Falmouth High School senior Ethan Parmentier designed an environmental sensor. Wayne Earl Chinnok Photography
By Doreen Leggett
John Pappalardo’s keynote speech at the annual Big Blue conference was a call to action.
Many coastal communities find themselves caught between “tradition and tourism,” he said. “Between working waterfronts and rising property values. Between local families trying to stay and outside markets willing to pay more. Between climate change and systems of governance still built as though land and sea were separate worlds.”
Pappalardo, CEO of Fishermen’s Alliance, told the crowd gathered at Falmouth High School that people are still trying to solve connected problems with public approaches that see in pieces. One law looks at fisheries, another looks at water quality, yet another at shoreline protection. Affordable housing and workforce development are separate silos.
“That is why the next era of coastal leadership has to be about more than preservation. It has to be about integration — of land and sea, of science and policy, of economy and ecology,” he said. “The question is not whether we have knowledge. The question is whether we are willing to organize that knowledge around a shared civic purpose. Because if the coast is one system, then we need one operating picture.”
Pappalardo, the closing speaker on April 28, said there are holistic examples on Cape. He mentioned ARC, the shellfish hatchery in Dennis, which treats clean water, applied science, food production, and local economic life as part of one system. It works, he said, producing food, supporting growers, advancing science – keeping real economic activity rooted on the peninsula.
He had a larger, more complex example from overseas. In Galway, Ireland a not-for-profit built SmartBay — a real-time coastal observing system designed to serve science, industry, and public decision-making at once. SmartBay informs permitting, restoration, water investments, harbor planning, shellfish management, public health, fisheries, and climate resilience. The data collected is tied to decisions.
“We can build an integrated system that monitors the health of our environment across the entire land-sea connection. We can build a Cape-wide land-sea observatory,” he said.
Katy Acheson, executive director of the Blue Economy Foundation which organized the event, talked to Pappalardo after he left the stage.
“Now I have my strategic plan for the year,” she said.
Big Blue is the foundation’s conference held in partnership with the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce and the Cape Cod Climate Collaborative. The event is designed to “spark conservations and inspire actions” on behalf of the peninsula’s Blue Economy.
Pappalardo was not the only speaker asking attendees to focus on the bigger picture.
Mike Palmer, a former fisheries biologist and an artist and restoration ecologist at Association to Preserve Cape Cod, said his artwork serves as an ongoing reminder that what we see determines what we understand and how we respond.
When he begins drawing, he slows down and notices details that don’t match his expectations.
“That shift — from assumption to observation — is everything. It’s the same shift we need in how we interpret environmental systems,” said Palmer.
Heightened focus is eye-opening because it teaches us not to rely on trends. Small changes can portend shifts that matter, with significant repercussions. If we notice, we can get ahead of them, he said.
“Real systems are not made of averages alone. They are made of individual conditions, small differences, and signals that often carry meaning,” Palmer said.
Falmouth High School senior Ethan Parmentier is trying to fill holes in our observation of watersheds on the Cape.
Inspired by the Remus program in Woods Hole and realizing the deficiencies of the current monitoring system, Parmentier built a multi-parameter water quality probe. He told the audience that currently the Cape has two options: inexpensive probes that do not provide great data or expensive probes that can’t monitor as many places as you need.
He chose to design something in the middle and built a user-friendly sensor that measures conductivity (salinity), temperature and depth. He added a pH sensor and a dissolved oxygen sensor (which didn’t end up working). It cost approximately $1000; the commercial equivalent is closer to $8000.
Other Falmouth students are involved in research as well. Using drifters and mini-boats through the Educational Passages program, students learn about impacts of wind, ocean currents and weather on everything from whale food to where cold-stunned turtles may strand.
“This is not learning from the textbook, it is (connected) to the curriculum in a unique way,” said Carmela Mayeski, Learning Partnerships Specialist. “Every launch revealed something new.”
Mayeski presented jointly with educators from Falmouth who said the research has real impacts and pointed out a surprising fact – too many of the students hadn’t been on a boat before.
Getting students on the water, meeting scientists and fishermen, they learn there are many ways to build a “blue” career.
Engaging generations is pivotal for Pappalardo’s dream of a holistic system for the Cape.
Read John Pappalardo’s speech here.