inside: a day in the life of a quahogger profile of a …...inside: a day in the life of a quahogger...

INSIDE:A Day in the Life of a QuahoggerProfile of a Shellfish FarmerPhoto Essay: Living on the Edge of Roy Carpenter’s Beach

PLUS:How climate change threatens septic systemsA chef’s perspective on cooking local seafood

VOL 7 NO 2 SUMMER/FALL 2013

A PUBLICATION OF RHODE ISLAND SEA GRANT & THE COASTAL INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND • A SEA GRANT INSTITUTION

41°N

Editorial StaffMonica Allard Cox, EditorJudith SwiftMeredith HaasAlan Desbonnet

Graphic DesignMonica Allard Cox

Cover Art for this IssueEric Lutes

About 41° N

41° N is published twice per year by the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program and the Coastal Institute at the University of Rhode Island (URI). The name refers to the latitude at which Rhode Island lies.

Rhode Island Sea Grant is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and was established to promote the conservation and sustain-able development of marine resources for the public benefit through research, outreach, and education.

The URI Coastal Institute works in partnerships to provide a neutral setting where knowledge is advanced, issues discussed, information synthesized, and solutions developed for the sustain-able use and management of coastal ecosystems. The Coastal Institute works across and beyond traditional struc-tures to encourage new approaches to problem solving.

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From the Editor

Rhode Island Sea Grant and the URI Coastal Institute are involved in two statewide coastal resources management efforts—the R.I. Shellfish Management Plan and the R.I. Shoreline Change Special Area Management Plan (Beach SAMP). Rhode Islanders have expressed concerns through these planning efforts regarding how to maintain a thriving shellfish resource and industry, and how to deal with increasing erosion and flooding in communities all along the coast. Those concerns were the inspiration for some of the articles in this issue.

For information on the research findings, stakeholder meetings, and public events for each of these plans, please visit the Rhode Island Sea Grant website at seagrant.gso.uri.edu and see “Special Projects.”

We are interested in what you have to say. Please write to use at [email protected] or call (401) 874-6800. I look forward to hearing from you. —Monica Allard Cox

1seagrant.gso.uri.edu/41N

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tent

sA DAY IN THE LIFE OF A QUAHOGGER: A PROFILE OF JEFF GRANTBY SARAH SCHUMANN

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A QUIRKY BUSINESS: A PROFILE OF OYSTER GROWER JIM ARNOUXBY EMILY GREENHALGH

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LIVING ON THE EDGE OF ROY CARPENTER’S BEACHBY KATHIE FLORSHEIM, ANGELO SIMEONI, AND SANDRA A. WALKER

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UP THE RIVER AND OVER THE DAMBY ALAN DESBONNET

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POINT OF ENTRY: AN ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE ON PUBLIC ACCESS

BY MEREDITH HAAS

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WHEN COASTAL EROSION THREATENS PROPERTY, WHO’S RESPONSIBLE? BY MONICA ALLARD COX

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NEW USES FOR SWIMMING SCALLOPSBY KELLY KITTEL

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25THE QUAHOG STATEBY KELLY KITTEL

A SHORT HISTORY OF OYSTERS IN RHODE ISLAND’S SALT PONDSBY VIRGINIA LEE, EDITED BY KATHARINE MCDUFFIE

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38CLIMATE HURTING YOUR SYSTEM? BY MEREDITH HAAS

COOKING LOCAL SEAFOOD

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PHOTO BY MELISSA DEVINE

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PHOTOS BY MELISSA DEVINE

A Day in the Life of a QuahoggerA PROFILE OF JEFF GRANT


By Sarah SchumannEvery other weekday winter morn-

ing, the quiet waters of Greenwich Bay suddenly erupt in activity. At 7:45 a.m., the hum of outboard motors over-whelms the din of the wind; seconds later, a swarm of 20-foot quahog skiffs emerges from behind a veil of fog.

The boats, some three dozen in all, arrive from every direction and settle into a constellated cluster in the center of the bay. All share the same objective: to harvest three bushels of quahogs apiece before the close of the fishing day at twelve o’clock.

By 7:50, with engines silenced, one or two oiler-clad shellfishermen aboard each boat begin to assem-ble their gear. Long aluminum poles, called stales, are pieced together into even longer poles, clinched together with stainless steel clamps. At the bottom of the assemblage is a square steel bullrake: a basket measuring

two feet across with a series of teeth jutting out from its mouth at a 90-de-gree angle.

In a few minutes, these rakes will be plunged into the muddy bottom of Greenwich Bay, to scratch through the murky sediments in search of the quahogs buried there. But the qua-hoggers must wait until eight o’clock, when the day officially opens. For 10 minutes, they banter on the VHF radio, teasing one another about how long they take to catch a daily limit, and other matters that only quahoggers discuss.

At eight o’clock sharp, a splash oc-curs, as dozens of bull rakes enter the water in unison. The quahoggers posi-tion themselves alongside the rails of their boats, and when the rake heads hit bottom, they begin to rotate the T-handles welded onto the upper end of their stales, so as to dig the rakes’ teeth into the mud below. With the aid of the wind, they simultaneously

push and pull their rakes, moving their boats sideways through the water to cover more ground.

One of the quahoggers on the Bay is Jeff Grant. While Grant’s 20.6-foot, 115-horsepower boat is largely indis-tinguishable from the others, Grant himself stands out in two important aspects. First, at 27, he is measurably younger than most Rhode Island qua-hoggers. Second, as the vice president of the Rhode Island Shellfishermen’s Association, he is a well-respected leader in his community.

Despite his young age, Grant has many years of quahogging under his belt. He started quahogging after elementary school and continued through college. But it wasn’t until he graduated from the University of Rhode Island, where he got a degree in fisheries, that he decided that this was what he wanted to do with his life.

Being a commercial shellfishermen “seemed like the natural thing to do,”

A Profile of Jeff Grant

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Grant says of his decision to pursue the same livelihood practiced by his father and grandfather before him. “I like doing it. I worked on doing stud-ies with scientists in college, and I couldn’t stand it—because I was used to being outside all the time.”

Few members of Grant’s generation have taken up shellfishing as a liveli-hood. He can think of only four or five

other quahoggers under the age of 30. One of the reasons for the shortage of young people, he says, is cost.

“To get going with a nice set-up,” Grant explains, “it would take $5,000 to $7,000, and that’s a big nut to crack right off the bat. Think of how many slurpees you could buy.”

But the larger challenge, Grant admits, is the discipline required to make a fishing career work.

“It takes a different kind of person to be a fisherman. It takes self-moti-vation to go to work,” Grant says. “The best part of the job is that you get to be your own boss. And the worst part is that you have to be your own boss.”

Grant makes the most of that autonomy by piecing together a year-round strategy from several different fisheries. He quahogs 150 days a year. He also has a larger boat, which he uses for gillnetting. During the

month of March, he travels to south-east Alaska to fish for black cod and halibut.

For Grant, participating in multiple fisheries isn’t just about learning new skills or targeting different markets: it’s a reaction to what he sees as an uncertain future for the quahog industry.

“The reason I’m getting in to other

things,” Grant explains, “is that I don’t know if quahogging is going to sustain itself.”

Despite a healthy resource, there are signs of trouble in the quahogging industry. According to Grant, the price has dropped by half since he started quahogging 16 years ago. In large part, the price drop has resulted from seasonal irregularity in the number of quahogs landed. In wintertime, an influx of quahoggers into seasonally open areas like Greenwich Bay results

in a flood of the quahog market; in summertime, when some of Narra-gansett Bay’s best areas are closed, many quahoggers pull their boats out of the water. As a result, shellfish dealers are forced to look elsewhere to obtain a consistent product, and Rhode Island loses out on market share.

The solution, according to Grant, is to expand the number of fulltime boats in the quahogging industry.

“There aren’t enough new people coming in. And that means there isn’t enough product, and the dealers can’t count on us to supply them like they used to. That’s going to be the down-fall of the fishery.”

Because of this problem and others identified by the shellfish industry, Rhode Island Sea Grant, the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council, and the R.I. Department of Environmental Management (DEM) have teamed up to coordinate a Rhode Island Shellfish Management Plan. This two-year project, which began in January 2013, will examine a wide range of issues and opportunities re-lated to the state’s shellfish resources.

Grant highlights several issues that he and his fellow shellfishermen would like to see addressed in the plan. First, he says, they would like to build better communication between the industry and DEM, the entity responsible for overseeing closed areas, trip limits, and other measures designed to protect the species and the quality of the product. In addition, says Grant, the industry sees a need for new research.

“We need a better understanding of what makes the industry thrive, both biologically speaking and economical-ly speaking,” Grant says.

Recently, quahoggers have been collaborating with scientists to resolve some of the doubts about the biology of the resource. A coopera-tive study funded by the Southern New England Collaborative Research

Quahoggers work quickly to catch their quota before the close of the fishing day.


