With high levels of nitrogen in Sengekontacket Pond threatening everything from marine life to property values, state and local environmental officials have outlined an aggressive plan to clean up the pond that ranges from diverting wastewater from several watersheds to designating the entire pond as a district of critical planning concern.
A pair of quahauggers stood waist-deep in Sengekontacket Pond early Thursday morning, the late August sun glinting off the calm water as they raked hardshell clams, perhaps a basketful for their dinner. The pond has been open to summer shellfishing this year for the first time since 2007.
Sengekontacket Pond will re-open for shellfishing Friday morning following state tests that came back clean, Edgartown shellfish constable Paul Bagnall confirmed.
The pond was closed to shellfishing on July 31 after more than two inches of rain fell, and remained closed this week.
Water testing in the pond was done on Wednesday by the state Division of Marine Fisheries.
A fishing trip on Sengekontacket Pond turned tragic Monday
when two men from Oak Bluffs drowned accidentally several hours after
paddling a one-person kayak out to a sandbar and casting their lines.
In a 1952 aerial photograph of Sengekontacket Pond that hangs behind the door to Augustus Ben David’s World of Reptiles And Birds in Edgartown, you can count two properties — the one you’re standing in and the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary. Today Mr. Ben David estimates that the homes clustered along the shoreline number in the thousands.
Sengekontacket Pond will be closed to shellfishing for four months each year in the peak summer season on a permanent basis, as a result of intractable problems with high levels of dangerous bacteria.
From now on the pond, which spans Edgartown and Oak Bluffs and is a popular spot for recreational clammers, will be closed from the start of April until the end of September annually.
Leading a tour of the Sengekontacket, Felix Neck guide Emily Smith rounded Sarsons Island Friday in her red kayak and stopped. Something in the pond had caught her eye. She backtracked, peered into the water for a few moments and then pulled out a horseshoe crab. The kayakers on the tour crowded around for a look, bumping their boats together as they packed in. She flipped the crab over to show its small legs squirming in the air and began spelling out facts about the creature.
The quahaugs of Sengekontacket lie unmolested this morning, lucky survivors of a mass taking carried out in the 48 hours prior to a summer-long closure of the pond which began Monday.
On Sunday morning Edgartown clammer Manny Jardin was pulling out quahaugs as fast as he could plant his rake.
“Hear that? That rock? Maybe it’s a rock. So you scrape,” Mr. Jardin coached as he sifted through bottom of Anthier’s Pond just east of the Big Bridge. “And . . . voila.”
The Oak Bluffs conservation commission this week received a waiver from the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act that is expected to fast-track plans to dredge Sengekontacket Pond. The dredge project is intended to improve tidal circulation and reduce bacteria levels.
Bacteria counts recorded in 2007 by the Division of Marine Fisheries during an annual spot check showed high levels of coliform bacteria, automatically triggering a three-year closure for shellfishing from June though September. This is the third year for the closure.
Dr. Seuss was prophetic (and likely his words and works always will be). I have been lucky to have been able to go to many wild and wonderful places both near andfar. The places that inspire me most are always close to water.
