely foreign interests.”Since the public comment period on the NOAA plan ended back in October 2006, the plan is being held up by the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) past the normal 90-day review period.  Foreign shipping companies are lobbying OMB, which, in turn has taken the peculiar step of asking another arm of the White House, the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, to review both the need for and costs of speed limits. It is not clear what expertise the Council has on the rule’s biological impacts.

As recently as May 3, 2007, the World Shipping Council submitted a letter reiterating opposition to speed limits to Susan Dudley, who heads the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.  Of the 27 companies that signed the letter, almost all are foreign owned and most of the remainder use foreign- flagged ships.  One of the foreign firms, Mediterranean Shipping Company, was cited for intentionally dumping oily waste into Boston Harbor.

“Of the tens of thousands of port calls affected by the proposal, the overwhelming majority are foreign owned or registered.  Of course, foreign shippers want no environmental restrictions on how they use and sometimes abuse American waters but our government is supposed to be protecting our national interests, which include our endangered wildlife,” added Bennett, noting that the U.S. Coast Guard was recently authorized to change shipping routes on the Eastern Seaboard to minimize collisions during right whale migrations.  “The Bush administration should listen to our own experts rather than corporate lobbyists representing largely foreign interests.”

• See the proposed ship speed limit rule here.
• Read about the problem of ship strikes on whales here.
• Trace the developments leading up to the NOAA speed limit plan here.
• View the letter of opposition from the shipping industry here.

Leave a comment »

Global Warming To Besiege Northeast

Global Warming Will Hit U.S. Northeast Hard;
Futurt of beaches, tourism & fisheries in jeopardy
Vulnerable coasts are Cape Cod, Long Island, and the Jersey Shore

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 11, 2007)—If heat-trapping emissions are not significantly curtailed, global warming will substantially change critical aspects of the Northeast's character and economy, according to a new report by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA), a two-year collaboration between the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a team of more than 50 scientists and economists. Near-term choices about energy, transportation, and land-use will largely determine the extent and severity of climate change.

"Global warming represents an enormous challenge, but we can meet it if we act swiftly," said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at UCS and chair of the NECIA team. "Our response to global warming in the next few years will shape the climate our children and grandchildren inherit."

The peer-reviewed report, "Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast," incorporates and builds on NECIA's 2006 study that described how the climate of the nine Northeast states will change under two scenarios: one that assumes an increase in global warming emissions from continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels, and another that assumes substantially lower emissions due to an increased reliance on clean energy sources. The report documents the projected consequences of each emissions path. It also details what individuals, businesses, and governments can do today to reduce emissions to levels below the lower-emissions scenario and to adapt to the unavoidable changes already set in motion by emissions over the past several decades.

The new report and a complete list of collaborating scientists and economists are available at www.climatechoices.org/ne/resources_ne/nereport.html. The report's findings include:

Climate: The two emissions scenarios would lead to starkly different climates when children born today reach middle age. Under the higher-emissions scenario, winters in the Northeast could warm by 8°F to 12°F and summers by 6°F to 14°F above historic levels by late this century. But under the lower-emission scenario, temperatures during Northeast winters are projected to warm only 5°F to 8°F above historic levels by late-century, and summers by just 3°F to 7°F.

Coastlines: Global sea level is conservatively projected to rise 10 to 23 inches under the higher-emissions scenario and 7 to 14 inches under the lower-emissions scenario. Using these estimates, cities such as Boston and Atlantic City can expect a coastal flood equivalent to today's 100-year flood every two to four years on average by mid-century and almost annually by the end of the century under either scenario. New York City is projected to face flooding equivalent to today's 100-year flood once every decade on average under the higher-emissions scenario and once every two decades under the lower-emissions scenario by century's end. Sea-level rise is also projected to increase shoreline erosion and wetland loss, particularly along the vulnerable coasts of Cape Cod, Long Island, and the Jersey Shore.

Agriculture: By late-century under the higher-emissions scenario, heat stress in cows is projected to cut milk production across much of the region by 5 to 20 percent in certain months, with the greatest losses in the key dairy state of Pennsylvania. Parts of the Northeast are projected to become unsuitable for growing certain popular varieties of apples, blueberries, and cranberries by mid-century, since they require long winter-chill periods to produce fruit. Meanwhile, weed problems and pest-related damage are likely to escalate, increasing pressures on farmers to use more herbicides and pesticides.  By contrast, changes expected under the lower-emissions scenario are generally much less extensive.

Marine fisheries: As ocean temperatures continue to rise, the range of suitable habitat in the Northeast for many fish and shellfish species such as cod and lobster is projected to shift northward. Cod are expected to disappear from the region's waters south of Cape Cod during this century, under either emissions scenario. With higher emissions, the renowned fishing grounds of Georges Bank will likely lose its cod stocks. The lobster populations in Long Island Sound and the nearshore waters off Rhode Island and south of Cape Cod are expected to be lost by mid-century under either scenario.

Winter recreation and tourism: Under the higher-emissions scenario, only western Maine is projected to retain a reliable ski season by the end of the century, and only northern New Hampshire would support a snowmobiling season longer than two months. Under the lower-emissions scenario, reliable ski seasons can be expected through this century in the North Country of New York and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire, in addition to western Maine.

The Northeast cannot reduce global warming alone, but as a world leader in technology, finance and innovation—and a major source of heat-trapping emissions—the region is well-positioned to help drive national and international progress in reducing emissions. The report concluded that sustained efforts to reduce emissions in the region—on the order of 80 percent below 2000 levels by mid-century and just over 3 percent per year on average over the next several decades—can help pull global emissions below the lower-emissions path used in this study.

States in the Northeast already have taken several important first steps. For example, all the states in the report except Pennsylvania have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first multistate, market-based plan to reduce heat-trapping emissions from power plants. Most states—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island—also have renewable electricity standards requiring utilities to obtain a certain percentage of their power from clean, renewable sources such as wind, solar, and biomass. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont have adopted California's law requiring vehicle tailpipe emissions reductions of approximately 30 percent below 2002 levels by 2016, beginning with the 2009 model year (with implementation contingent upon an EPA ruling).

These initiatives are laudable, but the region can do much more to lower emissions and help protect its people and economy, said James McCarthy, professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University, vice-chair of the NECIA, and president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The Northeast has a tremendous opportunity to help lead us to a secure climate future. Fortunately, more and more people understand the stakes and are mobilizing around the problem. The time to act is now."   This story through the coutsy of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Leave a comment »

Wellfleet turns piratical to help Caleb Potter

Leave a comment »

Human Society, Ocean Conservancy, sue to save whales

Lawsuit forces new rules to protect Humpbacks, other whales
New regs begin October, will change fishing gear

The Atlantic Ocean will soon be safer for endangered North Atlantic right, humpback and fin whales. In response to a lawsuit filed by The Humane Society of the United States and Ocean Conservancy, the National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to issue new protective regulations by October 1, 2007.

NOAA will regulate commercial fishing gear to safeguard whales.The new regulations have been needed since the 2003 entanglement death of a North Atlantic right whale in fishing gear in New England; an additional seven right whales, 14 humpback whales, and four fin whales have been seriously injured or killed by commercial fishing gear during the last four years that new rules have been languishing.

“This agreement is an important step forward in the ongoing battle to save three species of Atlantic whales that are teetering at the very brink of extinction,” said Sharon Young, marine issues field director for The Humane Society of the United States. “Because there are fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales left in the wild, the issuance of new entanglement rules is absolutely critical.”

