OCEAN_15 click here to read our newest, environmental newsletter. Contact us if you want to learn more about any of the articles.
Here is a previous issue of OCEAN. Our goals with OCEAN are to share information on environmental issues and support collaborative partnerships to protect natural resources. Collaborative partnerships save both financial and natural resources. Safe Harbor supports collective action. To sign up to receive OCEAN, please email gordonesafeharbor@yahoo.com.
Ocean 14, is now available here for download.
Ocean Newsletter 14
Our Educational Initiative page now includes nearly 30 different environmental programs we are offering for the 2009-2010 season. These are free to groups of six or more: students; faculty; local groups; Town boards or employees and professionals. Thank you to Vida, our fall intern, for coordinating this effort. Vida shares our core value for environmental education. Contact her for more info vidasafeharbor@yahoo.com
This picture shows Vida on a coastal habitat restoration site.
Here is an important issue of OCEAN. Our goals with OCEAN are to share information on environmental issues and support collaborative partnerships to protect natural resources. Collaborative partnerships save both financial and natural resources. Safe Harbor supports collective action. To sign up to receive OCEAN, please email gordonesafeharbor@yahoo.com.
OCEAN 13, is now available here for download.Ocean Newsletter 13
Ryder Beach Partnership restores town landing.
The Town of Truro on Cape Cod has experienced tremendous wind erosion during the past few years at one of their coastal beach access points, known as “town landings”. Winter winds created a “shotgun blow out” that eroded 14 feet of sand from the beach end of the walkway and deposited it in a 14-foot mound at the top of the walkway. This created a 28′ drop and climb for beach goers.
Safe Harbor partnered with Truro Department of Public Works, volunteering services to facilitate restoration permitting and planning. This was an unusual project because we needed to balance natural resources with public use. Before work could begin, the proposal was reviewed by private property abutters, the Beach Committee, Truro Conservation Commission, Department of Environmental Protection and the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP, under the MA Endangered Species Act).
The basic components of the project were pretty much like putting cookies back into the cookie jar. DPW Director Paul Morris moved eroded sand back to where it came from. DPW workers installed 500 feet of 4′ sand fencing to outline a walkway designed to prevent future wind erosion. Safe Harbor workers installed 800 feet of innovative 24″ sand control fencing along the restored dune line for short-term collection of wind-blown beach sand.
DPW and Safe Harbor worked together to plant 5,000 stems of beach grass. This will provide a sustainable system to capture and hold wind blown sand at the dune line. A neighbor brought out homemade Scottish shortbread cookies. Safe Harbor planted another thousand stems of grass, reclaimed from the sand removal process, along the walkway. We advocate salvaging and reusing native vegetation from coastal projects.
Long term control of public access, short-term sand fencing and long-term vegetation will create a sustainable system protecting natural resources and public access.
Visit us at 95 Commercial St., Wellfleet, MA
or contact us via:
Snail mail: P.O. Box 275, Provincetown, MA 02657
email: gordonsafeharbor@yahoo.com
phone: (508) 237.3724
Free Climate Change seminars are now available for groups of ten or more, anywhere on Cape Cod.
This program has been presented to every harbor town on the Outer Cape and was developed because of some unusual discoveries made by local lobstermen last summer. The information our research uncovered was compelling.
Our presentations explain changes we are already witnessing and share projected impacts from changing ocean temperatures sea level rise, terrestrial and marine habitat, precipitation and storm events for each town we visit. We will be sharing some extraordinary satellite imagery. These presentations represent the most significant seminar we have ever developed. Check our Seminar Page for more details.
Our free presentation takes about 45 minutes followed by a fifteen minute question session. Let us know if your group of ten or more would be interested. Elspeth Pierson is our seminar coordinator ElspethSafeHarbor@yahoo.com or call Gordon @ 508-237-3724
Satellite imagery tracks temperature changes
Beginning in April of 2008, Safe Harbor will be experimenting with an innovative concept in site management we are calling “Conservation of Biomass”. This is a pre-excavation technique that uses heavy equipment already on site. Before beginning site excavation, the indigenous vegetation, intact with subsurface soil, is carefully removed for re-use in habitat restoration following construction. We believe this technique would preserve indigenous microbes, micro invertebrates, pH and nutrient values that could be very different from most purchased plantings. Besides protecting indigenous habitat values from the ground up, we would be re-planting vegetation already tested by the site conditions. We may also establish a clearing house for available indigenous vegetation from planned excavation sites. Check out our progress on our IMAGES page.
