May 26

Written by:
5/26/2016 8:33 PM 

Memorial Day 2016 Trustees Report
Chappy and Norton Point
Chris Kennedy, Superintendent
May 24, 2016


With the upcoming Memorial Day weekend along with the fact that plovers, terns and oyster catchers are in the mood for love, I thought it might be helpful to provide our best guess for upcoming shorebird chick hatching and the resulting closures that will necessitate.

A.)  Beginning at the Gut, we expect the tip to be closed to OSV's as of the second week of June.

B.)  The US Army Corps of Engineers are working on the bomb cleanup of Little Neck.  They will halt their work on the upland areas as of June 15and their efforts will switch to the underwater cleanup efforts over the summer.  The completion of the bomb cleanup on the land will begin again in September and will wrap-up in December.   In the meanwhile, LittleNeck will continue to be off-limits to vehicles and pedestrians until the completion of the cleanup.  Most of the bombs they are unearthing have been expended but some are still live.  They are detonating live bombs every afternoon (around 3-5 PM) so traffic may be stopped along the inside trail for 10 minutes or so until the munitions have been blown.

C.)  The outside beach between the Jetties and Arruda Point continues to be closed due to erosion.  It is looking better and we hope to be able to reopen it before summer but Mother Nature has to help out with some more sand.

D.)  The Swimming Beach opposite the Dike Bridge will be closed to OSV's beginning this week.  As well, we expect to have several clutches of plover chicks hatching North of the Swimming Beach in the next week so expect outside beach closures on sections of that outside beach.  We expect to close the outside beach access road at the south end of the Narrows but expect to be able to keep the interior OSV trails behind the dunes and along Cape Poge Bay open.  That may change if the chicks decide to cross over to feed along the Narrows but we are hopeful that the chicks will remain north and south of the outside beach roadway to allow us to maintain access to Cape Poge.  Again, all of this is subject to change on short notice.

E.)  Halfway down Leland Beach (about midway between Wasque Point and Dike Bridge) we expect chicks to hatch on the outside beach which will necessitate OSV closures on the outside of Leland Beach within the next week.  However, we anticipate being able to maintain OSV access on the North end of Leland beach opposite the Dike Bridge and at Wasque Point.

F.)  Nesting terns and black skimmers have taken over the bay side of Norton Point on the Chappy end of the beach.  Access along the outside beach is not impacted at this point but when these tern chicks begin hatching expect the usual beach closure from the mid-point of Norton Point towards the Chappy end.   Those chicks should begin hatching by the second week of June.  So far this colony of terns is quite large and we are hoping they are successful in hatching and fledging their chicks.  We are anticipating that OSV drivers will be able to access Wasque Point and the eastern end of Norton Point via the Chappy OSV trail system.

We would again ask all beach drivers to watch their speed and drive no faster than 15 mph.  We lost an adult plover on Norton Point last year to a speeding OSV.  Rangers will be stringently enforcing the speed limit on all of our OSV trails this summer. 

I will update you as things change. 

Have a great holiday weekend!
Chris 

Christopher Kennedy
Martha’s Vineyard Superintendent

Trustees  |  MV Management Unit
23 Pocha Road Ext.  |  Edgartown, MA   02539
kennedy@ttor.org  | 508.627.7689  (phone)  |  508.693.7717 (fax)