Suit charged NOAA failed to protect three endangered whale speciesThe plaintiffs filed suit in February 2007 in the District of Columbia District Court, alleging that NMFS was violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act by failing to protect three endangered whale species – North Atlantic right whales, humpbacks, and fin whales – from entanglement in commercial fishing gear. The new rules are expected to require the use of modified fishing gear along the entire East Coast, from Florida to Maine.

“We are pleased that the agency has agreed on a date certain to issue new protective measures for endangered whales in the Atlantic,” said Vicki Cornish, director of marine wildlife conservation at Ocean Conservancy. “This agreement will help us move forward on preventing the extinction of these magnificent and highly endangered species.”

Facts

• The humpback whale, right whale, and fin whale are all endangered whales whose habitat spans the Eastern Seaboard of the United States from Florida north to Canada.
• Approximately 350 North Atlantic right whales are known to remain in the wild.
• Whales become entangled in fishing gear like gillnets and ropes associated with lobster traps.
• Gear may become wrapped around a whale’s fins or flippers, or it can become lodged in the whale’s mouth as it feeds.  Entanglements can result in either immediate drowning or longer term effects on movements or feeding as a result of dragging the heavy gear.
• Entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships are the leading threats to right whales.
• Right whales migrate between their only known winter calving grounds off GeorgiaFlorida to summer feeding areas in New England and Canada. and
• Right whales are slow to reproduce, having only one calf approximately every 3-4 years starting at approximately age 10.
• Humpback whales migrate between winter breeding grounds in the Caribbean and summer feeding areas off the coast of New England.
• Humpbacks give birth to one calf every-other year starting at about age 5.  Calves stay with their mothers for a single year.
• Juvenile humpbacks are often seen in the winter off the mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S. where they feed on small schooling fish.

Time Line

• February 12, 2007: The HSUS and Ocean Conservancy file suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for delaying the issuance of new regulations to protect endangered whales from fatal entanglements in commercial fishing gear.
• June 2005: National Marine Fisheries Service proposes regulations for commercial fisheries along the East Coast that would help protect endangered whales from serious injury and death as a result of entanglement.  Despite legal deadline to finalize rules within 60 days after public comment closes, National Marine Fisheries Service never publishes a final rule.
• November 2002: A female right whale becomes fatally entangled in fishing gear that the National Marine Fisheries Service had determined would likely prevent lethal entanglements. This death caused the agency to admit in 2003 that its plan to reduce entanglements was a failure.
• November 2002 - 2007: seven right whales, 14 humpback whale and four fin whales are seriously injured or killed by commercial fishing gear.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization – backed by 10 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty.
Ocean Conservancy is the world’s foremost advocate for the oceans.  Through science-based advocacy, research, and public education, we inform, inspire, and empower people to speak and act for the oceans. The Ocean Conservancy is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has offices in New England, Florida, the Caribbean, Texas, and California with support from more than half a million members and volunteers.
NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to the stewardship of living marine resources through science-based conservation and management, and the promotion of healthy ecosystems.

 

Leave a comment »

A whole bunch of casino news today

Over half a dozen of stories today about the Mashpee Tribe
Casino quest begins to domiate news on the web

There are so many news stories online about the progress (or lack thereof) in the Mashpee Wampanoag quest for the Bay State's first casino that we will offer you the whole schmeer and let you decide which to access and read.  The link to the full text of the stores is at the botton, but here are the headlines;

Casino needs legislative approval, Patrick official says (Standard-Times)
Scott Ferson, a spokesman for the Mashpee Wampanoag, said the tribe requested the legal brief from University of Michigan law professor Richard Primus ...

Casino approval process disputed (Standard-Times)
Scott Ferson, a spokesman for the Mashpee Wampanoag, said the tribe requested the legal brief from University of Michigan law professor Richard Primus ...

Residents speak out against casino (Brockton Enterprise)
Presentations addressing the proposed Mashpee Wampanoag casino were given by Bill Marzelli, a Middleboro businessman and casino proponent, ...

Lakeville selectmen eye visit to Uncasville (Brockton Enterprise)
Joan Menard's staff and Glenn Marshall, the Wampanoag tribal leader spearheading the Middleboro casino plan. She gave Marshall a written list of the town's ...

Middleboro board agrees to meet with neighbors (Brockton Enterprise)
Selectmen in Plymouth last month said they deserved compensation from the Mashpee Wampanoag to offset the costs on traffic, schools and infrastructure. ...

Final decision is tribe's (Brockton Enterprise)
... residents will be asked if they approve of an agreement being hammered out between the town and the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe on a proposed casino. ...

Casino vote to be outside (Brockton Enterprise)
MIDDLEBORO — With school buildings unavailable, townspeople will gather to vote on a proposed casino outdoors ...

Take your pick of the litter by clicking here. 

Leave a comment »

See Provincetown from Logan Airport

Provincetown Celebrates Heritage, Unveils 'Art In Windows' Exhibition
Logan International Airport Art Display Features Provincetown School

Provincetown's Office of Tourism announced today the unveiling of a collection of artwork created by students from both Provincetown Veterans Memorial ElementarySchool and Provincetown High School. The collection features approximately 50 works of art depicting Provincetown's history and heritage through theeyes of school students from grades three through 12.

The exhibit will remain at Logan International Airport through the end of September and may be viewed along the connector wing between Terminals B and C. The Visitor Services Board initiated the "Art In Windows" community-wide project in September of 2005 in an effort to dress up store windows during the winter off-season. With the summer season in full swing, the Logan International Airport exhibition introduces emerging artists from
America's oldest continuous art community to visitors and residents alike.

Hersh Schwartz, co-owner of Hersheldon Leather and a VSB member, is credited with conceptualizing this initiative. Ms. Schwartz has been instrumental in working with various retail store and business owners along Commercial Street in Provincetown to convert their otherwise vacant windows into displays featuring Provincetown's abundant heritage. "It is absolutely wonderful to have children, artists and friends help and support in making
our town look pleasant and inviting during our sometimes dreary winter days," commented Ms. Schwartz.

Since its inception, the "Art In Windows" project has continued to flourish through the collaborative efforts of the Provincetown School's art
department. Two years ago, local artist Cid Bolduc and the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill continued the initiative, along with the generous donation of materials from Conwell Lumber in Provincetown.

"We are a small school in a small place which generates an enormous amount of art, creativity and imagination to continue to contribute to the already- known artistic community that is Provincetown," said Dr. Floriano Pavao, principal of Provincetown High School.

Nominated in 2006 as one of the Dozen Distinctive Destinations awarded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Provincetown has also been named the Best Gay Resort Town for the second consecutive year by PlanetOut as well as one of the Top Five Gay Friendly Destinations by the Travel Industry Association of America in 2006, and numerous other awards from publications throughout the country.

Leave a comment »

Cape to be designated "high-speed wind zone"

Cape Cod’s New Building Code To Be Examined by Task Force
Builders fear the new classification will drive up housing costs

By Aglaia Pikounis

Regulators will be taking a closer look at a section of the new building code that designates Cape Cod as a high-speed wind zone.

“They’ve asked for our input. I think that’s an excellent sign”
   -Elizabeth KovachThe Board of Building Regulations and Standards has formed a task force to examine all the requirements for hurricane-resistant construction in Massachusetts. The task force, which will include a member of the Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Cape Cod, is expected to meet for the first time on July 23.

“They’ve asked for our input. I think that’s an excellent sign,” said Elizabeth Kovach, a member of the builder association and co-owner of Windswept Custom Homes in Dennis.