Initiative enrolls commercial quahog-gers to pull bullrakes alongside the hydraulic clam dredge utilized by DEM to measure the density of quahogs on the bottom, a measurement that is then used to inform stock assessment calculations.

The purpose of this study is to verify that the state’s hydraulic dredge is performing similarly to the bullrakes used in commercial quahogging. Grant hopes that this study will clarify recent discrepancies between DEM’s calculations and commercial shell-fishermens’ observations, and lead to improved management.

Although doubts and quarrels exist between the shellfish industry and state regulators, Grant has faith that good communication can resolve them. Resolving differences of opin-ion, he says, is made more practical

by the fact that shellfishing is a state-waters industry.

“These are Rhode Island’s clams,” Grant stresses. “And we’re managing them for the future.”

As noon draws near, the wind picks up and the boats begin to head in. Grant pours his three bushels of quahogs into large mesh bags, dons a hooded rain jacket, and turns his skiff towards Warwick Cove. Arriving at the dock, he carries his three bags of qua-hogs into a small shellfish receiving station located on the basement floor of a water-view restaurant. Inside, there are dozens of other quahoggers unloading their catch, and although they have been digging side by side all morning, this is their first chance to interact face to face. They hurry to sort the day’s harvest by size class—littlenecks, topnecks, and chowders—

and motor off to their home docks.For Grant, the afternoon ahead may

consist of working on one of his boats, or it may involve representing his fellow quahoggers at a management meeting. It is a role he is well prepared for.

“I like to think I can see both sides,” Grant says. “A working knowledge of the management side, since I went to college for fisheries, and since I’m a fisherman, a knowledge of the fishing side. I’m sure that one side comes out on top of the other 90 percent of the time, but at least I can understand where the other side is coming from.”

Quahogger Gerry Schey works Greenwich Bay one winter morning.

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Up the river andRestoration projects seek to return fish and habitats to the Pawcatuck River

over the dam


By Alan DesbonnetHistorically, dams were

erected throughout New England during the heyday of the Industrial Revolu-tion to harness the power of running water for the production of hard goods

ranging from textiles to weaponry. Today, many of these dams still exist, often as no more than relics of a bygone manufacturing era.

The Pawcatuck River borders Rhode Island and Connecticut, and is the

main tributary feeding into Little Narragansett Bay. It once served as a migratory fish pathway connecting saltwater and freshwater environments. The many dams throughout the wa-tershed impede travel along the migratory pathway, and restoration of this habitat is one of the goals of an interstate management plan adopted by the R.I. Coastal Resources Man-agement Council and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (now Department of Energy & Environmental Protec-tion) in 1992.

Now, decades after adoption of the interstate

management plan, accom-plishing the goal of reha-bilitating the river for fish migration is tangible. Open access to spawning and feeding habitat for salmon, alewives, shad, Atlantic herring, and blueback herring, to name a few, is poised to occur.

Restoration of free and open access to riverine eco-systems is neither simple nor straightforward, howev-er. It is a highly complex un-dertaking that crisscrosses environmental, social, and economic interests. “People live along the river, there are businesses on the river, and there is a large contin-gency of user groups that

Up the river andover the dam

Opposite page: The Pawcatuck River is shared by Rhode Island and Connecticut. Top photo by Bill Owens, bottom photo by Con-nienjay via wickimedia commons.

This page: Site on the Pawcatuck River of Lower Shannock Falls, after dam removal. Photo courtesy the Wood-Pawcatuck Water-shed Association. Map courtesy the University of Connecticut Library.

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Historic Horseshoe Falls dam in West Kingston, R.I., during construction of the fish ladder and eel way. Tannins from the leaves of oak trees, prevalent in the watershed, turn the water brown.

PHOTO BY DUANE DEGUTIS

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recreate on and along the river,” says Chris Fox. “And all this has to be taken into consideration as part of the goal of fish passage. The fish are only part of a pretty complicated jigsaw puzzle.” Fox is executive director of the Wood Pawcatuck Watershed Association, the leading environmental or-ganization involved in cre-ation of the 1992 manage-ment plan. The WPWA is the first group in Rhode Island to undertake a permitted dam removal project, and its work, in cooperation with regulators, has led to a new way of thinking and permitting.

According to Fox, this project “has opened ap-proximately 1,500 acres of habitat, much of it relatively undisturbed, undeveloped riparian ecosystem, that is mighty inviting as spawning and forage area for shad, herring, and salmon, to name a few.”

Despite the benefits of dam removal, the Horse-

shoe Falls in Shannock is both scenic and historic, and public opinion suggest-ed removal was not going to be an agreeable solution.

“There was no way residents were going to be happy with a part of their history and culture being taken way, whether for fish or otherwise,” notes Fox. “There was little opposition to enhancing fish passage, but lots with regard to removal of a cultural icon of such historic value and sig-nificance to the town and the people who live there.”

Unfortunately when logjams like this occur in the resources management realm, the end result is often litigation and lasting bitterness, or at the very least, a dissatisfacto-ry compromise. The end results, however, are often lack-luster.

“People in this area highly value the river as a resource, and truly did want to see fish have free passage,” says Fox. “So they

asked us to find another way, and we did by getting creative.”

The project team came up with a design that allows the Horseshoe Falls to re-main intact, but is modified to include a non-intrusive fish passageway that guides fish around the dam, and includes an innova-tive “eelway” to promote passage of the American eel, which is a species of special concern. The passageway is also crafted in a way that blends into the dam site and adjacent properties, to the extent that the rockwork is histori-cally correct in both texture and color with the original, historic dam and neighbor-ing stone walls.

While the Horseshoe Falls presented perhaps the most difficult challenge, there is still more to do be-fore the watershed provides free and open access from Little Narragansett Bay into Worden’s Pond.

The dam at Kenyon In-

dustries holds back enough water for fire suppression at the facility, and is a last major hurdle. Removal of this dam would put a burden on the company, which would then need to implement expensive fire suppression options that it can ill afford. So, Fox and the project team decided to create a type of fish pas-sage that is relatively new but has proven successful in other river restoration—a natural rock ramp that presents fish with steps to “climb” up and over the retention basin. “While removal of the dam would be the ideal ecological solution,” says Fox, “a com-promise that allows fish passage while still allowing adequate water retention for fire suppression was the practical outcome that pro-vided the biggest ecologic bang with the smallest eco-nomic sting to our industry partner.”

Fox thinks that other remaining impediments, such as a U.S. Geological Survey stream flow gauging station, should be relatively easy to resolve.

Twenty years after adop-tion of the interstate man-agement plan, the Pawca-tuck watershed is nearing the goal of open access for fish to move up and down its length. The total cost of dam removal and building fish passages is estimated to be $3.5 million. Fox is aware that even project proponents will want to know: “Was it worth it?”

“Removing barriers along the river, regardless of any-

The Old Stone Dam on the Wood River is a typical dam in the Pawcatuck watershed, and perhaps the first dam to be erected in Rhode Island based on English engineer-ing plans. Photo courtesy the R.I. Department of Environmental Management.


thing else, restores the eco-system to a natural state and that can’t be a bad thing,” says Fox. Granted, things have changed in the watershed, and will con-tinue to do so, particularly in light of climate change. However, says Fox, “We’ve provided the opportunity [for the watershed] to re-spond naturally to change, and that, in and of itself is worth the cost in time, effort, and real dollars.”

A big challenge according to Fox, will be monitoring the fish passage, which “is usually a low priority

for funding, especially in today’s trying economy.” The R.I. Department of En-vironmental Management and the WPWA will perform, at a minimum, monitoring for presence or absence of migratory species. But Fox notes that biologists are keen to find funding to sup-port more aggressive fish sampling practices that will provide the ability to better measure outcomes of the restoration efforts.

Alan Desbonnet is Rhode Island Sea Grant’s assis-tant director. He was part of the Sea Grant effort that designed the interstate management plan.

The completed fish ladder and eel way at the historic Horseshoe Falls dam site. Photo courtesy the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association.

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By Emily Greenhalgh Running an oyster farm

is not your typical 40-hour workweek. Jim Arnoux, the 32-year-old owner of East Beach Farms and president of the Ocean State Aqua-culture Association, has spent the past nine years tending up to 3 million oysters annually in Charles-town’s Ninigret Pond, the largest of the nine salt ponds in Southern Rhode Island. During the growing season, from March to November, he could spend 50 to 60 hours a week at his two farms, tending to his oysters and equipment.

One of the founding members of the Ocean State Shellfish Coopera-tive, Arnoux grew up on the water. He began his fishing career shellfishing with his uncles on the south shore of Long Island and, when he moved to the Ocean State at 18 to earn his bachelor’s degree in coastal policy and management from the University of Rhode Island, he started quahogging and working on fish trap boats. It was in 2002 that Arnoux “put four years of college to good use and contin-ued quahogging,” he jokes.

