Shellfish Advisory Board June 30, 2026

Good evening everybody. This is the shelfish advisory board um meeting for Tuesday, June 30th, 2026 at 17:30 hours.

Um, if we can all stand and pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, gentlemen. I'd like before we start, I'd like to ask on the record for us and we'll get them published.

Thank you. That was a pleasure. Um I passed out both electronically and by uh and by hand the notes uh the minutes from last um um meeting just before I forget for the record Manchester had an emergency. He could not make it but we still have a quorum. Um, so I would like to hear a motion to accept or correct and or correct uh the minutes from last uh last meeting on 5626.

I have I motion to accept the meeting the minutes of the meeting from last meeting.

I have a second.

Any discussion?

So moved. All in favor?

None. Um, as usual, number three, we get an update from director Bill Chase, director of marine services.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, the uh current balance in the shellfish propagation fund is exactly what it was last month, $312,440.85.

We did uh actually start the Lee's uh receipt program again. Uh one of the youngsters that's working with us for the summer um has got that going again.

I don't know what it's going to generate in terms of money. uh we get 1% of the gross receipts um of the receipts are turned in back to lease and that money goes into that same uh shellfish propagation gift fund that I just mentioned.

Um Friday uh I had a conversation with both Matt Kamissa and Bruce Ingram to try to figure out what exactly is going on. Uh Matt, as you guys have all come to know, is a pretty informative guy in a straight shooter. Uh he said that currently um there are two towns ahead of us as far as relay cohogs. That would be who was waiting for 650 bushels. That was supposed to stop yesterday. I

haven't heard anything since. uh Truro has uh jumped in there as well and they are looking for 150 bushels more. Once those two are complete then the balance of the year will belong to us.

Um classes, excuse me.

So anyway, we get the balance of that.

Uh Matt did confirm the exemption to the propagation uh issue that has been put in place. In other words, uh everything that we get from them up to 61 days prior to the opening uh can all be harvested this year. So, for example, uh just for the sake of numbers, if we were to get a 3,000 from Bruce, uh between now and let's call it October 15th, those could still be harvested 2 months

after that. So, 61 days is the magic number still. He did build into that whole propagation issue um the option of one exemption. I think this is a perfect time. So Rick reached out to him. Uh he has since confirmed.

That's good news.

Um how's he been doing?

50 to 60.

50 to 60. Yeah.

You guys remember the uh giving you a graph of the last two years with each and every day and you can see a downward trend on that. So there was some question in Bruce's mind as to whether or not that was a dwindling resource or was that just the u combination of both.

Yeah.

Um so that's where we stand on that once these smaller orders are done and that's always been the case right from the beginning. Um if you recall last year after after the u sinking uh we got the balance of everything right. Um so Matt had said even as far as last December that once it starts up again he has to uh satisfy all the smaller towns laws first. We are obviously as you all know

the biggest customer that Bruce has by a factor of about three.

So I I saw Bruce uh Friday as well went over his house and just had a chat with him. I was heading over to West Marine.

He doesn't live too far from there at Haven. Um the cause of his breakdown, you all heard about his reduction gear uh having to be replaced. Um they got the hose from the dredge caught the wheel and you can imagine the havoc that that that's a thick wall 6 in hose. Um and in the process of trying to free it, he fried his reduction. So he ordered another one had to come from Virginia

and the truck that was delivering it broke down somewhere. So that delayed him even further. Uh during that time his crew quit on him. Um although he does still have Matt uh who just got out of the hospital. Uh so he's working with Matt and two green horns right now and he's not too happy about all that but that's the nature of the game.

Uh what else did he have to say?

Now, he did mention he was just getting 50 to 60 a day, but he was hoping that he could improve that with his reduction gear and a few other tweaks that he's trying to do. So, the bottom line is we can and we will take whatever and whenever if u Y was to say, I'm done for whatever reason, if you call tomorrow, we would go and get whatever.

Um the relay skip has been painted both top sides and uh it's got some bottom paint. The outboard was serviced last fall and we actually have a backup 90 horse at Drews right now because of other moves that we've made with the equipment.

Oh, this is kind of unrelated, but I just this afternoon just got the report from the uh town doc feasibility study.

