Our View: Scratching For Votes For 90 Bridge St.

Did Thomas Jefferson like shellfish? That answer seems to be lost to history, though we know he liked seafood generally. Monticello still stands as a testament to Jefferson’s love of nature’s bounty. So he probably would have embraced the idea of a shellfish nursery where tiny seed quahogs could be grown to a size where they can be sewn like seeds for a future harvest. That’s exactly the function of Chatham’s shellfish upweller at Old Mill Boat Yard.

But that facility is cramped, improvised and poorly positioned for optimal water quality; it’s always one power outage or marine oil spill away from complete failure – which would jeopardize the important quahog fishery. Quahogs provide not only a key source of revenue for commercial shellfishermen, but also the base of the town’s popular recreational shellfish program. For many, those clams provide not only a living but a better quality of life.

For around a decade, town officials have been developing a plan for a new, expanded upweller at 90 Bridge St., but funding for the project stalled when voters at this year’s annual town meeting failed to pass a bond authorization for several waterfront projects. We congratulate the select board for calling a special town meeting to allow voters another chance to keep the 90 Bridge St. upweller project on track.

There is a separate, worthwhile debate coming about whether the town should rely on previous debt exclusion votes to authorize borrowing for a project that was previously rejected by town meeting. But in the absence of a settled financial policy to the contrary, we don’t think these concerns should bear on the 90 Bridge St. project, which has been thoroughly vetted and is already underway. It’s proper to let special town meeting voters reconsider 90 Bridge St. as a standalone project. But calling that special meeting is only half the battle – and that’s where Thomas Jefferson comes in.

“We in America do not have government by the majority,” he opined. “We have government by the majority who participate.”

If the 90 Bridge St. project is to prevail at the Sept. 16 special town meeting, it will require a strong showing by supporters. That means people passionate about recreational boating, because 90 Bridge St. will have floats and better waterfront access for pleasure craft. It also means supporters of historic preservation, who will doubtless come to the meeting to advocate for the return of the historic Coast Guard boathouse to Chatham, where it will be repurposed to house the upweller. But it also means encouraging a strong turnout, and vocal support, from shellfishermen. And historically, they’re not well represented at town meeting.

So, with apologies for the puns, it’s key that shellfishermen scratch up the voters necessary to bring the project home, and when it comes time to speak their support on town meeting floor, they can’t clam up. An important fishery depends on it.