Kovach was one of several Cape builders who attended a public hearing in May to urge the board to establish a task force to reassess a code section that classifies the Cape and Islands as a region that can get winds of 120 miles per hour and greater.

Builders fear the new classification will drive up housing costs. Under the new designation, homes on Cape Cod would have to include more expensive windows with special glazing to withstand such high-speed winds, as well as undergo a more labor-intensive and costly framing process.

Builders argue that the changes are unnecessary and are largely driven by the catastrophe computer models used by the insurance industryThe new code also adopted a different method for measuring wind speed. The new method takes into account three-second wind gusts, instead of longer sustained wind speeds. Under the previous code, the Cape region fell under a 90 mile-per-hour sustained wind speed.

Builders argue that the changes are unnecessary and are largely driven by the catastrophe computer models used by the insurance industry to forecast which regions are at risk of being hit by catastrophic storms and hurricanes. Those models are being challenged, according to builders.

Board members have said they recently agreed to change the 120 mile-per-hour designation for the Cape to a 110 mile-per-hour designation. But Kovach pointed out that the board has said it intends to reduce the wind speed but hasn’t officially changed it.

“We would like them to follow through with the intent to change the wind speed,” Kovach said.

If the board does make the change, regulators can then create wind-borne debris regions, according to Kovach. Homes built in wind-borne debris regions face stricter construction standards, including the need for more expensive impact-resistant window glazing.

“If they [board members] follow through with their intent, the issue is wind borne debris. We need, number one, to determine if there are going to be wind-borne debris regions,” she said. “And, number two, where are these regions going to be?”

‘Property Protection’

Harry Smith, a member of the Board of Building Regulations and Standards who is chairman of the newly formed task force, said wind-borne debris regions have been defined as areas located 1 mile inland from the coast or shore, and there is some disagreement about whether those areas have been accurately defined.

“I’m hoping that the task force will come to realize that the amount of protection will not warrant the $30,000 to $40,000 price increase on a 1,700-square-foot house.  We’re not going to get the hurricanes that they’re talking about"
   - Thomas DonovanBourne-based builder and former board member Thomas Donovan said under that type of definition, five towns on Cape Cod would be classified as wind-borne debris regions. The designation would make housing in the region unaffordable, he added.

“I’m hoping that the task force will come to realize that the amount of protection will not warrant the $30,000 to $40,000 price increase on a 1,700-square-foot house,” he said.

The board issued the seventh edition of the building code in April. The new edition, based on the International Residential Code, is in effect concurrently with the sixth edition through October. Until then, builders who want to pull a permit can indicate under which code they’re operating.

Builders, "wind-borne debris designations aren’t necessary"

Some builders argue that the wind-borne debris designations aren’t necessary because the Cape and Islands will not experience Category 4 and Category 5 storms – the most severe types of hurricanes. Category 4 hurricanes have winds between 133 and 155 miles per hour, while winds exceeding 155 miles per hour have been recorded in Category 5 hurricanes.

Donovan said the high wind-speed designation has been driven by insurers who are seeking to reduce their losses; “This isn’t about life and safety; it’s about property protection"
“We’re not going to get the hurricanes that they’re talking about,” said Donovan.

The Cape region has experienced three Category 3 hurricanes, according to Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and public affairs officer with the National Hurricane Center. The most severe hurricane to hit the region was Hurricane Esther in September 1961, he said. That storm had 110-knot winds.

Donovan said the high wind-speed designation has been driven by insurers who are seeking to reduce their losses. “This isn’t about life and safety; it’s about property protection,” he said.

The task force will provide recommendations to the board, which is likely to hear them at its November public hearing, according to Smith.  

“The first meeting will be very telling as to what direction the rest of the meetings will go in,” said Smith. “We’re going to try to have about three meetings and put everything together.”

In addition to Smith and a member of the builder association, the task force will include representatives from the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives, and the office of the state’s insurance commissioner.

The task force also is expected to have a registered structural engineer familiar with the American Society of Civil Engineers’ wind loads; a member of the state’s insurer of last resort (the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements plan); a Cape Cod building official or inspector; a person with expertise in local meteorological conditions on the Cape and Eastern seaboard; a person with expertise in local ocean effects on hurricane behavior in Massachusetts; a citizen concerned with housing costs and affordability; a citizen concerned with the cost and availability of home insurance; and an insurance industry professional.

• See the new regulations.
  
• Building Codes Assistence Project.
  

Reprinted, with permission, from the July 9 issue of Banker & Tradesman.

1 comment »

Cape Wind permitting update; Three local stories on Global warming

The Cape Wind permitting  process is moving foreward
Federal Interior Department DEIS now scheduled for next month

Minerals Management Service (MMS) is expected to release their Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Cape Wind NEXT MONTH - in August. 

East Coast awaits the wind
Multiple reports and studies, especially those published in the last year, suggest the United States, specifically the East Coast, has great potential for offshore wind.
   The politicized debate over whether to develop wind power offshore has dragged on since the late 1990s. Since then there have been several other proposals, none of which has been completely approved.
   The Cape Wind project, proposed in 2001, received approval in March from the Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs in its Final Environmental Impact Report but is still waiting for approval from a variety of state agencies as well as the Department of Interior's Mineral Management Services.
   MMS must also conduct both a draft and final environmental impact statement for each proposed project.  This lengthy and comprehensive document will analyze virtually every aspect of Cape Wind.  The release of this major report will provide the public an important opportunity to make your voice heard on Cape Wind with the lead Federal Permitting decision-makers during an open public comment period and public hearings. 

MMS has stated they expect to make a final permit decision on Cape Wind by the middle of next year, 2008.  After a long lull you can expect the speed of Cape Wind's permitting review to dramatically pick up in the coming weeks and months.

This new impact study is covering basically the same ground which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study covered previously, and no new obstucles appear to have arisen according to informed sources. In fact, many of the USACE's minor concerns have been satisfied by subsequent events and studies. 

There will be several opportunities for Cape Codders to participate. This newspaper will keep readers informed of these permitting milestones and developments as they take place.
_______________________

Global Warming Impacts Hit Region - 3 local stories
Nantucket Sound project equivilent to taking 175,000 cars off the road

According to a relase from Cape Wind this week, the project is an important local example of a step our region can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take action on global warming. 

Recently, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs found that Cape Wind would be comparable to taking 175,000 cars off the road in terms of greenhouse gas emission reductions.  The Natural Resources Defense Council has called Cape Wind "the largest single source of supply-side reductions in CO2 currently proposed in the U.S." 

Additionally, the importance of taking action on global warming has been underscored by three news articles yesterday about negative impacts to our region. 

• Click here to read the July 8 article in the New York Times about the struggle against global warming enhanced erosion on Nantucket.  
• Click here to read a July 8 article in the Cape Cod Times about how global warming is one of the causes thought responsible for the dramatic deterioration of the health of salt marshes on Cape Cod.  
• Click here to read a July 8 article in the New Bedford Standard Times that details negative impacts expected for commercial fishing for cod, lobster and other fisheries.

3 comments »

Two local Tidal Projects move ahead

Two Tidal Projects Gain Speed in Energy Development Race
Renewable energy prosposals for two sides of the Vineyard

by Ian Fein, The Vineyard Gazette

While the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm continues to grab headlines and attract political attention, two underwater tidal energy projects that flank either side of [Martha's] Vineyard are quietly progressing.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) within the last few weeks granted a preliminary permit for an underwater hydroelectric project off the north shore of the Island in Vineyard Sound, and also formally accepted a new application for a tidal energy project in Muskeget Channel between Chappaquiddick and Nantucket  (see charts of each below).