I have not read it yet because it just came in this afternoon and I'll share that with all of you as soon as I get a chance to forward them all. Uh the mud docks floats will be replaced as soon as uh some state monies are made available.

Uh Steve Wlette has come up with $50,000 for us to replace uh state boat ramp floats as well as the floats meeting the skiff skip.

Okay.

So that's going to have to go out for bid. Uh it'll probably take a little bit of time, but the money has been appropriated, assuming the governor signs uh the uh the budget and uh that's pretty much all I've got.

Okay. Thank you, director. Um moving on kind of in the same vein, I think you just wrapped it up. Now, item number four was the update on the relay program, which you just pretty much encompassed in your report. Um as well as planting and booster status. So we can jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump

jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump right down to number six since we've covered one through five and I'd like to open the discussion on the opening of Ram Island. Um so as you know it's closed right now. Um I will say before we get an opening of anything that everything has been closed out except the approved areas due to the

3 ines of rainfall we got last week.

This morning the uh Terry state biologist myself went out and tested the river in the 171 18 spots that we usually test. Um could be 20 anywhere between 24 and 48 hours between you will post that on the website when you get it.

Yes.

Okay.

Yep. That will and as well as on the recording on the recording. Okay.

Yeah. So as soon as I hear back from the state, the problem is everybody got three inches of rain and everybody is being tested at the same time because of the window from an effort. So um I I can tell you this in our trip this morning getting away from the biological factors river looks pretty clean to me. So but um I think we'll be in good shape and as

soon as I hear we'll update that we'll be good to go and be back in business again. But having said that, I'd like to open the discussion on I got a question on that. If it fails, I think I remember that has to has to pass three more tests.

Three tests, correct?

Wow.

But I don't think we're going to have to go. We've had some good flushing of that. We have we've had big tides and a lot of wind. So, the river is flushing.

Well, if Ray Island was open, uh, relay was open, it would it would have stayed open. Is it it's in the area where it uh the conditional Ram Island is an approved area just like half moon.

Right. Okay.

Yeah. Any conditional area automatically closes one inch of the point two.

Can we confirm how many bushels we put there last last year?

We can Chris. I don't know if I have that in my notes.

I want to say it's between 650 and 700.

That sounds about right.

What did you say?

I can't find it.

I think it was close to 750.

Yeah.

So, if it's only 750, do you want to get it up to like a,000 and then wait the 60 days?

Well, that's the discussion. Let's let's talk about that.

Well, that would that would be pretty far down the road.

Yeah. We I mean we're we're director we're two weeks out anyway.

I I was going to say we're assuming fall goes according to the plan. It's 2 weeks before we right anything.

I mean weatherwise we don't have it doesn't outside heat. It doesn't seem to be any weather issues for the next 10 days. So that's a good thing.

Right now too you got to vacuum the market is really plugged up bad. It's like overloading the co-hawk so bad right now with the prices dropping and good to know.

It's really not good right now.

Good to know. Another reason to hold off a little hold your cards.

Uh like yesterday, um I heard that Rhode Island 5,000 bushels just yesterday.

They control the market.

They dump 5,000 into the market.

Yeah.

So the fishing's good over there.

Oh yeah, it's a state. It's a state fishery, right?

They just opened up 462 acres.

Yeah. So for purposes

somehow 600's in my brain.

So what do you guys think?

Well, my opinion put more stuff in there but I go with that too. And if the price is so bad right now, does it help?

Yes. What do you think?

I don't think it should be open anytime soon.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. So, but bear in mind we're going to load up Half Moon first because we want that open for the holiday and then let's just let's just lose our numbers and say we're a month out to Ram Island. Let's just use that. So, move 60 days from there.

So, we won't be able to Ram Island.

Let's just say we load Graham Island up by September 1st. We can't open it for 61 days.

I didn't know you Well, no. We're not going to get an exemption on Graham Island. That's an exception for the year.

For the year.

Oh, on all the areas.

Yeah.

Okay. I thought it was just happening.

No, no, no, no. We gave an exemption for our relay areas.

So, but only for So, it's just a just a thought.

Well, I didn't know you were going to go to uh Half Moon first.

Well, we can do it either way. I mean, we have to load up half moon. So, we want that open as usual around the temple.

Yeah, that's I I think would be number number one on the list of area to be so back into that. You'd have to be out of there by October pending water temperature.

