The July Small Boats, Big Science event was moderated by Amy Kolb Noyes from WCAI.
By Doreen Leggett
Six years ago, Dan McKiernan, Director of Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, got a call from Captain Domenic Santoro who couldn’t get a winter berth at a port on Cape Cod Bay.
That meant he couldn’t access fishing grounds.
“It dawned on me how important municipal policies and decisions are for accommodating the commercial fishing industry,” McKiernan said. “These are state and federally managed activities, yet it is the municipalities that can be the choke point relative to the business being successful.”
McKiernan was speaking to a full house earlier this month at “Small Boats. Big Science,” a series started by the Fishermen’s Alliance in 2022 as a way to bring people together to discuss scientific advancements and how they relate to our coastal communities.
“We have fishermen, scientists, students, educators, community leaders and supporters in the room tonight. The fact that so many perspectives are represented is exactly what this series is all about,” said John Pappalardo, CEO of the Fishermen’s Alliance.
This event, the second of the year and funded by a grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, was entitled “Protecting Working Waterfronts: A Path to Resiliency,” and featured Greg Berman, Chatham Director of Natural Resources, Story Reed, deputy director of DMF, Nate Sears, Orleans harbormaster, Kristin Uiterwyk, director of Urban Harbors Institute at UMass Boston, and Katy Acheson, executive director of the Blue Economy Foundation. It was organized by Sara Cornell, a Brewster resident and summer intern at the Fishermen’s Alliance who attends the University of Miami. Amy Kolb Noyes of WCAI, public radio, served as moderator.
McKiernan’s conversation with Santoro led to a partnership with DMF, Fishermen’s Alliance and Urban Harbors, creating the first “Port Profile Project,” which provides an overview of the commercial fishing activity and infrastructure within each municipality. Port profiles are part of a larger report which describes the status of the Commonwealth’s commercial fishing and port infrastructure.
The second port profile will appear this fall and Reed shared some early results, based on surveys of fishermen and harbormasters as well as state data.
Reed explained differences from the last report – for example the new iteration looks at a 10-year timeline rather than five. He also culled detail from Chatham and Provincetown.
Chatham saw an increase in harvesters with a Chatham address, but a decrease in vessels using Chatham as a homeport. The value of the catch dropped from almost $19 million to approximately 16.5 million. That decrease can be partially attributed to a decline in scallop landings.
Provincetown’s value increased – from $7.7 million to almost $10 million – partly the result of lobster landings. Lobsters, like scallops, are a high-value species.
In both ports, and others across the peninsula, challenges include increasing competition for space, rising costs for moorings and slips, and inadequate, aging infrastructure.
Ray Rowell, who fished for five years before joining the staff at the Fishermen’s Alliance, said Provincetown’s investment in a wave attenuator more than a decade ago has helped protect MacMillan Wharf and fishing vessels. Rowell, a history buff, told attendees about the Portland Gale of 1898 which destroyed close to 100 piers in town. Very few were rebuilt.
Without the wave attenuator, the impact of the storms this winter would have been a lot worse, Rowell said.
A delay in repairs in Wellfleet has had the opposite effect. The aged pier fell into disrepair, which mean traditional uses such as unloading catch onto dealer trucks and pulling fuel trucks onto the pier had to be curtailed.
“And then it burned,” he said.
Repairs are planned, but until completed the bulk of the fleet cannot tie up or unload, adding expense and travel time. Transient fishing boats, who may want to use the pier for a fishing season, have also had to look for space elsewhere.
The first port profile’s facts and figures did drive change.
Orleans voters, with help from a $1 million Seaport Economic Council grant, spent $9 million to upgrade the commercial pier at Rock Harbor.
“We leaned on the port profile,” said Harbormaster Sears, referring to 2021 numbers which showed the value of the town’s fisheries at more than $8 million (including a standard economic multiplier). “We showed the value of what was coming in and out of this little harbor that it seemed time had forgotten.”
Sears started working for Orleans in 2014 and noticed the differences between the recreational side of the pier – new back in slips, electricity, fresh water and safe access – versus the commercial section:
“It was the 1930s harbor. It didn’t look much different,” Sears said. The bulkhead was deteriorating, docks and ladders were rickety, boats had to tie up side-by-side so fishermen had to scramble over other fishing boats.
Sometimes the unloading dock was under three feet of water, he said, while fishermen had to unload heavy totes of clams by hand. At one time the town installed jersey barriers to keep vehicles off a section of the bulkhead so it wouldn’t collapse.
“(Fishermen) were not complaining; they were just going to work,” Sears said.
Sears held multiple meetings with commercial fishermen to find out safety concerns and what they needed.
After several years, many meetings to drum up support, and two years of construction, the commercial side of Rock Harbor has been transformed with additional slips and an observation deck added.
“We have a thriving waterfront,” Sears said, adding there is a waiting list for slips and young fishermen have inquired about space. “Give them a place to work and they show up.”
They have also planned for the future with a design that can be added on to as sea level rises, “like a set of Legos,” Sears said.
Berman said Chatham has made several improvements to its coastal infrastructure to meet the challenges of sea level rise.
Rebuilding the South Jog at the Chatham Fish Pier is one example, but it wasn’t upgraded to handle a 100-year storm. Doing so would have made it virtually unusable for commercial fishing. Berman showed an example of a truck perched high on a bulkhead, which would have met the criteria for storm surge, but it looked like an apartment high-rise compared to where boats needed to unload.
“We wouldn’t be able to use it on a functional basis,” Berman said.
Improvements at the quintessential working waterfront also included safer public access for those who make a pilgrimage to see boats unload, more than 3,000 people on a busy summer day.
Berman showed examples of extreme flooding in other areas of town, as well as “sunny day” flooding. Since 1970, there has been seven to eight inches of sea level rise at nearby Ryder’s Cove (which has its own profile in the port report.) So, Berman said, they would have to raise the infrastructure by nine inches just to draw even with access 55 years ago.
“Resilience is not cheap; doing nothing is even more expensive,” said Berman.
Uiterwyk, of Urban Harbors Institute, said her organization works with towns to develop harbor plans. Stakeholders discuss infrastructure, changing ocean conditions, preservation of space for working waterfronts, and preservation of access as well as awareness and engagement.
Among other topics, Uiterwyk outlined challenges fishermen and others face at working waterfronts. They include conversion to non-water-dependent uses, conflict with abutters, loss of access, lack of parking and user conflicts.
Oftentimes they are related, she said. A condominium may be built next to a working pier and new residents may not appreciate engine noise at 3 a.m. Or a new owner may block access to a traditional path to the sea, and local dinghies.
Some issues can be overcome through zoning and regulatory changes as well as community engagement, which Small Boats. Big Science aims to build.
Others require investment, such as funds for dredging, which Uiterwyk likened to the need for plowing after a snowstorm.
Acheson of the Blue Economy Foundation said she was struck by comments of Dom Santoro, who was one impetus behind the port study years ago. Santoro, who was at the meeting, said one of the most important things is that ports be “welcoming” to commercial fishermen.
She has been thinking about that as the foundation as the Cape Cod Chamber tries to find ways for young people to stay here.
Giving people a stake in a place prompts them to advocate for it. She quoted Pappalardo who said “the coast is not a line; it’s a system.”
McKiernan emphasized how that system, a connection from water to land, needs working waterfronts that are “safe, dependable, accommodating and reasonably priced.”
Small Boats. Big Science was recorded in full by Cape Media Center and is available here.