Masthead photo by Lisbeth Wiley

Chapman, Peter Watts photo by Don Palladino,

Winterberry photo by Lisbeth Wiley chapman

February

Board Member Jeff Hughes, Wellfleet Shellfish Warden, coordinated a brush Burn with the National Seashore Fire Service, AmeriCorps, and Harwich High School Science students. Friends' members and members of Friends of Cape Cod National Seashore also pitched in to clear the banks of the Herring River north of the old trestle at Bound Brook to allow river herring clear passage to spawn in freshwater ponds.

March/April 

Board Member John Riehl organized a herring count training event for the citizen scientists who counted herring in April and May passing upstream along the river where it passes under Old Kings Highway. Our data were added to a Cape-wide database at the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC).

May

Don Palladino, President and John Portnoy, board member, worked with the Department Of Public Works in Wellfleet and Truro to install signs at sites where the estuary crosses roadways to give townspeople and visitors alike a sense of how vast 1100 acres of salt marsh really is 

 May

The Wellfleet Open Space Committee created an event inviting organizations with an interest in protecting the environment and open space to make presentations at a public program held at Preservation Hall. The room was packed. Beth Chapman, Board Member, presented on behalf of the Friends of Herring River.

June

During a wet and windy Saturday Friends of Herring River board members held down their laminated maps with rocks and exhibited an information table during the first annual Wellfleet Harbor Festival. It was a good event and hopefully the weather will be better in 2012.

John Portnoy, Board Member, led a tour of the restoration underway at Hatches Harbor to give attendees a sense of what a restored Herring River Estuary process might be like. We plan to repeat this event in 2012.

August

The current alternatives to restore the Herring River Estuary were discussed at the annual meeting of the Friends of Herring River to an overflow crowd. The alternatives will be included in the draft Environmental Impact Study/Environmental Review to be presented formally at public meetings in the spring of 2012.   Go to our website if you wish to review the alternatives in greater detail.

October

Friends of Herring River exhibited historical maps and information to Oyster Fest attendees along with crabs, oysters and mummichogs. The mummichogs were a great hit, and the aquarium served to explain to young and old alike the benefits of a healthy salt marsh  

November

Several Board Members met with attendees at the Wellfleet Harbor Conference to answer questions about the restoration process. The talks included a presentation of the hydrodynamic modeling of the Herring River Estuary to demonstrate the tidal and salinity changes that will occur when tidal flow is once again allowed upstream of the dike at Chequessett Neck Road.