A PROFILE OF OYSTER GROWER JIM ARNOUX

He said what made him eventually turn his eye to oyster aquaculture was the declining price in little-necks (from a high of 25 cents to 15 cents or less). “It just kept drifting down as the price for everything else was going up. I saw the writing on the wall, at least short term, and decided it was time to do something else,” he said.

“I didn’t know anything about oyster aquaculture, I just saw other people doing it at my dock,” said Arnoux, who got his first farm lease with fellow shellfisherman Nick Papa in 2004. “All those guys I first met, we’re all part of the cooperative now to sell our oysters. It was just kind of right place, right time,” he said, adding that some days he feels like “right place, right time” accounts for the majority of his success. Papa owns and runs East Beach Oyster Co., which is located in Ninigret Pond alongside Arnoux’s farm.

For the first few years, until his farm was fully up and running, Arnoux sup-plemented his income both by continuing to quahog and working as a fisheries

observer up and down the East Coast, at one point commuting from Washing-ton, D.C., where his fiancé was working as a lawyer. “You suddenly get to the point where the farm is your full time job. It happens slowly and then suddenly you realize ‘this is what I do now,’” said Arnoux, adding that all of the members of the co-op were traditional commercial fisherman be-fore venturing into aqua-culture.

The Ocean State Shellfish Cooperative comprises six different oyster farms in Rhode Island, all touting unique tastes and charac-teristics. On its website, the cooperative refers to itself as a “microbrewery for oysters.” Joining East Beach Farms in the cooperative are Cedar Island Oyster Farm, East Beach Oyster Co., Matunuck Oyster Farm, Ninigret Oyster Farm, and Rome Point Oyster Farm. Together, the six farms lease roughly 50 acres. Arnoux’s farm raises East Beach Blondes, oysters that boast a taste that’s “silky and smooth with a mild and salty flavor.” According to the company’s website, “the

a Quirky Business

Opposite page: Jim Arnoux, pictured with mate Dan Lague (right), grows up to 3 million oysters annually.

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finish is mild and lingering with hints of minerals.”

In order to grow his Blondes to their tastiest, Arnoux purchases small oyster seed from several hatcheries and places it in an upweller system, one of about 10 in the state. The so-lar-powered upweller system acts as a nursery and uses a pump to circu-late food-rich water past the oysters at a faster rate so they take in more nutrients more quickly. The upweller is owned by fellow co-op member Rob Krause of Ninigret Oyster Farm. Arnoux, Krause, and Papa have shared duties at the nursery since 2011. After the oysters near an inch in size (in 6 to 8 weeks) under Krause’s care, they are moved into shallow grow-out areas where they are placed in bags suspended by racks, where they are tended for the rest of the summer and

fall by Arnoux and Papa. From seed to plate, the average oyster takes 18 to 20 months to grow.

The Ocean State Shellfish Coop-erative paints a picture of a small business-led aquaculture industry in Rhode Island, and that’s mostly true, according to Arnoux. While there are a few larger companies, most of Rhode Island’s shellfish farming industry is comprised of owner-operators with a small number of employees and relatively small leases.

“It’s kind of quirky,” said Arnoux. “Our shellfish and our gear are private property, but we lease public space.” He said that he felt the overall public opinion seems to favor more small operators leasing small areas than a few big companies leasing large areas. Some of this sentiment may be attributed to the size of the state’s oyster industry in the early 1900s, when much of upper Narragansett Bay was leased to oyster companies.

The biggest hurdle the industry fac-es, in terms of expanding, is the small size of Rhode Island. The Ocean State lives up to its moniker and different users, from farmers to beach-goers, want to use the water in their own ways.

“Use conflicts have always been and probably will continue to be the biggest limiting factor in aquaculture,” said Arnoux, adding that the ecolog-ical carrying capacity is higher than what the social carrying capacity is in

terms of user conflicts. “We’re a small industry but we’re

growing,” said Graham Brawley, sales-man and manager for the cooperative. Brawley said that the industry often gets pushback when looking to ex-pand, whether from regulatory agen-cies or from landowners who prefer to see jet-skis to a working waterfront.

“There are plenty of areas in the country where a working waterfront does not detract from the value of the home,” said Brawley, adding: “We’re not talking about skid row, or the long-shoreman docks of San Jose. We’re talking about Charlestown, Rhode Island, and the quaint little coastal ponds where there can be farming.”

In addition to contributing to the state’s economy, shellfish farming improves the health of the coastal environment, said Brawley. “Putting shellfish back in the ponds is going to help them continue to get healthy,” he added.

A number of the state’s growers, including Arnoux, have completed oyster restoration work with the Nat-ural Resources Conservation Service, a part of the U.S. Department of Agri-culture. The work, currently on hold, contracted farmers to grow oysters on an organic substrate until they were large enough to be placed on beds of clamshells within the Department of Environmental Management’s spawn-er sanctuaries to help restore natural oyster populations and habitats.

Frozen oyster bags on Ninigret Pond. Photo By Jim Arnoux.


Although the official reports on how the oyster reefs sustained themselves haven’t been publicized yet, Arnoux said he could see a noted improve-ment in some areas. “I know, just from what I’ve seen, just searching around when I have time in the pond, there’s more oysters there than there were a few years ago.” In certain areas, the oyster repopulation led to more areas for harvesting for certain fishermen. “So the program provided an econom-ic benefit beyond just the ecological value of creating these oyster reefs,” said Arnoux.

The aquaculture industry is grow-ing, but Arnoux believes, for long-term success, it also needs to start diver-sifying. “At some point, it would be nice to see something bigger, whether it’s the existing businesses expanding or a couple of people come in with a vision to do something new,” he said.

“Oysters will probably always be the main species grown here. The waters here produce really great oysters and they’re in demand,” said Arnoux, who added that he worries what price pressure or coast-wide overproduc-tion will do to the industry in the long term. He said there should be more research to help growers develop suitable culture methods for other species, such as bay scallops, razor clams and seaweed. This will give growers a lot better protection against either a price drop or a potential dis-ease with oysters.

“Every 10 years or so, some area waterbody always has a catastrophe with oysters where a disease or other natural event comes through and just wipes a big number of them out,” he said.

The main issue with diversifying is that many of the culture methods used in aquaculture are both site and species specific. While Arnoux said several growers are looking to develop mussel farms, the main problem in that regard is that farming mussels takes up significantly more acreage

than the rack-and-bag style of aqua-culture commonly used for oyster farming.

“So the issue is: Where does it fit in the state, given all the different water uses?” asked Arnoux, adding that he still saw “big potential” in mussel farming.

Other potential species include bay scallops and razor clams, which Arnoux called “trickier to grow and, in the case of bay scallops, more sensi-tive to environmental conditions.” Bay scallops only live two years and farm-ers can lose much of their crop over the first winter, still “there’s potential there,” said Arnoux. To make it work, both farmers and regulators are going to have to be flexible, he added. Diver-sifying will require utilizing more than just the bottom of the water column, and gear that would be visible such as floats and buoys.

“Right now the emphasis in general is to have gear out of sight to maintain

aesthetics, especially in the ponds. Keep things on the bottom and out of sight, but that doesn’t work for every species,” said Arnoux. “The burden isn’t all on state regulatory agencies. Some of it is just on growers to be economically viable enough to go out and take a risk with another species. That’s definitely at least half the equation,” he said, adding that the general desire for aquaculture gear to go unseen might discourage grow-ers from taking a chance with other species.

Currently, Rhode Island Sea Grant is working with the R.I. Coastal Re-sources Management Council and the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, as well as area shell-fishermen, to create the Rhode Island Shellfish Management Plan (SMP), a document designed to provide policy guidelines regarding the manage-ment and protection measures for the shellfish located within the state’s

Keeping shellfish alive over the winter can be a challenge for farmers.

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waters. Arnoux said he believes the SMP process is a good opportunity to reduce regulatory redundancies and a chance to help the shellfish farming industry flourish in Rhode Island. One of the ways that’s possible is by recog-nizing aquaculture as farming and regulate it accordingly, said Arnoux.

“There’s always been a pushback between fishermen and regulatory bodies,” said Brawley, “but farming is not the fishing industry. It’s very, very different, and our ap-proach to how we manage our own product is very different from the way that fisheries should be managed and have been managed in the past.”

Rhode Island’s aquaculture industry is approaching $3 million in annual sales and roughly 85 to 100 jobs, includ-ing some seasonal and part-time workers. On average, the industry has grown at roughly a 20 percent clip each year.

“The industry is growing, but it would be nice to see it get to another level and see, in the next five to ten years, a $10 million industry with 500 jobs or 1,000 jobs,” said Arnoux, adding that he hoped that common problems, such as use conflicts and ecological carrying capacities, can be researched and addressed publicly through the SMP process.