The two projects, which are still in the early stages of exploration, are proposed by separate private development companies. Little detail is available for either project at this time, and both developers admit they are still not sure whether their proposals will prove economically feasible.

"Massachusetts presents an interesting challenge. One of the first things we need to do now is to find out whether the state is going to be supportive of this type of renewable energy. That's really the critical path at this point"
  - Charles Cooper, Vineyard Sound tidal energy project, permitting consultantBut with a growing public concern about climate change and rising electric demand in New England, the waters off the Vineyard have emerged as a prime site in the gold rush for emerging renewable energy technologies. If they are built, the tidal energy proposals and the Cape Wind project would offset production from the oil and natural gas-fired power plant in Sandwich, which currently supplies nearly all of the electricity consumed on the Cape and Islands.

"We want to help solve this global vexing problem," said Roger Bason, president of Natural Currents Energy Services, which proposed the Muskeget Channel project and is also pursuing a similar tidal energy project in the Cape Cod Canal. "This is the historic beginning of a new era of potentially very effective sustainable development, and we're working through the details, policy and protocols with all the agencies involved."

Nationwide, and particularly in Massachusetts, the regulatory path for tidal energy projects remain somewhat unclear.

By federal statute, FERC regulates hydropower projects that are in navigable waters, which traditionally covered dams in rivers. But the agency in 2006 received a flood of more than 40 permit applications for tidal energy projects, an emerging technology that connects underwater propellers via cable to an electric grid.

Above is the site for a proposed tidal project in the Middle Ground  on the northwest side of the island.Unsure how to deal with the new technology and anticipating further exploration, FERC froze many of the permit applications while it put together an interim policy this winter. Published in February, the policy aims to reduce regulatory barriers while subjecting proposals to strict scrutiny.

The FERC process begins with a preliminary permit, which effectively grants a developer first-in-line status to pursue, examine, and study the feasability of a project in a certain location. A license to build and operate the project comes later.

Oceana Energy Company of Washington, D.C., applied for the Vineyard Sound site as well as another ten locations along the nation's coastlines last spring. FERC granted a preliminary permit for the Vineyard Sound site on May 31, requiring that the company file six-month progress reports as it studies the site.

Natural Currents Energy Services, which is based in New York but plans to open an office in Cambridge, filed permit applications for the Cape Cod Canal and Muskeget Channel sites this spring. They have also applied for four other projects elsewhere in the country. FERC formally accepted the Muskeget Channel application on June 13, triggering a 60-day public comment period before any permit can be issued.


Above is the second project site in Muskeget Channal on the southeast side of The Vineyard.Despite intense competition in the offshore hydropower industry, the two companies are working cooperatively and have agreed to share studies and information, particularly for the two projects located off the Vineyard.

However, a key unanswered question for both projects is whether Massachusetts state law may actually preclude that type of development in the proposed locations. Unlike the Cape Wind proposal, which would be sited in federal waters more than three miles from shore, both tidal projects would fall entirely within water controlled by the commonwealth.

Charles Cooper, a permitting consultant for the Vineyard Sound tidal energy project, said that question needs to be straightened out before the company begins any scientific fieldwork in the Sound.

"Massachusetts presents an interesting challenge," said Cooper, who lives in Falmouth. "One of the first things we need to do now is to find out whether the state is going to be supportive of this type of renewable energy. That's really the critical path at this point."

A spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs was noncommittal, and said she could not comment specifically on either project.

"In general, we'd be interested in looking at tidal energy as another form of renewable energy," said environmental affairs spokesman Lisa Capone. "But obviously, we'll have to look at each project on its merits and assess potential impacts to the site."

Cong. William Delahunt, whose legislative district encompasses the Cape and Islands, cosponsored a bill on the federal level this spring aiming to fund research and promote development of offshore hydropower. He said in a press release that he "strongly endorsed" the use of those marine technologies off the coast of New England.

But Mark Forest, chief of staff for Mr. Delahunt, expressed concern yesterday about the various projects pending in the waters off the Vineyard. Like the Cape Wind project, which the congressman opposes, Mr. Forest said the sites of these proposed projects are being driven by a private developer, instead of by local communities and appropriate permitting authorities.

"It speaks to the issues we've been raising for the last several years, which is the need for pre-designated zones where these types of projects should be located," Mr. Forest said yesterday. "We want to encourage renewable energy in our oceans, yet at the same time we must set clear standards and guidelines. These waters belong to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and any project there should be based on the public interest - not by the private developer who gets there first with a reasonably complete application."

Mr. Bason, who said his company proposed the Muskeget Channel project in part because of Congressman Delahunt's enthusiasm for tidal energy, noted that he planned to meet with state and local officials, as well as any other interested stakeholders, in the coming weeks and months. He said the company would be proactive in explaining the details of their project at a later time.

"We have nothing to hide. We want a transparent process," Mr. Bason said. "We've very sensitive to the conflicting issues and tortured history of [Cape Wind] project, and we hope ours will be nothing like it."
This article was originally published in July 3rd issue of the The Vineyard Gazette, Martha's Vineyard's newspaper of record since 1846. This article was republished with permission from The Vineyard Gazette.

Leave a comment »

Christy Mihos says goodbye Chavez, hello Gulf

Christy's will switch from Citgo to Gulf
A patriotic Yarmouth man puts his gasoline where his mouth is

By Walter Brooks (with a little help from his Greek friends)

The Gulf Oil company said today that Christy's of Cape Cod, will switch its gasoline brand from Citgo to Gulf.  Gulf Oil Limited Partnership announced that Christy’s of Cape Cod LLC will begin re-branding its entire gasoline station portfolio from Citgo to Gulf Oil beginning this summer. This is the latest addition in Gulf’s strategy to become the premiere New England brand of petroleum products, expanding its iconic logo at gasoline retail sites across its service footprint.

“We are extremely pleased with our relationship with Gulf,” said Christy’s of Cape Cod CEO Christy Mihos who lives on Great Island in Yarmouth.  The Christy's chain of gas station and convenience stores has seven gas station locations, a Gulf Oil spokesman said.

“Our decision was simple. Gulf is the only New England based major oil company in our industry and they are one of the region’s must trusted brands. Gulf’s has a one-hundred-year history of providing superior products and service to motorists, which is consistent with the quality promise implicit in Christy’s pledge to its customers.”

“Gulf Oil is headquartered in Massachusetts, and we are especially proud to have Christy’s Markets join our growing family. Moreover, we are eager to further serve the motorists on Cape Cod,” said Joseph Petrowski, Gulf Oil’s President and CEO.  Gulf has a significant presence throughout the Northeast, and continues to expand with more than 2,400 stations in its service area.

Beware of Greeks pumping gas?

Cumberlad Farm CEO Lily Haseotes Bentas and Christy's Cape Cod CEO Christy Mihos have generational connections.The Haseotes family still owns Cumberland Farms. One of the largest privately held companies in the US.  Run by the brothers and sister of the founders, who immigrated to this country and started a dairy farm in Rhode Island.

As did Christy Mihos parents, who established a grocery business in Brockton.

Cumberland farms was the first to establish a chain of convenience stores on the Cape in the sixties, and was the first to introduce gas at these locations. The Cumberland founders later moved to Long Beach in Centerville.

