Unlocking a Puzzle: Quality of Our Waters

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

The diver goes over the side and disappears into the shallow saltwater pond with a small splash. Several minutes later he breaks the surface, cradling his prize: a clear plastic cylinder that contains a large plug of gravelly sand topped with pond water. A wisp of green algae waves gently in the watery top layer like a slender flag.

"You can't imagine the monkey business we go through just to collect mud," says Roland Samimy, grinning, as he hoists himself back into the boat.

Mr. Samimy is the diver and his prize at the moment is a single core sediment sample from Sengekontacket Pond. Today 20 of these samples will be collected from Sengekontacket, the vast saltwater embayment that lies along the southern edge of Beach Road, spanning Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. A few samples will also be taken from Trapps Pond, a small coastal pond tucked into a corner of Edgartown on the extreme northeastern end of Sengekontacket.

The sediment samples are one small piece of a large puzzle that marine scientists are now happily solving in the name of water quality.

The puzzle is named the Estuaries Project. A six-year, $12.5 million undertaking that is a collaboration between the state Department of Environmental Protection and the School of Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, the project will use hard science and state-of-the-art technology to analyze the health and nutrient carrying capacity of virtually all the estuaries in southeastern Massachusetts. When it is completed, there will be detailed reports and sophisticated computer models for 89 ponds and embayments from Duxbury to Mt. Hope Bay, including Cape Cod and the Islands.

The project is all about nutrients - especially nitrogen - the stuff which has been slowly wrecking the pristine estuaries of southeastern Massachusetts for the last 20 years, causing a decline in eel grass beds and inshore fisheries. The main sources of nitrogen include septic systems, fertilizers, wildlife and acid rain.

Until very recently management of estuaries has been part science, part guesswork. How many houses can be built on a watershed, how will the location of a sewage treatment plant affect a pond one mile downstream?

When the Estuaries Project is complete, there will be unambiguous answers to the questions and a quantitative tool for managing the watersheds around coastal ponds.

How the information is applied will be largely left up to the local towns.

"Now we won't have to wait for 20 years to see things happen in our ponds," said William Wilcox, the water quality planner for the Martha's Vineyard Commission.

"It's a block by block process - each step is important and all the steps together are going to create the big picture," says project director Brian Howes. Mr. Howes is a coastal ecologist who got his start at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 30 years ago and now works in marine science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

Today he sits in the open cockpit of a shallow-hulled fiberglass boat that belongs to the Edgartown shellfish department. John Black, a summer shellfish deputy, is at the helm. Two divers are also on board - Roland and Steve Aubrey. Mr. Samimy is also a surface water hydrologist and technical coordinator for the project. For the next several hours they will collect core sediment samples, tag-team style.

They are at once scientists and sea dogs, moving seamlessly through their work while ribbing each other mercilessly. The work is both physically and mentally demanding. Each time a sample is taken the diver goes down to the bottom with one of the clear plastic cylinders. The cylinder is carefully worked into the sand or mud - sometimes with the aid of a hammer - and then just as carefully pulled out. The trick is to remove the sample with little or no jostling - the sediment cannot mix with the water on top or the sample will not be pure when it comes to analyzing the nutrient exchange between the water column and the sediment.

Mr. Samimy comes up from a few feet of water and tosses a couple of quahaugs on board along with a mild expletive. Hardshell clams disrupt the core sampling routine.

Each time they come up, the divers give verbal reports to Brian on the immediate environment around the bottom sample. "No eel grass, lots of worms, soft mud, oxidized surface, no snails, fish or flounder," Mr. Aubrey says.

"Burrows - big, honking burrows. Lotta shrimp. Looks like shellfish hash," Mr. Semimy says on another run.

Mr. Howes records all the detail by hand, along with other information including the water temperature. The sample is placed in a holding crate and the group moves to another location to do it all over again.

Last year on the Vineyard the group sampled the Lagoon Pond, the Edgartown Great Pond and Tashmoo. Next year Katama Bay will be sampled.

The Estuaries Project is at the start of its third year.

"The project is now at cruising altitude," declares the exuberant Mr. Semimy, who moved to New England from Miami with his family two years ago to join the project.

Mr. Howes says the mid-career scientists who have joined the project are excited about the work because it will have visible results.

"We've all been studying the marine environment for years, and this is a chance to do something about it," he says. He continues:

"The bad news is that most of the systems are impaired in the region. The good news is that restoration is possible, it's feasible. The information can be linked to land use models, and how changes in the land affect changes in the bay."

He credits the numerous local groups that have supported the Estuaries Project, including the Coalition for Buzzards Bay, the Falmouth Pond Coalition, the Vineyard watershed team and the MVC.

The data for the Vineyard ponds is still in the working stages, but Mr. Howes says the early report cards are mixed.

"Edgartown Great Pond has its issues because it's nontidal, but compared with other Great Ponds it's okay. The Lagoon had anoxia problems and it still does; we looked at those samples from the Lagoon and it looked like somebody had sprayed it all with soot. It was eerie. It takes awhile for it to get that anoxic. It has issues, the Lagoon has issues. Tashmoo is a little better," he says.

The field work is done in the summer months, and the rest of the year is spent on analysis and other technical work.

The scientists move around like migrant laborers in the summer, setting up mobile laboratories at an eclectic array of locations. Last year on the Vineyard the group camped out at the state lobster hatchery; this year they set up shop at the Rod and Gun Club. Once the samples are collected the work in the laboratory runs around the clock; the samples are kept in coolers where the ambient water temperature of the pond is imitated exactly.

One morning after Mr. Howes and his divers have finished their work, graduate students Jennifer Antosca and Michael A. Bartlett analyze the samples in the sparkling morning sunshine outside the Rod and Gun Club. The two senior staffers radiate their own enthusiasm for the project.

"Each piece we look at could mean something. It's exciting," Mr. Bartlett concludes.