“You look at this piece of water and see the different uses and say: ‘Well this is the commons, this is the number of people who are using or want to use this area, but what’s its highest value?’” said Arnoux. Currently, aquaculture leases in the state’s salt ponds cannot exceed, in total, more than 5 percent of the area of the pond. “Ecological-ly speaking, recent research has shown that the ponds could support far more than that 5 percent limit. But also pushing against that is: What’s the social carrying capacity with all the different uses or even just the availability of waterfront access and infrastructure? If we can find a bal-ance and recognize that aquaculture is a very productive use of the commons, then I think the industry can continue to grow.”

Ending on a lighter note, Arnoux made sure to add: “Shellfish farming is really a wonderful business to be in right now, yet sometimes I take it all too seriously be-cause you never know when nature is going to put you out of business,” he said. “That said, the industry in Rhode Island is filled with a number of innovative and creative people who are going to take it to the next level if given the freedom to.”

Emily Greenhalgh is a science writer and former marine biologist.

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By Meredith Haas Viewers may find Richard Keen’s

maze of intertwining dock structures stretching from the floor the ceiling rather confusing. Where does it begin and where does it end?

Keen’s installation, which was on display at the Coleman Burke Gallery in Brunswick, Maine, was inspired by wharves and docks, and the limited access citizens in Maine have to the waterfront.

“Most of Maine's coastline is ac-cessible to less than 2 percent of the public,” Keen said in a presentation at URI’s Fine Arts Department to show-case his work supported by the Visual Arts Sea Grant. “There is no point of

Point of Entry An artist’s perspective on public access to waterfronts

entry, and if there's no point of entry where do we go?”

Keen explained that this installa-tion, “engages wharf structures, the lack of accessibility, and the issue of man’s attempts to conquer nature in overbuilding.”

The installation also includes video and paintings focused on the un-derwater environment with a cen-tral theme centered on chains from moorings. Keen owns and runs a small business servicing moorings, which he says inspires him as an artist as well.

“I like to reflect how we see and feel things underwater,” he said. “There's a beauty and brutality in marine equip-ment that clash. There's beauty in the

ocean but also a darkness.”As a multidimensional artist, Keen

says he likes taking a step back from the literal view and looks for different perspectives. “For some, there are philosophical components to my use of chains. They could be interpreted as holding you in place and giving you safety, or be viewed as holding you back.”

Keen credited the Visual Arts Sea Grant for supporting his passion.

“Funds like the Visual Arts Sea Grant are immensely appreciated and helpful in supporting artists like me.”


By Monica Allard CoxFlorida’s Highway A1A runs along

the Atlantic coast, in some cases on a narrow strip of barrier beach, from the state’s northern border all the way to Key West. In St. Johns County, a por-tion of the road was prone to wash-outs during hurricanes, and in 1979, the state moved the road further from the coast and gave ownership of a 1.6-mile stretch of road to the county.

Despite already having a 25-year history of erosion in 1979, adjacent properties continued to be developed. The county struggled to maintain the road for several years when a storm turned the middle segment of the road into a beach, cutting the road in half. In 2004, a hurricane washed away the southernmost portion of the road. Though the county built a $1 million berm to protect the road, it, too, soon washed away.

Residents eventually sued the county for failing to maintain the road and preventing them access to their homes.

Could Rhode Island face such a scenario?

Last October’s post-tropical cyclone Sandy destroyed homes in Matunuck, in some cases despite expensive revetments designed to protect them, says Janet Freedman, coastal geol-ogist for the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). Mis-quamicut suffered heavy damages, as did Narragansett’s Coast Guard House restaurant and the town’s seawall.

Still, Rhode Island’s barrier beaches are relatively undeveloped, Freedman

When coastal erosion threatens

Communities wrestle with saving coastal roads in Florida and Rhode Island

property, who’s responsible?

says, in part thanks to hurricanes that hit the state in 1938 and 1954. “A lot of those areas were bought by the state, and are now under CRMC jurisdiction,” Freedman says, adding that devel-opment of barriers is now prohibited. “There are still a lot of private hold-ings, but they’re not allowed to be redeveloped.”

Nevertheless, there are some areas in Rhode Island where disputes over measures to deal with an eroding coastline have arisen among munic-ipalities, home and business owners, environmental advocates, and the state.

Moving beyond seawallsSouth Kingstown’s Matunuck Beach

Road has faced increasing threats from erosion. In 2011, the town requested that the CRMC permit the building of a seawall to protect the

road, which serves as the only access for 250 homes. A water pipe serving over 1,600 customers also runs under the road.

The CRMC initially denied the per-mit, which critics said could destroy the beach adjacent to the wall, along with area properties and business-es such as the Ocean Mist bar. One lawyer compared the enormity of the wall that would have been required to effectively combat erosion as akin to building the Great Wall of China.

In a memo to the council, CRMC Executive Director Grover Fugate called for the construction of a tem-porary sheet pile wall as a “stop gap” to protect the health and safety of the area’s residents. In the meantime, he proposed, the CRMC could work with the town on more effective long-term strategies that would protect both the

Scenic Highway A1A runs along Florida’s coast. Photo by A.E. Crane.

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road and the beach. The council re-lented, and the CRMC developed draft regulations for experimental coastal erosion control methods—such as geomattresses that dissipate wave action—to be tested in Matunuck, as well as in Westerly.

These measures will be part of a larger “Beach SAMP” (Special Area Management Plan) the CRMC is initi-ating with assistance from the Univer-sity of Rhode Island, the URI Coastal Resources Center, and Rhode Island Sea Grant that will look at erosion hot spots all along the state’s shoreline.

What is not likely to be a major focus of the plan are seawalls, which, according to Freedman, offer limited protection from storms and erosion.

“People have a false sense of safety if they have a seawall,” she says. “If shoreline structures were built to specifications that would actually protect properties in a hurricane, they would be prohibitively expensive, no one would see the coast because they would be so high, and they’d have to

extend onto public lands.” That issue of ownership has been a contentious one in Massachusetts, Freedman says, citing a case of a seawall that private property owners can’t afford to maintain and are seeking to have the municipality take responsibility for.

In Misquamicut during Sandy, “dunes and setbacks worked much better” than many of the revetments, Freedman says.

Still, setbacks and prohibitions against development mean that some areas that might have been developed as homes or hotels remain vacant. “Most coastal communities generate a lot of money from their coasts—it’s a big property tax base. Coastal communities have to bal-ance a lot of things, and it’s not easy,” Freedman says.

Florida lawsuit settled, but problems remain

In Florida earlier this year, St. Johns County and the residents came to a settlement that the county will make

The Ocean Mist, in Matunuck, is threatened by erosion and sea level rise. Photo by Pamela Rubinoff.

Above: One of the Browning Cottag-es in South Kingstown, before and after post-tropical storm Sandy. Photos by Melissa Devine.


a good-faith effort to maintain the road “as is.”

With so many low-lying coastal areas in Florida, however, Thomas Ruppert, coastal community outreach coordinator for Florida Sea Grant, says that the pressures on his state’s seaside property owners from erosion, flooding, and hurricane damage are increasing. Changes to flood maps and increases to National Flood Insur-ance Program (NFIP) premiums are “causing people to lose their homes already, and it’s just getting started.” He describes the story of one couple who gave up their home when their flood insurance rates increased by $1,000 per month.

“It’s especially hard in these poor, rural areas,” he says.

Still, he argues, “the public does not have the money to protect all private property owners and guarantee that they will not be harmed by coastal hazards.”

Ruppert, a lawyer, cites a Florida study that showed the majority of buyers who purchased homes in high-erosion coastal zones were often unaware of coastal hazards and development restrictions affecting their properties, despite a require-

ment that they be notified at the time of purchase.

That notice may be buried in the “big stack of paper” buyers sign at a closing; “you’ll be there for hours if you read through every page,” Rup-pert says, and adds that with having a Realtor and a lawyer helping them through the purchase, many buyers may feel that “if it were a problem, somebody would tell me, right?”

He calls for “meaningful disclosure” so that those buying homes in highly eroding areas “will do it with open eyes.”

Thirty years ago and more, Ruppert says, local governments in Florida avoided takings lawsuits by allow-ing property owners to develop their land, even in threatened areas. Now, he warns that governments may face more economic and legal liability in the future if they do allow develop-ment in hazardous areas. While he cautions that this has not yet been proven in court, “it’s important to get that message out there.”

While some Florida communities have been reluctant to recognize the threats exacerbated by cli-mate change and sea level rise, and resistant to government regulation

of their property, Ruppert hopes to use the NFIP as a “lever” for working with local communities to reduce their flooding risks. This may lower town homeowners’ flood insurance rates through the Community Rating System program of the Federal Emer-gency Management Agency. He is also approaching local business owners, who, he hopes will be receptive to measures to adapt to natural haz-ards. It’s important, he says, “to at least start that conversation.”