The end of October.

Yeah.

Um, I also just heard too that Bruce is going to get shut off if the tent goes over 85 degrees too as far as stretching. So, well, that's could be tomorrow.

We want to keep that kind of realistic.

It might be August before we see cos could be. That's a very distinct possibility.

Yeah. So, things are pretty tenuous here. So, I mean the thing the thing is if let's just say we get 2,000 bush let's just say that just for conversation and we start to load up half moon whatever we do with all the stuff that backs into it water temperature water you know water temperature both hypo and then having to have that loaded by the end of October because we need two months

So, what do we do in the meantime?

Because then it's too late to load up ram idle because if we're going to lose the water temperature in the fall, we're going to get down to 45°.

So, we have to We're kind of in a pickle.

Do we have a contract with him though?

With Bruce?

Yeah, we do for What's for,500 right now?

Oh, okay. I know you said you were going to piece it out.

Yeah. Well, that was more the discussion with uh Chris Vitali um doing this away from combis which is the approach I wanted to take which is the approach that every other town takes. Uh he said let's start with 1500 first and then we can take the next step.

So basically we can take whatever Bruce can provide us between now and the end of the season but contractually we're on the hook for 1500 now and when we get somewhere near the end of that we will re up it with another contract. We've got the money we've got the time and that's that's the approach.

But we're running out of runway 782 bushels that we have now.

Oh boy.

So we when we when and if we get them, we'll go to Half Moon and Yeah, that's Sounds good.

Hopefully get it plugged up. Now I was talking to Bill earlier at the ramp and I brought up you got to watch out for the ill grass too. Like you have heaven flat. There's a big patch of illograss right there. We got to stay out of Okay. Ram Island should also be kind of gone through and checked to see if anything's growing there. Yeah, I was out there today. Um, it looks actually pretty good.

Yeah, it doesn't look bad. There's spots but Oh, spots are not, but you don't want a patch.

Right. Right. Yeah, I was out there today. So, anyway, does you say 85° air temperature, right?

Uh, yeah, I believe so. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks, Scott. Um, so what is the board? What is the wishes of the board? We know we're going to as soon as we start we're going to start to load up half moon cuz that's been worked over. That's that's the spot to go for winter for Christmas.

Let's just say we can get if time permits and weather permits and all the gods line up. Let's just say we can get that 1500 before we lose the weather window that we have and the time because again we have to be out of there by no later than October 31st because they have to purge for 61 days.

31st.

So it be November, December about two months November December.

It wouldn't open the beginning of the first week of December.

Would it be? There's what almost 800 bushels in there now. Could you open it now or I don't know. The market screwed up.

Top.

Yeah.

And then open it like in the spring, you know? So I had 61 days like that or something like that, you know, do it doing two stages with Ram Island at the end of the summer for Labor Day Market.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think about that?

For sure. I mean, yeah, right now it's just it's a mess.

So let's just say that we have good weather and we can push really push hot for the next let's say the middle of July. We get we get we get we get Bruce on board. we get we can push hard and we can get 1,000 bushels and basically we're doing 60 bushels a day, 5 to 300 bushels a week.

So if we get three good weeks gets us into August into Graham into a half moon then we can always close Graham Island and put a number in there for later in the year. open it now and then we can always close it to seed plant.

I I don't think we should open it right away.

And event, you know, all the guys that's going to start sea bass fishing, bass fishing, all these probably you you could probably hold off till like maybe September. We'll put it in or something.

If if we don't do anything, we leave our options open.

Exactly.

So then what would somebody should make a motion to keep it closed?

There there's only a couple guys that are calling you right now.

You're so Yeah. Well, if they open it, it won't be a couple of guys.

Yeah.

Well, they get wiped and the same thing will happen as always too and good stuff get taken. Bad stuff get all that green right now. There's a lot of money in there. I was telling Bill the east side of Half Moon Plat's getting loaded with that right now.

Yeah.

If you go in there, I was in there this afternoon. Either side of the gutter when you come in, you know, you turn south and come in around the mall, either side of the gutter, you know, smother the ball.

Okay. I motion to the opening of uh Ram Island further in the season. I'll second that.

All right. Any further discussion? All in favor?

I.