In true Greek fashion, the next generation of family owners bought a Gulf refinery in order produce their own gas, just as they had been producing their own milk.  After some initial difficulty, financially, attempting to get the refinery up and running, they eventually established a chain of gas station/convenience stores from Maine to Florida.

Christy Mihos, is limited to growing his Christy’s convenience stores only on Cape Cod as an agreement with 7/11 (Southland Corporation) when he sold his off-cape stores to them a few years ago.  He initially contracted to sell Citgo gas at his locations. After his disagreement with Venezuela leader, FOB (Friend of Bill Delahunt), Christy went shopping for another gas supplier.

Who better than a fellow Greek. But interesting that he is also a competitor in the same market of convenience stores.

Will Cumby buy Christy, or vice versa?

Might there be another deal in the making.  Will Christy sell his stores to Cumberland Farms? Is Christy interested in leaving his comfortable hamlet on Great Island to run one of the largest convenience store chains in the world? Does anyone know a good private equity firm?

What do you get when you mix milk and gas? Greek salad.

About Gulf Oil LP 

Gulf Oil Limited Partnership, based in Newton, Massachusetts, is one of the Northeast's largest wholesalers of refined petroleum products. Gulf distributes motor fuels through a network of over 2,400 branded gas stations, 12 proprietary oil terminals, and a network of over 50 other supply terminals. Gulf Oil supplies heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel and kerosene to these branded retail outlets through both its Gulf brand and, in the seven states of New England and New York.  

About Cumberland Farms 

Gulf LP is owned mostly by the Haseotes family whose patriarch started Cumberland farms in 1939.  Vasilios has a home in Centerville. He and Christy's father both owned grocery stores in Southeastern Massachusetts, and the families have been friends and friendly competitors for decades.

Once a one-cow dairy, Cumberland Farms now operates a network of more than 1,100 convenience stores and gas stations in 11 eastern seaboard states from Maine to Florida. The company has its own grocery distribution and bakery operations to supply its stores. Cumberland owns a two-thirds limited partnership in petroleum wholesaler Gulf Oil, giving it the right to use and license Gulf trademarks in Delaware, New Jersey, New York, most of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the New England states. The Haseotes' children, including CEO Lily Haseotes Bentas, own the company.  

Read previous stories about Christy vs Chavez below.

• Christy's Mini-marts cuts ties with Chavez's CITGO.
  
• Our Christy vs. Hugo Chavez, the "devil" made him do it
• Read everything we ever published about Christy here.

13 comments »

First National Art Conference at CC Museum of Art in Dennis

Cape Cod Museum of Art’s holds First National Art Conference

This year, for the first time, the Cape Cod Museum of Art (CCMA) will present “Representing Reality: What the Eye Sees—What the Mind Knows,” Thursday, August 23 through Friday, August 24. The goal of this event is to allow attendees to expand knowledge and meet talented artists, historians, collectors, and art lovers.

The conference includes an introductory session and lobster bake on the evening of Thursday, August 23, with a full day of panelist sessions at Cape Cinema on Friday, August 24, followed by dinner and the annual arts auction at the CCMA.

Drawing on the expertise of painters from various traditions, the panelists will explore several approaches to representational painting as they attempt to define differences and find commonalities.

Panelists include painters Carmen Cicero, John Cosby, William R. Davis, Robert Henry, Robert Douglas Hunter, Stapleton Kearns, Philip Koch, Joseph McGurl, Sergio Roffo, and Selina Trieff. The artists will be joined by art historians Jeffrey R. Brown and Al Kochka. The moderators for the event will be M.Stephen Doherty, the editor-in-chief of American Artist, Watercolor, Drawing, and Workshop magazines; Joshua Rose, the editor of American Art Collector magazine; and Peter Trippi, the editor of Fine Art Connoisseur.

Leave a comment »

Search the ocean floor for new species with WHOI online

    As the icebreaker cut a path through the ice floes on July 2, it churned up algae, fish, and other food for black-legged kittiwakes and northern fulmars. Through the Polar Discovery web site, students and citizens can learn about this and other phenomena of the Arctic environment. (Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI)

Students, Museum Visitors, and Web Surfers Can Join First Search for Life on the Arctic Ocean Floor
Dispatches, Photos Being Sent Daily from Historic Research Expedition

A multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers is conducting the first search for life and hot springs on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. Through the use of the World Wide Web and satellite communications, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and nine partner museums are bringing thousands of students and citizens along with them.

This month, the research team will conduct live satellite phone conversations from the icebreaking ship to visitors at partner museums across the United StatesOn July 2, WHOI researchers and communications specialists sent the first of 40 days of dispatches and photo-essays from the icebreaker Oden, which researchers are sailing into the ice pack of the Arctic in order to explore the seafloor mountain chain known as the Gakkel Ridge. Reports from the groundbreaking expedition to the world's most isolated ocean are posted daily on the Polar Discovery web site, which also offers podcasts, games, video and audio clips, and a forum for emailing questions directly to researchers at the Pole.

This month, the research team will conduct live satellite phone conversations from the icebreaking ship to visitors at partner museums across the United States. Through these “Live from the Poles” events, students and other visitors will have the opportunity to interact directly with researchers while they are working in the field—driving robotic vehicles, deploying ocean sensors, and hunting for new communities of life.

On July 4, researchers on the icebreaker Oden were greeted by a fogbow, or white rainbow, hanging over the Arctic Ocean. (Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI)Participating museums include: The Field Museum, Chicago; Birch Aquarium at Scripps, La Jolla, Calif.; Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, Md.; the Museum of Science, Boston; Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh; Liberty Science Center, Jersey City; the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC; the Houston Museum of Natural Science; the Houston Museum of Natural Science; and Pacific Science Center, Seattle. (See a schedule by clicking here).

The live presentations and Web dispatches provide a unique opportunity to observe how ocean science and polar exploration are conducted and to learn what real scientists are like—what excites them, how they cope with their environment, and what challenges they face as they try to gain a better understanding of our planet.

The Gakkel Ridge outreach effort is part of a two-year project to conduct live and virtual conversations between field researchers and museum visitors. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation in conjunction with the International Polar Year. The “Polar Discovery” project represents an innovative approach to education and outreach that brings together some of the nation’s best science centers and natural history museums, world-class ocean researchers, and creative multimedia talent.

"Polar Discovery makes it easy for scientists to participate in outreach projects,” said Chris Linder, a research associate at WHOI, a professional photographer, and a principal investigator on Polar Discovery. “They can plug into our Web site and take advantage of the partnerships we've developed with science centers across the country. Our goal is to apply collaborative, multimedia approaches to telling the story of polar research.”

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.

Leave a comment »

Fireworks tonight postponed till Saturday; Barnstable’s Best Dog; All council incumbents have papers out; 6 town unions out of contract; Energy power struggle; Cable competition

Headlines, July 6, 2007

Due to the weather tonight, the Hyannis fireworks display in Lewis Bay has been postponed to Saturday, July 7 around 9 p.m.Competition seen as key in cable negotiations
There have been no overtures from Verizon to bring its fiber-optic television cable system to Barnstable, but the chairman of the town’s cable advisory committee would welcome an application.

Town unions out of contract
With the end of the last fiscal year on June 30, all six municipal bargaining units for the town of Barnstable are out of contract.

Power struggle
Who could argue with the overall goal of energy independence for Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard?

Barnstable’s Best Dog is truly No. 1
The best dog in Barnstable has a secret: Buddy is a shoeaholic. It’s true.

Candidate Watch: All council incumbents have papers out
Jim Crocker of Osterville’s Precinct 5 completes the list of town council incumbents seeking re-election.