Monica Allard Cox is Rhode Island Sea Grant communications director.

Thomas Ruppert spoke at the 9th Marine Law Symposium at Roger Williams University School of Law. For information, visit law.rwu.edu/marine-affairs-institute.

Florida’s Navarre Beach on Santa Rosa Island, a barrier island, is prone to hurricane damage. Photo by Britt Reints.

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New Uses for Swimming ScallopsScientists investigate the commercial potential of sea scallop viscera



By Kelly Kittel When we think about sea scallops

we may picture them either pan-seared or fried. But researchers at the University of Rhode Island (URI) may be changing the way we think about scallops with exciting new discoveries about their beneficial uses in medi-cines or as a tasty new ingredient in fish food.

Chong Lee, URI professor emeritus and research in nutrition and food sciences, says that the value of sea scallops regionally is significant: “The port of New Bedford is not as large as the one in Alaska, but in terms of dol-lar value, it’s the highest ranking port in the U.S. because of scallops.” This is especially interesting as more than half of the scallop itself, once caught, never even reaches the dock.

The part of the scallop people love to eat is the large adductor muscle that grows up to 2 inches in diameter. Fishermen typically shuck their catch at sea, discarding the remaining shell, roe, and viscera. Sea scallop manage-ment regulation limits the commer-cial landings by weight and doesn’t currently differentiate the landing of viscera, which would more than dou-ble the weight landed.

Enter Lee and his team of research-ers at URI. They have been looking at ways to turn byproducts of local fish-eries into marketable commodities. Working with funding from the Com-mercial Fisheries Research Founda-tion and Rhode Island Sea Grant, Lee has spent the past two years studying scallop viscera to find a way to fully

develop its commercial potential for such uses as an ingredient in high value, specialty aquafeed, and for its nutraceutical ingredients. “We’ve been working on (studying the viscera of) squid and other fish species, so we have all the know-how and technology to look at scallop viscera,” Lee says of the new project.

The term “nutraceutical” is used to describe a food or food product that provides health benefits through im-

proved health and disease prevention above and beyond simple nutrition, such as the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil in lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease. Lee and his team have been investigating the nutraceutical properties of scallop viscera hydrolysate (SVH) as well as that of squid. Hydrolysate is produced by breaking down the scallop vis-cera proteins using the animal’s own internal enzymes. They found that

Professor Chong Lee has studied how the portion of the scallop that is usually discarded might be used to feed fish and improve human health.

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SVH may aid lipid, or fat, digestion, which is signif-icant as there are sizable human populations that have problems digesting fats who require such aid. This research also found properties of both squid and scallop viscera that may help lower blood pres-sure.

Lastly, Lee’s team exam-ined the concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA in the SVH. The levels of both EPA and DHA were found to be higher than those in fish, including salmon, and comparable to those in squid hydrolysate.

While the viscera showed promise in reducing hy-pertension, Lee concedes it may not be as effective as products already on the market. “I want to look at it further to validate how important it is,” he says, adding that the team’s study of lipase activity—the fat-digesting enzyme—in SVH is likely “the first

time people have looked at lipase in terms of marine resources.”

Building a better fish foodTraditionally, fish meal

has been used as a primary source of protein for farm-raised fish. However, it is not sustainable, and efforts are being made to find new sources of proteins besides soybean meal. Lee and his team assessed SVH for its attractiveness to fish as a palatant (flavor enhancer) as well as its capacity for stimulating growth. They compared the scallop viscera with that of squid, as well as with soybean and fish meal in a variety of combinations.

Lee and his team con-ducted feeding trials on summer flounder and European sea bass that re-vealed that SVH performed the best in terms of weight gain and feed consumption. They believe this is due to its properties as a feeding

attractant or flavoring that stimulates feeding behav-ior. In other words, scallops taste good, even to fish.

But the use of SVH as a specialty ingredient in aquafeeds, while poten-tially a good option, is not currently feasible due to the high costs of proto-type development and the limited production capabil-ity due to the regulations which limit the landing of scallop viscera, leaving fishermen to chuck it over-board instead.

This may change as production and demand for these products scale up. Worldwide, the increasing demand for aquaculture feed is projected to out-strip the current supply, which will drive prices ever higher. Over time, these higher prices may expand the development of cheap sources of protein such as soybean meal and ingre-dients such as SVH that can be combined to create

feeds suitable to meet the demand.

If regulatory and har-vesting modifications are changed, they will ultimately benefit scal-lop fishermen and bring economic opportunity to the Rhode Island fishing and processing industries while facilitating a sus-tainable seafood supply.

Kelly Kittel is a fish biolo-gist undergoing metamor-phosis to a writer.

In addition to Lee, the project included Emma-nouil Apostolidis, research associate, and Bouhee Kang, graduate research assistant, with support from the Commercial Fish-eries Research Foundation, Rhode Island Sea Grant, the Eastern New England Scallop Association, Sea-food Research Associates, Sea Fresh USA, and Great Bay Aquaculture.

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FOCUS ON OCEAN PLANNING

INSIDE:

The Ocean as New Frontier

Ocean Management in Rhode Island and Around the World

PLUS:Science seeks to help shellfish growers

Local chef serves up seriously sustainable seafood

VOL 7 NO 1 FALL 2012


INSIDE:A Day in the Life of a Quahogger

Profile of a Shellfish Farmer

Photo Essay: Living on the Edge of Roy Carpenter’s Beach

PLUS:How climate change threatens septic systems

A chef’s perspective on cooking local seafood

VOL 7 NO 2 SUMMER/FALL 2013



By Kelly KittelFourteen states have adopted official state shells that

represent their maritime homes because of their beauty, rarity, size, or commercial value. Although neither rare nor beautiful, in 1987, Rhode Island managed to select the shell with the coolest name. “Quahog” derives from the Narragansett Indian name, “poquahock,” and also bears the scientific name, Mercenaria mercenaria, neither of which roll off the tongue. Mercenaria means “wages” in Latin, derived from the Narragansett Indian practice of carving beads from the shells to trade as their form of currency—wampum. So, quahog it is.

Like New York’s scallop and the oyster of Connecticut, Mississippi, and Virginia alike, the quahog is a bivalve, so-called for its two halves. Quahogs are filter feeders, spending most of their lives buried on the bottom of the sea, immobile, with their two necks, or siphons, sticking up into the water like periscopes. One siphon is the entrance and the other the exit. Sea water is sucked in and out, accordion style, at a rate of about a gallon an hour, passing over the clam’s filtering gills, which remove microscopic bits of algae and plankton food, and excrete any sand as clam waste. The gills also filter pollutants, which even at low levels bioaccumulate, making the clam unfit to eat.

The Quahog StateQuahogs of the smallest legally harvestable size are

called little necks. Cherrystones are the mid-sized fellas. And the biggest are chowders, because they are the best size for making that soup we all love. Quahogs, like trees, can be aged by counting the growth rings on their shells, and they grow slower as they mature so their rings get closer together. Legally harvestable little necks have only three or four rings, while researchers estimate that the largest chowders can live to be 100, sadly the ones most likely to be collecting dust on most New England porches.

Quahogs are most abundant between Cape Cod and New Jersey as they don’t like to stick their necks out into the colder waters further north, and to the south there are too many predators. They also prefer water a bit less salty than the ocean, so bays like Narragansett where fresh water mixes in taste just right. We are perfect quahog country, the humble clam our most economically important resource harvested from Narragansett Bay, which provides about a quarter of the nation’s supply.

Rhode Islanders have the right to dig ½ bushel of qua-hogs per person per day but it’s doubtful that many are do-ing so. So, head on out at low tide and dig your toes down in the sand until you feel something hard. Then simply reach down, dig around a bit, and pull up your state shell!

PHOTO BY JESSICA LANGLOIS

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A short history of oysters in Rhode Island’s salt ponds

Shellfishing has been an important part of Rhode Island’s economy for centuries. This look at oyster harvesting and cultivation in Rhode Island’s salt ponds is excerpted from a report from Rhode Island Sea Grant’s archives and edited to highlight a portion of the history of shellfishing in the state during the 19th and 20th centuries.

A collection of shallow salt ponds stretches along the coast of southern Rhode Island from Watch Hill to Point Judith. Largely separated from the sea by barrier spits, yet connected to it through natural and reinforced breachways, the ponds are flushed daily by the tides, sourced with fresh water from streams and groundwater springs, and are inhabited by a great

of summer encampments of Narra-gansett Indians provide evidence of the prodigious oyster crop the ponds yielded in the 1600s. Oysters grew in dense beds along the back of the barrier beaches and in bars that are still present as heaps of shells that form shoals along the barrier beaches today.

In the 1800s the ponds were abun-dant with fish and shellfish; some local farmers made more money fish-ing the ponds than they did farming. Every fall and spring men would dig breachways by hand to ensure the passage of migrating fish, maintain

Excerpted from An Elusive Compromise: Rhode Island Coastal Ponds and Their People by Virginia Lee (1980)Edited by Katharine McDuffie

variety of organisms, notably the American oyster.

