It’s that time of year again for people to start getting out there and digging for quahogs.
Open for Digging
North Cove and Jack’s Cove are both open for digging, along with the the areas on the rain schedule.
Round Cove and Senior Cove Closed
Both Round Cove and Senior Cove will be closed for the season. The Harbormaster is transplanting Senior Cove with contaminated quahogs, so that will stay closed for at least one year for the quahogs to clean themselves out.
Round Cove is a little more complicated. Between Bluepoint Road and Cherrystone Road, the Harbormaster is transplanting contaminated quahogs, so that area will stay closed until the quahogs clean themselves out.
The area from Cherrystone north to Bella Vista Island has a different problem. The samples came back as not safe to harvest quahogs.
The consensus with local and state officials is that the lack of dredging under the private causeway to Bella Vista Island has caused the polludtion because the water cannot flow properly. It is the responsibility of the home owner to dredge under the bridge to a specified level set out in documents when the property was first built.
The new owner, Anwar Faisal, who bought the property with his wife, Heiam Alsawalhi, in 2009, has not dredged the area, and has been openly hostile to people digging in the water off his beach. State law, however, prevents him from stopping people from harvesting quahogs.
He has also rebuffed the town’s efforts to get him to dredge.
Fairhaven Harbormaster Tim Cox said that the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection is set to issue Mr. Faisal an Order of Conditions demanding that he dredge under the bridge. If he still refuses to do so, then the town will be able to go to court to force him to dredge. If he still refuses, then the town can ask the court to allow the town to order the dredging and force Mr. Faisal to pay for it.
Mr. Cox said he hoped the Order of Conditions would be delivered to Mr. Faisal soon. Meanwhile, that section of the cove cannot have transplant placed in it.
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