For woman of the year, it’s about community and family
Being named the Mercy Otis Warren Cape Cod Woman of the Year was quite an honor for Lynne Poyant of Hyannis.

Cape Wind says energy production would be a breeze on hot days
Cape Wind Associates, which wants to build a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound, announced last week that its site on Horseshoe Shoal has experienced strong winds on days of high power demand since 2005.

Plans for Mills gravel pit subject of meeting
Prompted by earth-moving machinery just beyond their property lines, Marstons Mills residents met with town officials last week about the clean up and future development of a one-time landfill and gravel pit off Wakeby Road.The meeting, held at Liberty Hall, discussed current activities, as well as a proposed 96-unit affordable housing development for the 19-acre site.

An early start on the yard sale circuit
The Kuehne sisters were born to give. 

Read the rest of The Barnstable Patriot here. 
______________________

 Mid-Cape Headlines,July 5, 2007

Hyannis fireworks postponed to Saturday, July 7
Due to inclement weather Friday, the Hyannis fireworks display in Lewis Bay has been postponed to Saturday, July 7 at approximately 9 p.m.

Bird's-eye view
An osprey nest atop the now-closed John Simpkins School on Old Main Street in South Yarmouth is generating a good deal of attention. Ospreys, also known as fish hawks, have made a dramatic comeback in Yarmouth in recent years, but nests have mainly been confined to wetland areas.

Only a few years ago children played mini-golf around this purple Hippo at PlaylandSea View Playland property: A field of weeds
In September 2004, Dennis residents voted unanimously at a special Town Meeting to spend $4.9 million to buy the 16.5-acre Sea View Playland property in Dennisport from the Zinkevich/Girouard family. The land bank funded $3 million of the purchase, and voters approved a $1.9 million debt exclusion to complete the necessary funding.

A birthday for the books: Celebrate at Sturgis
To celebrate its 140th birthday, the Sturgis Library will host a birthday party from 5 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 8.

Dennis votes Tuesday, July 10
The Dennis special town election is Tuesday, July 10. Polls will be open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. There is one ballot question.

Read the rest of this week's Register here. 

Leave a comment »

French rower rescued 50 miles off Ptown

BOSTON - The 26-year-old who set out alone to row his custom-made boat across nearly 4000 miles of open ocean Wednesday was rescued by the Coast Guard Thursday night 50 miles east of Provincetown. Frenchman Charlie Girard boasted he had the physical strength, the mental toughness and the maritime technology to row 3,600 miles across the steely Atlantic, from Cape Cod to France, faster than any human in history. Turns out, he lacked all three.

A Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew launched at 8:15, and as shown on right hoisted Girard to safety about 9 p.m.Charlie Girard was in distress and caught in 5-8 foot seas and 15-knot winds in his 23-foot boat.  Click the image to see the CG video of rescue.

He expressed his desire to be taken off the boat to an acquaintance of his, Richard Williams of Orleans via a satellite phone.

Williams contacted Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England about 7:20 p.m. and said Girard, "had taken seven or eight rolls and was ready to come off."

A Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew launched at 8:15, and hoisted Girard to safety about 9 p.m.

Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class John Hughes, the onboard medical corpsman said, "he was thrown around quite a bit and said he slammed into the side of the boat and that his lower back was bothering him."

Below on right he was taken to Air Station Cape Cod and was transferred to an awaiting ambulance.

The Coast Guard issued a safety marine information broadcast to notify other mariners of the adrift rowboat.

10 comments »

Delahunt's energy zone raises doubts; Sengekontacket Closed Again; Island lacking in flouride

  Headlines, July 6, 2007

Energy Zone Raises Doubts
Feasibility of Proposed Area Close to Tuckernuck May Be Years Away; Need Grows for Clean Energy


But they also warned against approaching the idea as a viable alternative to Cape Wind, which is years into permitting and would use proven technology already in wide use throughout EuropeSelectmen across the Island this spring hailed a proposal to designate an area southeast of Chappaquiddick as a renewable energy zone, where they would promote offshore projects to supply the Vineyard and Nantucket with clean electric power.

Given the lure of federal funding, the concept was openly embraced by town officials and other groups who are opposed to the offshore wind farm proposed in Nantucket Sound. They presented the publicly sited area as a better alternative to the Cape Wind project, which a private developer has proposed on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound.

But more than two months after extolling the idea, town officials acknowledged this week that they know virtually nothing about the details of the proposed zone.

At present, the zone exists only as a mention in a few letters sent to various federal officials. No funds have been secured, no legislation has been filed, nor have any new studies been conducted to determine whether potential projects south of Tuckernuck island are as yet economically feasible...

Sengekontacket Closed Again
Plagued by High Bacteria Counts, Pond Will Now Remain Closed Indefinitely to Shellfishing; Constables Concerned

For the second time in less than a month, Sengekontacket Pond has been closed to shellfishing, and will remain closed indefinitely while fisheries experts consider what to do about bacterial contamination.

Rain Fails to Dampen Parade, Fireworks
All it takes to start a parade are some pots and pans and a couple of kids.

Island Towns Found Lacking on Flouride in Water Supplies
The town that is home to the largest number of nonprofit institutions may also have the fewest cavities.

American Diva Beverly Sills Dies at 78
Beverly Sills, coloratura soprano, devoted supporter of the arts and longtime Vineyard seasonal resident, died on Monday at her home in New York city of lung cancer. Ms. Sills, who was 78, was the wife of the late Peter B. Greenough, a retired financial writer for the Boston Globe, who died last September.

Historic Preservation Commissions Doubt Rune Rock Credibility
A planned expedition to recover a mysterious rune stone on Noman's Land reportedly inscribed with the name of famous Viking Leif Eriksson has hit a snag. The state historical commission questions the plan and the Chilmark historical commission has recommended against removal of the stone.

Betsy Sheerr Leads Hebrew Center Institute
The summer speaker series put on by the Martha's Vineyard Hebrew Center, explained Betsy Sheerr, is not a Jewish thing, although she explained its motivation - and her own - in distinctly Jewish terms. 

Read the rest of the Vineyard Gazette here. 

Leave a comment »

Gillnetters angry over new lobster regulations; Truro man dies in accident; Arrests in jewelry heist; State passes budget; Rower rows off, again

   ^{It’s the lifeline of Cape Cod. To many of us, it ends at the bridges. But Route 6 is actually the longest highway in America running from Provincetown to California. Also known as the Grand Old Highway, a nod to the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, the roadway is falling out of use and out of the consciousness of the American public in favor of bigger interstates and air travel. However, there is a growing push to change that. The U.S. Route 6 Tourist Association is a not-for-profit organization focused on economic development and cultural preservation of the 600-some odd communities along the 3,652 miles of Route 6.}

 Headlines from the Lower Cape, July 5, 2007

Gillnetters angry over new lobster regulations
It’s always something, as Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, and for the gillnet fishermen of Chatham that something is another regulation that will hit them in the pocketbook.  Monday morning state Division of Marine Fisheries director Paul Diodati issued an emergency action to reduce the number of lobsters harvested by Cape Cod gillnetters. The rules took effect Tuesday.

Rower departs for France
Frenchman Charlie Girard set off in his rowboat July Fourth to attempt a record-breaking 3,317-mile passage across the Atlantic Ocean to La Tranche Sur Mer, Vendee, France. Girard hopes to beat the 62 days and 19-hour record set by fellow countryman Emmanuel Coindre in 2004. See the rower's site here. See his rescue Thursday night here.