The ponds were important sources of fish and shellfish long before re-corded histories of the area. The large quantities of oyster shells found in In-dian shell heaps in some of Rhode Is-land’s coastal salt ponds attest to the abundance of oysters since at least 1000 A.D. Archeological excavations

This Sept. 14, 1930, photo shows a thriving community known as Scalloptown in East Greenwich during the heydey of shellfishing and shellfish aquaculture in Rhode Island. Photo courtesy The Providence Journal Time Lapse Blog.


the brackish conditions for a variety of fish and shellfish, and to raise the salinity and enhance the growth and taste of the mature oysters. Since the pond’s breachways were open only intermittently, the ponds supported extensive oyster beds, and thousands of oysters were harvested each year. Oyster farmers working in Point Judith Pond could rake as much as 20 bush-els in a morning, fill a wagon and cart them home or to the local market.

Over the course of the 19th centu-ry, increasing numbers of summer visitors came to stay in boarding-houses, farmhouses, and hotels along the south shore. By the late 1800s, Narragansett Pier developed into a popular resort and, in 1876, the Nar-ragansett Pier railroad was built. The ponds, still fished by local farmers, were increasingly enjoyed by boaters, picnickers, painters, and bathers. In part to improve the oyster stock, dredging and stabilized breachways were built starting in the late 1800s to increase the flow of seawater neces-sary to feed and fatten seed oysters. When the Charlestown breachway was fortified in 1879, the state leased out sections of the pond for oyster culture. In 1901 the state appropriat-ed funds for the Point Judith breach-way and gave the town authority to lease oyster lots in the pond to Rhode Island residents. After the Point Judith breachway was built in 1906, native oyster populations burgeoned in Point Judith Pond, and the town of South Kingstown leased out portions of the pond bottom.

For a few decades, huge quantities of oysters were commercially grown in the pond, originally from native populations and later from brood stock brought in from Jamestown and other South Shore ponds. For exam-ple, thousands of bushels of oyster seed were obtained from Trustom and Charlestown Ponds in the 1920s and 1930s and put out on the leased beds in Point Judith Pond. In the 1930s and

1940s, commercial oystermen could get 20 bushels of seed oysters a day from Green Hill Pond to seed their beds in Narragansett Bay. Over 1,000 bushels of oysters were taken from Trustom Pond each year as seed for the commercial fishery. After the Trus-tom breach was opened, there was an increase in the salinity of the water and the oysters were said to be tastier because of the increased salt water. Farmers from as far away as Kenyon and Shannock, Rhode Island, would come for the oyster harvest. A farmer could get eight to ten bushels and store them in barrels in back of the house all winter, conveniently thawing and eating them by portion.

But breachways caused a pattern of loss in the oyster fishery, described by Jake Dykstra, whose family dominat-ed the Point Judith oyster fishery after 1914. At first, the natural population grew and was fished. But the oysters didn’t spawn in the higher salinities. Rowboats filled with young oysters from the shores and brackish coves of the pond and other Rhode Island ponds were shoveled off onto beds six to eight feet below the surface. The oysters spawned only along the edges of the pond, where springs and runoff made the water less saline.

After World War II prime agricultural land was lost to intensive residential and highway development and the value of the ponds as sources of food and income was usurped by recre-ational benefits. Stabilized breach-ways were constructed between 1950 and 1960 in all the major south shore ponds, affecting tidal flushing, salinity, sedimentation, fisheries, and plant communities. The shifting sands resulting from the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954 apparently smothered the beds on the southern ends of the ponds. Construction in 1959 of the new bridge to Great Island, a small island in the middle of Point Judith Pond densely populated with summer dwellings, increased tidal exchange,

bring-ing higher salinity and additional predators and hastening the decline of the indige-nous oysters.

Disregarding early lessons, the permanent breachway in Charlestown Pond was constructed in 1952 and the channel dredged to Green Hill Pond in 1962. Shortly after the construc-tion of the breachway, the oyster population gradually receded to back coves, where freshwater springs and streams maintained brackish con-ditions conducive to spawning and inhospitable to saltwater predators such as drills and starfish (seastars). An earthen dam had to be built across Green Hill channel in order to block tidal flushing and lower the salinity sufficiently to regain oyster-spawning conditions in Green Hill Pond.

Although beds in Point Judith Pond were leased until 1968, they, too, grad-ually retreated to fresher waters after the breachway was opened.

The overall effect of the breachway on fisheries was the demise of the very fisheries they were meant to enhance. The abundant brackish water fisheries that yielded thousands of pounds of alewives, perch, and oysters annually were ultimately lost. In many cases, they were replaced by less abundant populations of species such as qua-hogs, bay scallops, and winter floun-der. By 1980, there were only small oyster populations, not all of them healthy, in the brackish back coves of the coastal ponds, giving rise to pilot projects that began to explore the potential of renewed oyster culture.

Katharine McDuffie is program director for URI’s Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting.

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ALL PHOTOS © KATHIE FLORSHEIM.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

While Roy’s is a place devoted to camaraderie and casual living along the shore, there is yet another, although often ignored, reality of sea level rise and climate change. While jumping off a bluff looks like fun, the bluff is evidence of serious erosion.


Photos and essays about climate change in one coastal community

These photographs and essays are part of the project “Living on the Edge,” a collaboration of photographer Kathie Flor-sheim, R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council geologist Janet Freedman, architect/planner Kenneth Filarski, and URI landscape architecture professor Angelo Simeoni. The ongoing project explores Roy Carpenter’s Beach, in Matunuck, R.I., as a model for understanding how a coastal community will be affected by storm damage and sea level rise. Roy’s, an iconic Rhode Island beach community. is seasonally occupied. Prior to Superstorm Sandy, 377 individually owned cot-tages comprised the community. Post Sandy, there are 374 cottages that sit on 50 acres of land owned by the Carpenter family. Sandra A. Miller owns one of these cottages.

Living on the Edge of Roy Carpenter’s Beach

PHOTO © KATHIE FLORSHEIM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Opposite page: There are many rituals at Roy’s one of which is called Splash or Shaving Cream Wars depending on who describes the event. It consists of the kids and many adults making water balloons, hiding a cache of them on the eve of the occasion, and arming them-selves with cans of shaving cream. There is often recon the night pre-ceding the event, in which one or the other team discovers the collection of weapons and steals them. At the crack of dawn, those from the east and west sides of the community attack each other, throwing water balloons, and spraying shaving cream at one another. This recipient seems to revel in her creamy attire.

This page: Informal living is char-acteristic of this community. But again, there is a reminder of the oncoming sea level rise: the blue and wicker chairs happily resided on this deck and on the sand, before Hurricane Sandy arrived. After the storm came through, these chairs became salvage that was collect-ed after the storm and stored on a neighbor’s deck.



by Sandra A. MillerI’ve heard it referred to as the poor man’s Monaco, a slice

of heaven, and, even, paradise. But to our family, it’s simply the beach, as if there’s only one.

Three hundred and seventy four cottages face the ocean in tidy rows, each house spittin’ distance from a handful of others, but none more than a two-minute walk to a stretch of white sand and the blue yawn of the Atlantic. Our son was just one when my husband and I bought a humble, three-room cottage in this camp-ground-turned-leased-land-community. Our daughter came along two Julys later. Now, fourteen years have passed, and not one of us can imagine summer anywhere else.

Although we chose this spot because of the ocean, we are still coming here because of the friends. Here where we have time to connect. Here where we have long swims, shared meals, card games and conversations that last from dinner until the sky is lit with stars and the Saturday night block dance is just breaking up, teens wandering

Slipping Awayhome in a trance of summer love, a coming-of-age novel come to life. Here people slow down. Children wander safely. Doors stay open, and whatever you may need from a hammer and nails to maple syrup can surely be found in some neighbor’s cottage. If no one is home, you go right in and help yourself. Return or replace is the only rule.

When I walk along the beach, as I do every morning, I take stock of what we have, and what I fear we may lose.

Will grandchildren someday visit me here? Will I help them hunt for sea glass along this very shore and pretend we are going to swim to Block Island, seemingly a reach away? Will they have the chance to play bingo in the Fire Barn? Win a cake at the Penny Social? Fall swoon to the simplicity?

I haven’t been down since Hurricane Sandy. I’m afraid to see the damage, the slipping away. Yet we will go back again on Memorial Day weekend, like always. We will open up our cottage and sweep out the winter. We will sit with our friends, laughing and lingering over meals. Because that is what we have here. Time. Nothing but time.

