Quick facts
ILF Funding: $105,359
ILF Service Area: Coastal (Coastal-South sub area)
Project Location: Nantucket Harbor, MA (latitude: 41.285850, longitude: -70.077717; latitude: 41.326978, longitude: -70.035128)
Project summary
The Nantucket Land Council (NLC) has requested funds from the In-Lieu Fee Program to restore eelgrass, a type of seagrass. Researchers at Boston University are assisting NLC. The Town of Nantucket's Natural Resources Department is also a partner on this project. The project team will collect seeds and shoots from healthy eelgrass beds. They will plant these in two half-acre areas in Nantucket Harbor. One of the planting areas will be near Monomoy. The project team has planted eelgrass here before. The other planting area will be near Coatue. A lot of the eelgrass that once grew in the harbor has died. Eelgrass has died because of disease, storms, and pollution. The team will plant some eelgrass each year for three years. This will make it more likely that some of the planting will happen in good conditions for eelgrass to grow. The project team will measure the number of plants that survive and how tall they are. They will also measure how many new plants grow and how much of the ground the plants cover. Restoring eelgrass will provide important habitat for fish and shellfish. Both restoration sites are essential fish habitat (EFH). The eelgrass beds in Nantucket Harbor also support a “wild” bay scallop fishery that is rare in the U.S. Eelgrass also holds sediment in place and absorbs nutrients and carbon.
