The long-awaited meeting with Coastal Resources Management Council Marine Resources Specialist Kevin Cute finally transpired at the Harbor Management Commission's Sept. 17 meeting. Although the meeting needed to be postponed from Sept. 10 to accommodate Cute's schedule, he arrived as planned and discussed ordinance issues with the commissioners at length.

Cute was invited to speak with the harbor commissioners to make clear CRMC regulations so that Chairman Michael di Angeli could complete a draft of the harbor management plans. De Angeli had sent e-mail as well as letters to Cute since Cute's last visit to the commission in the spring of 2007. The correspondence asked Cute to make clear the CRMC rulings on riparian moorings and procedures for establishing a CRMC approved mooring area.

At one point, Cute had said that riparian moorings were to be counted in the establishing of a mooring area while the ordinance said that the riparian moorings were not counted. De Angeli's inquiries were either not answered, or the responses did not address the questions.

In a two-page letter dated Aug. 18, 2008 and received by the harbor clerk Aug. 27, Cute addressed the questions. Although the answer to the question, "Are riparian moorings counted in a mooring area to establish if a mooring area exists?" was preceded by two pages of complex legal terminology, the answer agreed with the written ordinance that riparian moorings are not counted as part of a mooring field.

De Angeli reviewed his rough draft of the harbor management plan in a point by point discussion with Cute, who either clarified gray areas or said that he would have to " confer with Deputy Director Jeff Willis" before giving conclusive answers.

Cute said that he did not have the opportunity to thoroughly review de Angeli's draft because he had been on jury duty for a week and only had a couple of hours to hastily read the plan. He apologized for being ill-prepared and asked for the commissioners' patience before he could answer some of the questions.

He said he particularly wanted to confer with Willis on the history of the different classes of riparian moorings. He said that he also wants to understand the Jamestown history of regulations concerning riparian moorings and right-of-way access.

Commissioner Rick Andrews said, "We would like to maintain restrictions on the number of moorings permitted."

Cute said that it was important to remember that mooring areas are open to anyone residing in the state. De Angeli added to his declaration and said, "They are open to being added to the waiting list."

Cute said that private moorings may only be transferred to a family member on a one time basis, which was a new rule that the commissioners had never heard.

Although the authority to make such a decision has not passed through CRMC committees, Cute said he expected it to pass.

Outhaul regulations were discussed as well as rules governing the construction of docks and the CRMC position on submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) that is crucial to the health of the fishery and Rhode Island waters in general.

Cute said that he would get back to the commissioners with answers to their questions as soon as he finished jury duty and had an opportunity to discuss issues where he was uncertain with his superiors. De Angeli emphasized that he was looking forward to completing and presenting the Harbor Management Plan to the council in the near future.

During the open forum Charlotte Zarlengo, chair of the resident formed Jamestown Shores Association, read a letter to Cute that she wrote saying that Cute's Aug. 18 letter raised significant unresolved issues relative to the Jamestown Harbor Commission's ill-advised proposal to designate Head's Beach as a mooring area.

Zarlengo's letter said that, "Activities such as swimming should be preserved and all wetlands should be protected." The letter said that the area presented a "use conflict" as well as an adverse environmental impact to submerged aquatic vegetation and adjacent fresh and saltwater wetlands.

The letter said that a mooring field would adversely impact the water quality for swimming, but it did not say how boats on moorings would do that. The letter again addressed the Jamestown land deed records that allegedly designated the beach specifically for swimming for Jamestown Shores residents.

Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero settled the Head's Beach mooring field controversy at the Jan. 10 Harbor Management Commission meeting with a legal opinion saying that the matter was a "non-issue." He said that deeded rights on shoreline property only apply to the landside of the mean high water line.

"There are two sides, the land side and the water side," Ruggiero said, "and deeded rights have nothing to do with the use of the water. The only area that could be somewhat gray is if the activities on the water side proved to interfere with the use of the land side, and a mooring field obviously does not do that," his ruling said.

In other business, Assistant Harbormaster Joe Falcioni reported in Harbor Master Sam Paterson's absence that the harbormaster's boat was running well and that all zincs were intact. He said that it appeared that the galvanic corrosion problem of the previous summer had been resolved.