PHOTO © KATHIE FLORSHEIM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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By Angelo Simeoni

For more than 90 years people have enjoyed the beach and community atmosphere of Roy Carpenter’s Beach. Located on 50 acres in the Matunuck Beach area of south-ern Rhode Island, this coastal community has evolved to its present day 377 cottages (actually 374 after hurri-cane Sandy) since the early 1920s. It all began when Roy Carpenter, a local farmer, purchased the land in 1918 for agricultural uses. Individuals attracted to the beach ap-proached Roy to rent land and set up tents. The community evolved into a tent and trailer community by the 1930s. After the 1938 hurricane, Roy Carpenter’s became a more permanent development with trailers and cottages. In the 1950s most of the trailers were converted to cottages, and more cottages were added, as this affordable summer retreat adjacent to the vast beach attracted middle class families who enjoyed the company of a close community with wide social interaction.

The south shore of Rhode Island has always been viewed as vulnerable to severe storms. Roy Carpenter must have

Watching the Weather at Roy’s realized this. When he developed the community he chose the highest elevations on his property to place cottages. According to flood plain maps, more than half of the cot-tages at Roy Carpenter’s are located outside the 100-year flood zone. Unfortunately, as our climate changes and the atmosphere warms, scientists predict that more severe storms will continue to erode our shoreline, thus redefin-ing it. This has begun to take its toll on Roy Carpenter’s Beach, placing it at greater risk. No one, including Roy, could have planned for this change.

As the effects of climate change continue to increase, communities like Roy Carpenter’s will redefine their coastal boundaries. Residents will be forced to move their homes to higher ground or they will simply vanish into the sea. As we observe the changes at Roy Carpenter’s Beach, we ask ourselves one major question: If we cannot solve the problems of this small-scale community, what will be-come of Westerly, Newport, Providence, Boston, New York, and all of the coastal communities in between?

This cottage was one of those that was damaged by the storm, and subsequently moved to a cornfield for storage, awaiting relocation off the waterfront. This cottage has been in this location on the shore since the 1950s, having been built by the present owners. PHOTO © KATHIE FLORSHEIM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.


After Hurricane Sandy came through, this is what the first row of houses looked like. The irony is that the San-dy hit our shoreline as a storm, not a hurricane or even as a tropical storm. Sandy side-swiped us, and none-theless did a lot of damage.


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Phylly Pilkington shows off the fruits of her labor, and gardening skills.



By Kathie FlorsheimThe storm, Hurricane Sandy, imposed a grotesque land-

scape on everything it touched. Tore it to shreds, flooded it, ripped it, displaced it, reconfigured it almost beyond recognition. Walking over fallen power lines, poles and trees draped across debris, shards of buildings and the re-mains of people’s lives isn’t a two-dimensional experience. Piecing my way through mounds of stuff to see what had happened and how to photograph it yanked me in and out of reason, between rationality and emotion.

That brown fridge, upright and empty, sitting in the mid-dle of what had been a road, was grounded in mud. Behind it was a house with a damaged roof, its temporary plastic cover blowing in the wind. The chairs from Cammie and Homer’s place, moved to the yellow cottage behind theirs, and stuffed in with the other salvage. I photographed those chairs on their deck last summer. Decks on the west side were ragged from the wind and water, one with a small American flag shoved in between the corners of the re-maining brown railing.

When I first began this project, Living on the Edge, about a coastal community losing its shoreline, I knew this day would come. I didn’t consider how fond I had become of the people and the community at Roy Carpenter’s Beach

You Don’t Come Out the Sameor how that affection would color my own sense of loss. I didn’t know I would even have a sense of loss.

I have been back there since the days immediately following the storm—late one afternoon, for the light. I was shocked again by how disturbing it is to see what had been an orderly row of cottages now in disarray, undressed. I had the camera in my hands walking along the sandy path between the cottages. I knew how disheveled things were, yet I was again disoriented by seeing the reality of what a storm surge leaves behind. All the while, the sun was set-ting with a lovely blush of pink washing the windows of the crushed and tumbled cottages.

As I have photographed the community, I wanted to con-vey how precious this place is, particularly amongst all the many other coastal communities where more is more, and money is all that talks. Those places are a dime a dozen. But this place—well, this place is different. It has heart and long memories of intertwined family histories, com-mon bonds, and a real sense of community. I do not want to see it disappear as a victim of a rising sea. It would be a terrible loss to those who live there, those generations now gone, and those of us who recognize it as an integral part of our own story as Rhode Islanders.© Kathie Florsheim.

After a hard day at the beach, residents head home.

PHOTO © KATHIE FLORSHEIM.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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“We as chefs and food service professionals have a choice to make as to how we want to approach food. We can support the take-more-and-waste-more method, which is crippling our ecosystems, or we can take an ap-proach to food and cooking that considers personal health for our guests and their families, environmental health, sustaining local economies, and ultimately the apprecia-tion of the meal we’re cooking and the overall quality of the food. That’s what eating and supporting local agriculture and aquaculture can do.”

—T.J. Delle Donne, Associate Instructor, Johnson & Wales University, College of Culinary Arts

Chef T.J. Delle Donne developed this dish using mussels from American Mussel Harvesters, Inc., of North Kingstown.

Cooking Local Seafood

MUSSELS PHOTOS BY MATT STAVRO


Method of Preparation:1. Gather all the ingredients and equipment.2. Scrub mussels well, discarding any dead ones, and pull off the beard. Hold, uncovered, in the refrigerator.3. In a small saucepan, warm 1 ounce (28 grams) of butter and sweat shallots until softened. Turn flame to

high. Add the mussels, deglaze the pan with vegetable stock, add coconut milk and red curry and mix well.4. To complete the dish, in a large saucepan or a medium rondeau, warm the remaining butter, add the

julienned vegetables, and sweat to soften.5. To serve; plate a portion of mussels in a large soup bowl. Top with some of the vegetables and a generous

portion of the broth. Garnish with torn cilantro leaves.

Cooking terms: “Sweat” refers to cooking vegetables on low heat in a little oil or butter, stirring frequently. “Rondeau” is a wide, heavy-bottomed pot with straight sides.

Note: Live mussels will have their shells closed. If a shell is gaping prior to cooking and doesn’t close when tapped, discard it.

Yield: 10 servings Ingredients: Mussels 4 pounds Coconut milk 1 ½ cupsButter, clarified 3 ounces Shallots, peeled, minced ¼ cup Red curry paste ½ cup Carrots, peeled, cut finely julienned 1 cup Celery, pale stalks only, finely julienned 1 cup Leek, white part only, finely julienned 1 cup Fennel bulb, finely julienned 1 cup Vegetable stock 2 cups Cilantro, washed

Mussels with Julienne Vegetables, Coconut, and Red Curry

From the Chef

By Chef T.J. Delle Donne

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Climate hurting your system? How sea level rise and warming temperatures impact onsite wastewater treatment

By Meredith HaasAs our climate changes, will septic

systems fail to protect sensitive coastal environments?

Yes, says George Loomis, soil scien-tist and director of the New England Onsite Wastewater Training Center at the University of Rhode Island.

“Changing temperature and pre-cipitation patterns, compounded with periods of very wet conditions and sea level rise, will contribute to septic system failure,” he said.

Current septic system designs, especially those in the coastal zone, are vulnerable to saltwater intrusion from flooding as well as from a rising

groundwater table. Loomis and his colleagues at URI

are looking at the current designs and parameters for septic systems, also referred to as onsite wastewater treatment systems, against vari-ous climate change scenarios. José Amador, URI professor of natural resources and the team’s research leader, says that this research may be the first in the country to be looking at septic systems and climate change. “It’s an issue that has been talked about all over the country, but we’re the first ones with an experiment.”

Septic systems are an alternative treatment option to municipal sewage treatment plants, and generally

consist of a septic tank and drain-field. Properly functioning systems do not pose a real threat to drinking water sources, but when not properly designed or sited, they can pollute groundwater, and from that, can con-taminate drinking water and coastal ecosystems.

Coastal vulnerabilityAbout 30 percent of Rhode Island-

ers depend on septic systems to treat and disperse wastewater from kitch-ens, washing machines, and bath-rooms. According to the R.I. Depart-ment of Environmental Management (RIDEM), there are approximately 5,700 onsite wastewater treatment

PHOTO BY GINNY L. GORMAN

Climate change poses a major threat to septic systems—and water resources—in vulnerable coastal areas.


systems in the coastal zone, the area 200 feet from any shoreline. Many more systems are further inland, but still near watersheds that drain to the coast. While all septic systems will be impacted by climate change, Loomis says that those systems in the coastal zone are most vulnerable to climate change and most critical because of their close proximity to sensitive habitats and water resources.

Long-term records from the New-port tide gauge show that Rhode Island has experienced about eight inches of sea level rise in the last century. This continuing trend has af-fected septic systems in two ways. As the sea level rises, denser saltwater pushes overlying freshwater upward, raising the groundwater table and de-creasing the separation distance from the drainfield base to the groundwa-ter. The distance required by the state is 3 feet for inland areas and 4 feet for systems within some coastal zones.

