The town of Oak Bluffs last week began dredging the Little Bridge channel after a permitting snafu left the project in limbo for months.
The town received the go-ahead last week to dig 4,800 cubic yards from the channel, which had been filling in – threatening the health and navigation of Sengekontacket Pond.
The work was initially expected to be done in the winter, but got underway on June 18 after the town received approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, as well as an emergency certification from the town’s conservation commission, Garrett Albiston, the town’s conservation agent, said.
“It went well. Now the pond is going to flush much better on the northern side there,” he told the Gazette on Tuesday.
An excavator was at the channel last week, digging up the sediment to deepen the waterway and make it easier to flush. The work was set to finish on June 21. According the emergency dredging permit, the sand will be used as nourishment on Inkwell and Pay beaches.
The town had been waiting about six months to start the work after a snag in the permitting process this winter. Dredging for Little Bridge channel is normally covered by a 10-year dredging permit held by Edgartown, which expired at the end of 2024. Under the permit, Little Bridge was dredged annually.
The town’s first attempt to dredge Little Bridge this year happened in early January. However, the permit for such work expired the month before, so the sand was put back, town officials said.
“We were threatened by [the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection] with a massive fine,” said Joan Hughes, the chair of the conservation committee, at a select board meeting in May.
Ms. Hughes also said the reason the Edgartown permit was not renewed was due in part to personnel changes at the engineering firm that manages it.
Town officials had been anxious to dredge the waterway ever since. When an area is dredged, it allows for more water to flow in and out of a pond, said Donovan McElligatt, the town’s shellfish constable. Ocean water tends to have a good balance of oxygen and other nutrients, while pond water is more susceptible to runoff. When the openings between the ocean and ponds get blocked, the water in the pond becomes stagnant, often leading to an overload of nitrogen.
“We have too much nitrogen in the pond. It leads to degrading water quality,” he said. “When you have an overabundance of it, it becomes a problem.”
High levels of nitrogen can fuel algae blooms, which consume the oxygen in water and prevents sunlight from filtering through. When algae bloom restricts sunlight, it prevents eelgrass— which is integral to shellfish habitat— from growing.
In Sengekontacket’s Major’s Cove, there was a field of eelgrass that was documented in 2019. Mr. McElligatt recently surveyed the area with the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, and they did not find a single blade of eelgrass.
Sengekontacket Pond’s health relies on Little Bridge. Mr. McElligatt told the Oak Bluffs select board in a meeting in May that 15 per cent of Sengekonacket’s flushing comes through Little Bridge.
In addition to the impact on the environment, dredging also makes waters safer for boaters on the pond.
“It’s incredibly important to the ecosystem, to everything from the shellfish to the fin fish to the algae blooms, all these things, and things are happening very, very rapidly,” Mr. McElligatt said. “Navigation in Sengekontacket is becoming impossible.”
Oak Bluffs has been grappling with how to manage the town’s dredging needs.
Last year, the shellfish committee created a working group to address the topic.
The dredge working group presented its findings to the select board at a meeting late last month. It included members of the shellfish, harbor and conservation committees. Sherry Countryman, the chair of the working group, told the board that there is no coordinated approach for dredging in Oak Bluffs.
“It appears that the right and the left hand really don’t know what each other is doing, so there’s been some confusion,” she said.
In addition to Little Bridge, the committee looked at dredging Brush Pond, which is filling in, according to Ms. Countryman, and Lagoon Pond, which has not been dredged since the 1970s.
The shellfish, harbor and parks committees all recommended that the select board create a dedicated dredge committee to lead the town’s dredging activities. The conservation committee did not give the select board a recommendation.
Ms. Hughes, with the conservation commission, said she did not think that having an additional committee would help address dredging.
“We’re more than happy to have other people gather information for us, but we don’t necessarily see having two, totally different committees that don’t necessarily work well together,” she said.
At its meeting in May, the select board said it would review current policies and told the existing committees to continue to work together.
“Let’s solve it together,” said Dion Alley, the select board chair. “I’d like everybody to get together to figure out what broke, what’s wrong.”
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