Meeting Highlights

 

 

 

Eliot Shellfish Committee Meeting

May 21, 2008

 

Correspondence

            Committee Chairman Joe Carven presented a letter from Deputy Commissioner David Etnier regarding the use of private labs for water quality classification purposes. The letter solicits project proposals from municipalities for accelerated sampling, conditional classification and rainfall conditional area re-opening verification.  

 

Water Quality

            The Chairman led a discussion of the current water quality status. Following a reclassification to “prohibited” during 2003, volunteer sampling by the Town eventually ceased. The Department failed to pick up the sampling or update the shoreline surveys. Subsequently, dye dilution studies of the Dover and Kittery sewage treatment plants were done and the closure lines established. With renewed water quality sampling and completion of a shoreline survey, it is possible that areas of the river might be reclassified upward.          

 

Project Proposal

       After considerable discussion with input from Tom Howell of Spinney Creek Shellfish, Warden Harold Place, Selectmen Liaison John Grove and members of the Committee, it was the consensus that Eliot should submit a project proposal. The project would entail accelerated sampling utilizing the services of Spinney Creek Shellfish for water sample collection and analysis. The accelerated sampling will allow the accumulation of the necessary 30 samples to evaluate water quality both seasonally and under various meteorological conditions. In addition to the water sampling and analysis, the Town staff with the assistance of DMR and volunteers would conduct a shoreline survey of the area.