As sea level rises, so do tidal and storm surge heights, increasing flood-ing events that make the soil saltier and wetter, which decreases the amount of dissolved oxygen in the soil and inhibits beneficial microorgan-isms from breaking down wastewater pollutants.

In addition to saltwater intrusion, high-intensity storms introduce heavy wind and wave forces that can destroy foundations of build-ings, as happened during Sandy, the post-tropical cyclone of October 2012. This can compromise septic systems and potentially open a direct route for untreated wastewater to flow into nearby coastal ponds, according to Russell Chateauneuf of the Office of Water Resources at the R.I. Depart-ment of Environmental Management.

Onsite wastewater treatment sys-tems are also challenged by warm-ing surface-soil temperatures and increased precipitation that combine to decrease the levels of dissolved oxygen in the soil that are needed for effective wastewater treatment.

It’s good to be shallowPrior to 1993, when advanced treat-

ment technologies started to be used more commonly, homes either had a conventional septic system that used a drainfield to treat wastewater, or a cesspool that provided no treatment at all. A 2007 law enacted to enhance wastewater treatment requires that cesspools be completely phased out by 2015 in designated critical resource areas of the state, such as

watersheds for coastal ponds and drinking water reservoirs.

Conventional systems consist of a septic tank, distribution box, and drainfield, which disperses waste-water into the underlying soil where beneficial microorganisms can break-down harmful contaminants. While conventional systems can be effective and cost-efficient, they require more space for adequate treatment and are placed lower in the ground than advanced treatment system drain-fields, making them more susceptible to failures due to sea level rise.

Advanced treatment systems incorporate additional wastewater processing steps that produce highly treated wastewater that is commonly dispersed in specialized drainfields in small, regulated doses controlled by a programmable timer so drainfields aren’t overwhelmed by high peaks of outflow (e.g., laundry days and the morning shower rush).

“The fundamental difference between some advanced treatment systems and a conventional system is that they operate in a timed-dose fashion,” said David Kalen, the research team’s resident engineer. “For example, you could release eight gallons every half hour during a 24-hour clock cycle with these advanced systems, whereas the conventional system is ‘socially dosed’ based on what happens in the home.”

Jennifer Cooper, a PhD candidate working with Amador, is looking at the effects of climate change on con-

Jose Amador, soil microbiologist, explains how PVC piping is used to disperse effluent in an advanced treatment system.

Wastewater samples show how sep-tic systems that use sand filtration (left) are better at treating waste-water than standard systems.

PHOTOS BY MEREDITH HAAS

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ventional systems and two types of pressurized shallow narrow drainfield (PSND) technologies that both utilize advanced treated wastewater using sand filtration and the surface soil for treatment. These technologies are the most commonly used in Rhode Island. They enhance treatment by dispersing already filtered wastewater in a time-dosed fashion closer to the surface where grasses and a larger microbe population exist, due to increased dissolved oxygen levels in the top-soil. This enables better recycling and breakdown of harmful nutrients found in wastewater. These shallow systems are also beneficial because they increase the separation distance to the groundwater, noted Loomis, therefore needing much less space than conventional systems.

“Many of the older conventional systems in the coastal zone have been around for 30 or 40 years with a drain-field design that pinched fractions of an inch to meet the required ground-water separation distance needed to get initial regulatory permit approval,” Loomis said, explaining that these systems will be most problematic with sea level rise.

The challenge, however, for the advanced shallow systems that will be tested is whether climate-altered conditions (sea level rise, wetter and warmer soils) will interfere with the effectiveness of various wastewater treatment technologies. This opens the question about what technologies will be able to handle salt water intru-sion from periodic flooding events as sea level rise combines with episodes of flooding from storm events.

“We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place,” said Loomis. “On one hand, you have the surface soils warming and becoming wetter from increased precipitation, and on the other, you have lower-lying soils being impacted by rising water tables and saltwater intrusion.”

Ivan Morales, a PhD. candidate working with Tom Boving, URI profes-sor of geosciences, will be modeling these systems to better predict how climate change will affect them, and help establish management and pol-icy tools for decision makers to help mitigate impacts.

Testing the theory“We want to compare the newer

technologies to the standard, con-ventional system,” said Cooper, who hopes to take lessons learned from this project to develop better waste-water treatment capabilities in devel-oping countries.

The experiment tests nine soil core samples with three replicates of a conventional pipe and stone system, and the two types of PSND systems. All samples use the same soil and are dosed with wastewater from the same residential septic system that Cooper pumps once a week.

“We collect and analyze wastewater once a week,” said Cooper. “We need to form a baseline from the data on current conditions.”

The water samples will be moni-tored over the following year to better understand how the various septic systems function under current climatic conditions. Once that dataset has been established, the water table will be raised one foot to mimic predicted sea level rise, and surface temperatures will also be modified to expected levels using heat lamps.

“We can theorize what’s going to take place, but it’ll be nice to know definitively to make management projections that will enable decision makers to mitigate those outcomes,” said Loomis, who recommends that, for the time being, local management agencies focus on mapping at-risk systems, evaluating technology, and retrofitting failing systems to ad-vanced technologies that rely less on the drainfield for treatment.

The silver and copper treatmentThe team’s next goal is to collabo-

rate with Vinka Craver, URI professor of civil and environmental engineer-ing, to find support for research on the application of silver and copper nanoparticles in drainfields to aid in pathogen reduction. Treatment with nanoparticles may be a cost effective and sustainable way to augment the treatment that soil microbes normally provide and may help mitigate climate impacts to already existing conven-tional systems in coastal zones.

“Silver nanoparticles have been used as water treatment in devel-oping countries and can be found in socks, athletic clothing, and are used throughout the military as an odor and bacteria-killing agent,” said Loomis. “We want to see if, with con-ventional systems already in a coastal zone and operational, there is some way to apply silver nanoparticles to a drainfield, and convert that drain-field into a better treatment system that yields treated wastewater that is close to, or similar to, that of sand filtration. This might buy conventional systems another one to three decades of effective treatment under climate change conditions.”

Meredith Haas is Rhode Island Sea Grant’s science writer.

Coarse, sandy soil near the coasts poses challenges for proper wastewater treatment.

Visit 41° N online at: seagrant.gso.uri.edu/41N... and on Facebook at: facebook.com/rhodeislandseagrant... and on Twitter at: twitter.com/rhodeislandsg

Dennis Nixon, University of Rhode Island professor of marine affairs, has been named director of the Rhode Is-land Sea Grant Program. He succeeds Barry Costa-Pierce, who stepped down from the position last year.

A practicing maritime attorney, Nixon has taught courses in marine and coastal law in URI’s Department of Marine Affairs for 37 years and also served as associate dean for research and administration at the URI Gradu-ate School of Oceanography since 2009.

As director, Nixon will provide overall leadership for the research, education and outreach activities of the Rhode Island Sea Grant program, which has a budget of approximately $3.1 million.

“Dennis has an intimate knowledge of Rhode Island’s coast and surround-ing waters, and is uniquely qualified to bring together the academic and pub-lic communities to help solve emerg-ing coastal problems in Rhode Island,” said Bruce Corliss, dean of the Gradu-ate School of Oceanography. “I look forward to working with him as Sea Grant director to address significant scientific, policy, and management is-sues facing coastal Rhode Island.”

“I’m very excited about this oppor-tunity to lead Rhode Island Sea Grant, one of the strongest programs in the country,” said Nixon. “Sea Grant’s mis-sion of ‘providing solutions for Ameri-

Rhode Island Sea Grant welcomes new director

From the Editor

ca’s coasts’ couldn’t be more important here in the Ocean State. Narragansett Bay is the heart of our state’s identity, and I am committed to supporting research and outreach that will protect it for future generations of Rhode Islanders.”

He has had a long association with Rhode Island Sea Grant, beginning in 1975 as a graduate student, and was later funded to carry out work in fishing vessel safety and insurance that culminated in the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988. In addition, he was instrumental in establishing the Rhode Island Sea Grant Legal Program and served as a member of the Rhode Island Sea Grant Senior Advisory Council for more than a decade.

More information is available at seagrant.gso.uri.edu/news.

41°N Summer 2013

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ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

Eric Lutes grew up in Charlestown, R.I., and received a BFA in theatre from the University of Rhode Island. His father was John D. Lutes, a marine artist and art teacher. There seemed to be a constant flow of artists visiting his childhood home who gave him an early exposure to creativity. His first love was drawing and painting, but he pursued a life in show business. He has appeared in numerous plays, commercials, independent films, and television series, including Caroline in the City. He recently returned to Rhode Island and to his first love, art. His work, oil in canvas paintings, is predominantly nature based with a concentration on marine subjects. His pieces can be found in the Charlestown Gallery and the Sheldon Fine Art gallery in Newport.

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