From the Provincetown Independent · October 23, 2024 · By William von Herff
Eelgrass meadows once ringed Cape Cod’s shallow waters, sheltering young scallops, oysters, crabs and fish, holding sediment in place and storing carbon. Agnes Mittermayr, a marine ecologist with the Center for Coastal Studies and director of the SeagrassNet monitoring network, said the Cape has lost about 90 percent of its eelgrass in the last 100 years to nutrient pollution, habitat loss, disease and boat damage. She called nitrogen the biggest threat: it comes mainly from poorly performing septic systems and feeds algae that block light from the plants. Eelgrass also suffers as water warms, and she put the limit at water that stays above about 28°C (82°F). Dredging, anchors and propellers leave scars that can fragment a meadow over time.
SeagrassNet monitors meadows in Provincetown, Wellfleet and Pleasant Bay in Orleans. Provincetown’s are healthy, but Pleasant Bay’s have declined by half since 1951 because of nutrient pollution, according to Boston University’s Alyssa Novak. Novak leads a National Park Service restoration in Pleasant Bay that in September 2024 transplanted eelgrass from across the East Coast to find heat-tolerant strains that can survive warmer water. A three-year study of possible restoration sites in Wellfleet Harbor, led by the Center for Coastal Studies, has also begun. The work is on the Outer Cape. The main threat it describes, nitrogen from septic systems, also faces Waquoit Bay.
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