Okay, moving on.

Yeah.

Very good. Okay, so the state say tomorrow.

We got to find something else for those guys to do.

Yeah, we do.

Okay. Um, thank you gentlemen. Um, I think this is a we're moving on to number seven. Opening of the West Branch Pile West Branch and P file north of Thomas Point. Um, right now it's go was in the four red balls out there. It is um conditional area. It will it's going to be open as soon as we get the water tests on it. So, we should be good to go there. Um,

it's uh very easily we can do one or two things. If the board wishes, we can move the balls in closer or we can just shank them out of there. I don't think there's going to be too many fishes that are going to be up there in the eelass. Um, Neorass is closer to the eastern shore of of that stretch of water between the marsh and on the west side.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't see any reason why not and and the reason my thinking is and I really want you to weigh in on this is that that's a great recreational area for people and with 400 some odd permits out there, um, they'll be out if they're out there scratching around, it's not going to have anything. Um, all that.

Yeah, I don't think those balls are really serving any useful purpose.

So, I'd entertain a motion to open the whole area from Point Bile North to Tallest Point scratching. No boardings.

I would second.

All in favor?

I.

Any discussion?

Okay, now we'll be back. Any discussion?

Hearing none. All in favor? Robert's rules, the Rick Smith rules. Okay, so we will move those balls and I will post that tomorrow or Thursday when I get a minute. Um, number eight, this came from a member of the advisory board to open a discussion on the purchase of an extra set of totes for the relay things easier for our group to all the work.

Yeah, but be saving saving a lot of time and resources.

Well, you Yeah, it's going to save a lot of money a day. Yeah, sure.

It's going to save a lot of money, right?

But do we have any comps on it? Do we have any idea what what the cost would be?

Uh Bruce had mentioned now we had this conversation with him last when we were talking about this last year. He gave me the name and number of a gentleman in Providence. He's got a large lodge warehouse who purchases containers like this in oak. Uh which is where he's gotten his in the past. Um they were, if memory serves, maybe $3 a box, but don't quote me on that. It was relatively

cheap because this is remnant stuff that buys. So is it cost effective? I think so, especially when you consider the price of gasoline right now. That truck is not the best with gas mileage. The fact we have to drive 100 miles a day, if you factor the dollars and cents into that becomes it becomes much more cost effective.

Yeah.

So, uh I have no problem with it. We certainly have the money to purchase that.

Um yeah, it sounds like a good deal. The only downside is what if Bruce goes what if he ends this project? What do we do with all these boxes? And how many do we want?

Probably gear up a hundred of them and be $300 away.

100 is only 50 bushels.

Well, well, you're only getting like what? 60 a day anyways, right? So, I mean something. 50 and 60 might turn into 60 and 70.

Well, we should get enough enough boxes to cover the That's the price.

And uh they get beat up so badly anyways. And the thing is too, it's going to pay for itself if you get it that way anyways because of the mud.

Yeah. Well, there's the issue of the the chair weight, if you will, of the box.

And the contract says 40 lbs, not 35 to 40 as it has in the past. It's 40 pounds. Period. M.

Now, that's a different discussion, but all I'm saying is I have no problem with purchasing some clean boxes like that if it's going to save us a trip every single day.

And since he's dealing with us, we don't have to worry about bringing the trailer back.

Right.

Well, the other thing too is we we should see in our research, see if the value the value of the price of the boxes drop. So if we if we for numbers if we pay three bucks a box for 100 boxes and we can get them for 250 for 200 those boxes won't go bad especially since we're going to hopefully be starting to move co-hogs um hopefully out of the into the

get you know they'll we'll find a home for them that won't go bad but uh you know like like the correct says if we get 200 that's 100 bushel how often do we get 100 bushel Not that often, but they do get damaged.

They do get lost. They they tend to grow eggs. I mean, we have to fac I would like to make a motion that we purchase 200 boxes.

100 mls. You're covered.

You'd be replacing the ones that need to be replaced. supposed to have that, you know, but 200 would 200 boxes would at that price if we can get that price would be excellent investment.

I don't think it was more than four bucks.

I just don't recall exactly the guy was whether or not you can take that money from the uh propagation.

Oh, absolutely.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean that is directly related, you know. All right.

Well, anyway, that's the motion.