State passes budget, plans home insurance commission
The Senate Tuesday passed a $26.8 billion budget that includes funding for several Cape Cod programs and establishes a commission to examine the homeowners’ insurance crisis in coastal communities.

Get your kicks on Route 6 It’s the lifeline of Cape Cod.
To many of us, it ends at the bridges. But Route 6 is actually the longest highway in America running from Provincetown to California.

Unused Nauset Light parking spaces question need for ocean beach
The 70-plus parking spaces set aside for Eastham taxpayers at two Cape Cod National Seashore beaches are not routinely filling up, and that’s worrisome to those who claim the town needs its own oceanside beach parking lot.

Read the rest of this week's issue of The Cape Codder here.
______________________

 Headlines from the Outer Cape, July 6, 2007

Truro man dies in car crash
Mims Sparks, 43, of Truro, died of injuries sustained in a head-on car crash in Wellfleet around 9 a.m. this morning, July 5. Three cars were involved, five people sustained injuries and three were transported to Cape Cod Hospital.  The accident occurred on Route 6 near Lieutenant Island Road and numerous 911 calls came in to the Wellfleet police department immediately afterward.

3 arrested in jewel heist case
PROVINCETOWN — An intensive investigation by both local police and the Barnstable County Police Dept. led to the Monday arrest of two men and a woman suspected of a brazen smash-and-grab jewelry store robbery that netted the thieves approximately $65,000 in high-end rings and earrings.  The robbery, the largest in Provincetown in recent memory, took place around 3:30 a.m. April 25 at Christina’s Jewelry & Gifts, 215 Commercial St.

Belfry to rise again
PROVINCETOWN — After five years of sitting in the front yard of the Provincetown Public Library’s home at Center and Commercial streets, the belfry will be hoisted back to its rightful spot at the top of the building.  The belfry’s return is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, July 10, between the hours of 5 and 10 a.m.

ARTS
The Gold Dust Orphans ring true with ‘Milkman'
This time it’s the milkman, not the postman, who returns for a second bite of the linguini in Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans’ wild rendition of James M. Cain’s classic novels and the film noir they inspired, including “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Double Indemnity” and “Mildred Pierce.” Borrowing freely from each of these films, as well as from Shakespeare, “Family Guy” and “Judge Judy,” Landry’s high-energy camp in “The Milkman Always Comes Twice” is summer entertainment with just the right amount of smarts.

 Read the rest of this week's Banner here.

Leave a comment »

Nantucket wants Sound a '"No Dump" zone

Coastal Zone Management seeks federal no-discharge zone for Nantucket Sound
Within this zone, boats are prohibited from emptying their sewage and grey water holding tanks in Nantucket Sound

By Peter B. Brace, Nantucket Independent

Nantucket's Marine & Coastal Resources Department prides itself on the establishment of a threemile federal no-discharge zone radiating outward from the island's shores.

Within this zone, boats are prohibited from emptying their sewage and grey water holding tanks in Nantucket Sound and must have their tanks pumped out when in Nantucket Harbor. In recent years, the town regularly pumped more than 120,000 gallons of sewage from boat holding tanks.

Beyond the three-mile limit, however, boats can do what they like.

Marine Superintendent and Harbormaster Dave Fronzuto is exploring the possibility of having the ferries that service Nantucket pump out their holding tanks either at their homeport piers or on Nantucket.

"It is perfectly legal to do that, to dump in the federal waters," said Fronzuto. "[The Massachusetts Office of] Coastal Zone Management is actually meeting with Congressman Bill Delahunt's office to see if there is some merit to making this a federal no-discharge zone in Nantucket Sound."

The issue arose from CZM's discussions with whale viewing charter boat operators whose vessels regularly dump their sewage into Cape Cod Bay, said Fronzuto.

Currently, CZM is exploring the logistics and economics of installing pump-out stations in several harbors.

"We are just in the beginning stages of identifying the structural and financial needs for siting commercial pumpouts in Provincetown, Barnstable Harbor, Boston, and Gloucester," said CZM's No-Discharge Area Coordinator Todd Callaghan in an email discussion that included Fronzuto in mid-May. "It would appear that we should start thinking about one in Hyannis as well."

Fronzuto is unsure whether the Steamship Authority, Hy-Line and Freedom Cruises vessels would have time to pump out their holding tanks in what is essentially a 30- to 35- minute or less turnaround at their respective Nantucket terminals, but is quite certain pumping out the tanks is far better than dumping the sewage into Nantucket Sound.

"We're really starting the discussion as to whether the same thing should happen in Barnstable, Woods Hole, Vineyard Haven and Nantucket," he said.

Fronzuto announced this effort at the June 19 Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board meeting after reporting to the board on a separate but likely related issue pertaining to water quality sampling in Nantucket Sound by several coastal towns, including Nantucket.

To learn the true quality of the water in Nantucket Sound, UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine and Science Technology (SMAST) is coordinating simultaneous water quality sampling twice a month in conjunction with the Martha's Vineyard Commission, the Nantucket Marine Department and the nonprofit environmental group Nantucket Soundkeeper in the towns of Nantucket, Oak Bluffs, Mashpee and the Three Bays/Centerville Harbor area of Barnstable (including Hyannis) to get a clear picture of pollution in the Sound.

"All of those agencies are sampling every two weeks and they're sampling at the same state of the tide," said Fronzuto. "If it's high tide, they're sampling one hour after high tide on the same day, so you get a snapshot of the whole place on the same day."

Although CZM's endeavor to put pump-out stations at each ferry terminal around the Cape and Islands did arise independently of SMAST's water quality testing, Fronzuto said that data collected from the UMass Dartmouth program would likely help in getting the rest of Nantucket Sound declared a federal nodischarge zone.

"They're [SMAST] using this to confirm that the actual Sound water is beginning to deteriorate," said Fronzuto.

1 comment »

News from Falmouth, Sandwich, Mashpee & Bourne

Upper Cape Headlines, June 29, 2007

FALMOUTH
300 Committee Purchases River Bend Farm Kennels
The 300 Committee, the town’s land trust, has reached agreement to purchase a 10-acre parcel with nearly a quarter-mile of frontage on the Coonamessett River, providing a critical link with other conservation lands along the town’s longest river.

Prices Causing Concern For Golfers On Town Course
There is reason for optimism at Falmouth Country Club. “The trends in 2007 are a lot more improvements on the course and a lot more players than in 2006,” Brian O’Hare, northeast regional vice president for Billy Casper Golf told the gathering at last night’s annual community review of the public course.

Operation Beg Needs $14,000 For Fireworks
The Falmouth Fireworks Committee has its work cut out this weekend. Its goal: sell 1,200 T-shirts as part of Operation Beg. The committee needs $14,000 in order to cover the budget for this year’s fireworks presentation, which promises to be a show-stopping affair.

Wild Weather No Damper At Relay For Life Fundraiser
Even after the clouds moved in, bringing whipping winds and heavy downpours to Guv Fuller Field early Friday evening, the spirits of those participating in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life could not be dampened.

Work Starts Now To Send Children Back To School
School may have just ended but the Falmouth Service Center is in back-to-school mode. The service center is in the midst of filling requests for more than 300 children who will need clothes and supplies when school starts in September.

SANDWICH:
Headstone Searchers Come Up Empty
More than a dozen people showed up at Shawme Pond on Saturday morning, some in shorts and flipflops, others in hip waders, and using eight-foot-long poles, slowly and methodically made their way around a 100-foot section of the pond, poking, prodding, and thumping. But, in the end, the group did not uncover any of the headstones they were hoping to find.

