Harbormaster Issues Warnings To Underage Jet Ski Drivers

      Jet Skis and other personal watercraft are out on the town’s lakes and ponds in droves this summer, including a large number of underage or uncertified drivers, Harbormaster Perry Ellis told the Mashpee Waterways Commission on Tuesday.
     “I don’t know if they are giving them away at the dealership or what, but by God there are a lot of them out there,” he said. “You’ve got 12-year-old kids riding alone on a vehicle that can go 75 miles per hour.”
     Mr. Ellis said the town has been issuing warnings but has not written any tickets yet to the underage drivers.
     “We are working on education right now,” he said, adding that repeat offenders will be ticketed.
     Mr. Ellis said 16- and 17-year-olds need to take a personal safety boating course and carry their certification with them. No one under 16 years old can drive the boats without either a 16- or 17-year-old with a certificate or someone over 18 accompanying. People over 18 do not need a certificate.
     He said most of the people who have been stopped seem not to know the rules.
     “There is no towing with a personal watercraft allowed under any circumstances, ever,” he said.
     Other than the Jet Skis, Mr. Ellis said the weekday boat traffic has been markedly down so far this summer, but the weekend traffic is “off the scale.”
     “People are probably working hard all week long and then venting on the weekends, I think is the nicest way to put it,” he said.
     Mashpee River Motion
     Waterways Commission member Paul W. Lumsden rekindled the debate about dredging the Mashpee River this week, with a motion to begin the permitting process to dredge the river from the mouth about 3,000 feet upstream to Orsini Beach, at the end of the Pirate’s Cove neighborhood.
     After Mr. Lumsden’s motion, there were a few moments of silence. No one seconded the motion.
     The dredging project has been on the table for years, but the commission has not been able to find an acceptable location to discard of the dredging spoils and there have been concerns that dredging might either not improve or even degrade water quality in the river.
     Gerald J. Daly, a commission member, then asked if the town would have to declare where the spoils will go.
     After an affirmative answer from a consultant hired by the town to obtain dredging permits elsewhere in Popponesset Bay, Mr. Daly asked where Mr. Lumsden thought they might go.
     Mr. Lumsden said it was his impression that the state Department of Environmental Protection recently changed its rule to allow the spoils to be placed along the river bank.
     The state allows a process known as “sidecasting,” or placing the spoils in the river channel toward the sides, according to archives of the Enterprise, but it must avoid marsh grass and other habitat, according to an interview Wednesday with Mashpee Conservation Agent Andrew McManus.
     Mr. McManus said the permission would likely depend on how it is done and if there is an acceptable location along the bank.
     Mr. Daly said, “If we can put it along the banks of the river, that solves a lot of the problems, but I don’t know if we can or not.”
     Commission Chairman Kenneth H. Bates asked if there was any estimate about the amount of fill it would take, and Mr. Lumsden said he did not know.
     Mr. Daly said there are some old data about the amount of material, so he would like to postpone the discussion until the next meeting, when they can have more information at hand.
     The motion was tabled until the commission’s next meeting, on Tuesday, August 19, at 7 PM.
     Shellfish Grant Hearing Put Off
     The owner of one of the few private aquaculture grants in town was first allowed as a last-minute addition to the commission’s agenda, but when his proposal came up, Harbormaster Ellis said there are 50 to 60 people opposed to the grant and they should be given an opportunity to hear the proposal.
     “I don’t appreciate them trying to sneak on the agenda at the last minute, because that’s how things get pushed through without the public having a chance to comment,” he said.
     The commission removed Richard Kuusela from the agenda, and scheduled its next meeting in the evening, at 7 PM on August 19, to accommodate Mr. Ellis’s predicted crowd.
     Town Manager Joyce M. Mason said this week that she had not heard from any residents opposed to the grant, near Callie’s Beach in Waquoit Bay, which Mr. Kuusela has held for 30 years. He has been scheduled for a meeting with the Mashpee Board of Selectmen on Monday, August 18, she said.
     Mr. Ellis said he opposes the grant in part because it is a private use of public water.