Don't forget, we had a anonymous donor who threw $1,200 into the kitty for us.

I put that money in the propagation equipment fund for issues just like this. So, we have Okay.

And we can spend it.

I got a second on a motion.

Yeah, I'll second discussion.

Um, director, if you get us a point of contact and maybe I can talk to him and figure it out what it would cost, how how much for delivery availability. Well, they're this place is in East.

Yeah, I it's locally sourced.

I drive out there and grab what I could.

We won't take Boo's trailer when we're doing the relay.

When we're doing the relays, is there any way we can clean these totes out when we're doing it so we're not paying for a bunch of money? just need to spend the time.

Well, there's a piece of that, too, because it gets into the weight that the director was talking about. You know, if we But they were getting pretty big.

I got affordable scale.

I'll bring it. We can randomly check a few boxes.

Well, if you got three or four pounds of mud in a box over 200 boxes, that's going to add a lot of money. Well, I think also we have to put some responsibility because if if he's sending us 10 lbs of mud in every box, let's just say 10 pounds of mud, he's not fulfilling his end of the contract because he's not putting 40 lb of cohogs in there, right?

So, he has a responsibility to hit those with the deck hose, you know, and you have the right to we're better off just a day and rinsing them out from the game. Even if half goes out one time, half the next time, just get stuck getting rid of some of the bottoms obligated to provide 40 pounds of cohawks, not gross net, right?

So I think Ron is on something. I also have a hanging scale too that's very accurate.

Well, this is like a digital one.

Digital scale.

Weigh cohogs, dump them out, then weigh it again. See how that would be very nice to see. I'll tell you that. I check it out. It still works.

I mean, that will give us a little leverage with him. I'm not saying that he should, you know, go over every every box of 12.

Of course not. But still, I mean, you can't lose 100 lbs a day or something like that either.

No. And I don't feel like lifting 50 lb, 40 lbs of cohog, and 15 lbs of mud either.

Mhm.

So, I hope they encounter him to do anything if we don't do it ourselves.

I agree.

You can tell him to do it, but he's not.

He's not going to do it. But, you know, there's one number that you're forgetting to, and that's $30 for a bushel.

A bushel.

Yeah. Um, mud gets expensive.

Right.

So, if we're going to get our money's worth, then we need some kind of protocol to say, "Look, we're getting 40 lbs per box." Oh, we're not.

And the state number is still $1 per bushel, correct? You always got to add the buck because they're going to come back at the end of the year. Take a dollar for every bushel that we that we buy river get uh something.

Depends on what side of the river he harvest them from. Every every one of the receipts that we get says either FR or SOM.

Okay.

So that's what he has to give that up based on how much comes out of their waters.

Mhm.

Okay. So discussion. Any further discussion? The vote. All in favor to purchase set of 200 totes for the relay.

All in favor?

I.

Unanimous. Number nine.

Any other items not anticipated within 48 hours of the meeting?

Yeah, I got a question on the Mantis uh foundation.

Oh, the M Foundation.

M. Did they get back to you on that?

No. What they said was basically, don't call us, we'll call you.

I did inquire one time and it was enough to know, okay, they'll they'll give me a chance.

So, so the the five-year grant that we had, um the last deposit, if you will, uh came right after the 1st of April and it was $100,000.

What they told me was that this is a rolling grant. I'm not quite sure what a rolling grant is. And after that, I acquired two things. one was what are the rules of what we can and cannot do with this money and all they came back with was shellfish propagation purposes that's it it's kind of wide open if you will uh the other side of it is uh will it be extended for another five years

which is what I requested right um so we do not have an answer on that so we have one more year right no that was the last month.

I mean, this year is it.

And then we have to reup. And when do we have to reup by? Is that October?

Uh, it was by February 20 something. I did this in the middle of January.

Hopefully here by October. Somewhere October kicked into my brain.

I would hope so. I mean, I have no problem getting back to him again and say, "Hey, you know, what do you know?

We need something we need to know for planning purposes." Um, but after the last response, I'm like, "Okay, you can get back to us." But we do need to know.

Yeah. Question.

Okay. Any other business?

Hearing none. Do I have a motion to withdraw?

Motion to adjourn. Motion we adjourn.

Second.

Second.

All in favor? I