Town Struggles To Fill Lifeguard Positions
Only a generation ago, the job of being a lifeguard at a local beach or pond for the summer seemed the perfect way for teens to earn some pocket money, and there were plenty of young people lining up early hoping to be selected to fill the coveted positions.

Rowing On The Rise
With the morning sky just beginning to make its transition to daylight, there is little that can compare to being out on a placid lake with completely calm waters to enjoy these very first minutes of a new day.

Forestdale’s Green Team
The Forestdale School’s Green Team put its knowledge of renewable and nonrenewable energy sources on display last Friday morning during an energy fair at the school.
Student projects showcased at the event included a small car that actually ran on a hydrogen fuel cell, a homemade wind turbine, and a hydroelectric water wheel, among others.

Perpetual Motion
Swishing down the snow-covered  mountain with the sun on his face, Craig M. Bautz doesn’t shy away from the black diamond trails or the mogul fields. Like most skiers, the sport offers him a thrill and exhilaration.

MASHPEE:
New Bedford Lays Out Casino Welcome Mat But Any Middleboro Deal Must Get Voter OK
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s swift push for a casino met a potential obstacle and a full embrace this week at the two locations the tribe is publicly considering to host its proposed facility.

Middleboro And New Bedford A Study In Contrasts For Casino
Beyond the tone of the recent meetings held in Middleboro and New Bedford, the two apparent frontrunners to host the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s proposed casino are almost a complete contradiction.  Most simply the divide is urban versus rural, but it is also one of social, cultural, and economic characteristics.

School Dept. Takes Responsibility For Medicaid Shortfall
“This did not work out…if we had known how complicated this would be, we never would have taken it on.”  That was Ann M. Bradshaw’s assessment of the Mashpee School Department’s attempt to process in-house Medicare reimbursement billing for special education services, a “good faith effort to save $20,000” in costs that may wind up costing the town hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gas Prices Not Curbing Boating But Ethanol An Issue For Engines
Despite the record-breaking spike in gas prices this spring, as boating season gets underway fuel prices at three marinas in Mashpee are about what they were last summer, according to managers of the three facilities.

Mashpee Author Seeks Facts, Context In Cape Wind Debate
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Mashpee resident and author Wendy Williams made the first phone call of her research for a new book she was beginning to write about noise and wildlife. Ms. Williams’s source answered and said she could not talk because the country was being attacked.

BOURNE:
Young Sailors Set To Sea
Laughter, shrieks, and the soon-to-be-forgotten prediction, “I’m gonna die,” came from the dozen young middle schoolers, many of whom had never been in a sailboat before, as they learned how to tip over their small vessels on their first day of sailing lessons.

Police Dept. Resorts To Forced Overtime In Filling Shifts
Ninety-one times since the first of the year, the Bourne Police Department has had to order police officers to work when they might otherwise be off duty.
Selectmen heard that statistic Tuesday from Sergeant Christopher J. Farrell and Interim Police Chief Earl V. Baldwin, who urged selectmen to set a policy and make it a goal to increase police department manning levels until the department is staffed with an adequate number of officers.

Pastor Sandra Retires
When Pastor Sandra L. Smith was growing up, her father was a United Methodist minister.
She ending up “doing just about everything I could” as the minister’s daughter, she said, becoming a lay speaker, a designation that allowed her to help lead worship and, occasionally, preach.

T-Shirt Design Makes Big Splash
Kaitlin E. Stratton, a 10-year-old fourth grader at Ella F. Hoxie Elementary School in Sagamore, decided to enter a T-shirt design contest toward the end of the school year. The T-shirt contest is put on annually by the school’s parent/teacher group.

Selectmen Back Moratorium On ‘Unfriendly’ 40Bs
The Town of Walpole is spearheading an effort to bring Massachusetts towns together to fight developers who use the state’s Chapter 40B affordable housing law as a club, forcing towns to permit projects that would not be in the best interest of the community.

Read the rest of this week's Enterprise Newspapers here.

Leave a comment »

Coast Guard returns a Sea Turtle to the sea

   Coast Guard Petty Officer Adam Johnson and Brian Sharp, a sea turtle rescue coordinator from Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, succesfully disentangle an endangered, leatherback sea turtle caught in fishing gear near Monomoy Island. Below, the turtle swims away. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Valerie Lucero

600 pound, 5 foot long Sea Turtles gets a second chance
Coast Guard Station Chatham is a good Samaritan - again

A Coast Guard boat crew assisted in disentangling an endangered sea turtle from fishing gear near Monomoy Island around 5 p.m. Saturday.

Coast Guard Station Chatham received a call around 3:30 p.m from a fisherman reporting a sea turtle entangled about half a mile west of Monomoy Island.

Station Chatham launched a 27-foot utility boat with a Sea Turtle Disentanglement Coordinator from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies aboard.

The crew arrived on-scene around 4:30 p.m. and found the entangled, leatherback sea turtle.

Within about 30 minutes, the crew was able to free the turtle, estimated to weigh over 600 pounds and measuring nearly 5 feet in length.

"We were all relieved to see the turtle was able swim away with no visible injuries. We encourage all boaters to stay alert on the water and report any entanglements," said Petty Officer Adam Johnson who responded to the call.

Mariners should report entanglements to the Marine Animal Disentanglement Hotline at 1-800-900-3622 or to the Coast Guard via VHF radio channel 16.

Leave a comment »

"Rotary Doug" to tie the knot at Bush chapel

Cape & Island's most handsome pol surrenders Nantucket to Cupid 

Look for Doug & Kat's "Love Story" coming next weekend on capecodtoday.comNantucketer Doug Bennett will marry Kathleen Ann Galligan of Weston, Massachusetts in Kennebunkport, Maine on August 4, 2007 at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.

Doug served as Selectman and County Commissioner for Nantucket for the last three years, retiring this past April 2007. Bennett, a former U.S. Army Reservist, graduated valedictorian from Valley Forge Military College in 1997, and also received two bachelor degrees in 2001 from Penn State University in History and Labor Studies and Industrial Relations.

Currently, Doug says he is working to help rebuild the Massachusetts Republican Party after last Fall's disasterous preformance. He has also been accepted to graduate school at UMass Boston in their Public Affairs and International Relations program and says he  will continue to be active in politics on the Cape & Islands.

But what about the girl? 

Kathleen is a 1995 graduate of Colgate University receiving a dual degree from English and Spanish, and received a Masters Degree from Boston College in English Literature. Currently, Kathleen is an Assistant Vice President for Relationship Marketing in the Global Wealth Investment Management Division of Bank of America. She manages client relationships and marketing materials for their asset management company, Columbia Management.

Doug is the eldest son of Dr. Douglas Bennett and Mrs. Kathy Lee Kanyock.  
His father is Director of Research and Development at Air Products in Pennsylvania, and his mother is a Clinical Liaison on the Cape & Islands.

Kathleen is the eldest daughter of Dr. Ann and Thomas J.Galligan III. Kathleen’s mother is a child psychotherapist with two practices in Newton and Leominster Massachusetts. Her father is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Papa Gino’s Holdings Corp. The newlyweds will spend their honeymoon in Puerta Vallerta, Mexico.

EDITOR's NOTE: On the wildly improbable chance that some readers may not recognize Our Doug, on the right is how you may have glimpsed him at the Airport Rotary in Hyannis last Fall. 

Doug also writes a blog here. 

We can access everything we've ever written about this barefoot boy with cheek here. 

3 comments »