From the Falmouth Enterprise · July 2, 2021 · By Mackenzie Ryan
Eric Karplus of Science Wares told Falmouth’s Water Quality Management Committee on June 24, 2021, that the three-year Eel River Pilot Aquaculture Project had succeeded in its first year despite the pandemic. The town permitted three 20,000-square-foot plots in Eel Pond in Menauhant, each with room for about 2,500 floating bags. The entry-level target of 280,000 market-size oysters per site would remove about 60 kilograms of nitrogen per site, or 180 kilograms a year in all. Karplus estimated that about 74 kilograms were removed in the first year, pending lab results, though sales suffered during COVID-19.
The three growers, Falmouth Shellfish Collaborative, Ward Aquafarms and Nantucket Sound Shellfish Company, handle seed, upkeep, harvest and sales, while the town handles siting, permitting and nitrogen analysis. Karplus said MassDEP has been giving credit for nitrogen in shellfish permanently removed from estuaries, calculated from the weight of seed going in and harvest coming out. Growers pay $70 per 1,000 oysters up to the 280,000 target, and the town used the $2,000 collected in 2020 to buy quahog seed for other areas to offset the use of shared waters.
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