From the Falmouth Enterprise · December 8, 1981
Stephen Blevin of the state Coastal Zone Management program told about 35 people at the Waquoit Association meeting on December 7, 1981, that the state was studying whether Waquoit Bay should be named a national estuarine sanctuary. Designation would mean buying land or reaching an agreement with Washburn Island’s owners to protect some of it permanently, though development could still go ahead. Blevin said the developers had told the state they “would not be averse” and might donate about 100 unbuildable acres for the tax benefit. Federal money was available to buy sanctuary land.
The same story reported that Winnifred Woods’s new group, Citizens for the Protection of Waquoit Bay and Washburn’s Island, had held its first meeting at town hall on December 5, closed to the press, with 35 to 40 people offering ideas, time and money. The two threads came together over the next seven years: the state took South Cape Beach in 1982 and Washburn Island in 1983, and in 1988 Waquoit Bay became a national estuarine sanctuary, now the Waquoit Bay Reserve.
This is CPWB’s summary of a news article. The full article and its photos are published by the Falmouth Enterprise. The page is in the Falmouth Public Library’s digital archive of the Enterprise.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
