Editorial: Restore and Protect the Health of the Harbor, Vote Yes on Article 79
jbrotton
Posted Monday, April 25, 2022 8:19 am
The Inquirer and Mirror
(April 21, 2022) Do you remember the old bumper sticker that read GREEN LAWNS = BROWN HARBORS?
That sticker alluded to the fact that fertilizing lawns to make them Crayola green results in the runoff of nitrates into the watershed, which then leach into the harbor, producing algae which kill off eelgrass. We need to reverse this trend. Voting Yes on Article 79 to ban the application of fertilizer is a step in the right direction.
Scallops rely on eelgrass to survive. This year the bay-scallop catch, at 3,200 bushels, was among the lowest in recorded history. Former harbormaster Dave Fronzuto has said that an annual catch of 10,000 bushels is the threshold of a sustainable scallop industry. The industry is on the brink of extinction.
Once upon a time the seafloor of Nantucket Harbor was an underwater meadow of eelgrass, which provided a rich, protective habitat in which seed scallops could thrive. But over time, as more homes in the watershed were built and more lawns fertilized, the eelgrass began to die, smothered by algae.
The Maria Mitchell Association sponsored a study over 10 years in which Val Hall and Peter Boyce documented the loss of eelgrass, and the town began to take action, by sewering Monomoy and sections of the island in the watershed. Education about the timing and amount of fertilizer application was also undertaken. But it had little effect. And regulations had no enforcement teeth. An outright ban on fertilizer application is the answer.