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ARTICLE 47: To see whether the Town will vote to direct the Board of Selectmen not to allow any permit applications for the Herring River Restoration Project until, and unless, the project proponents give assurance that they will provide appropriate insurance and security to protect fishermen, aquaculturists, local business owners, private property owners, and town-owned property, for potential damages, financial losses and legal expenses that could result from the Project.
The HRRC does NOT recommend adoption of this article. (Unanimous)
For the past decade the Town has worked to further the Herring River Restoration because of the significant improvements in water quality, fisheries and wildlife habitat, and the overwhelming benefits these resources provide to fishermen, shellfishermen, local business owners, private property owners and the Wellfleet community.
This article seeks to prevent the Town from accomplishing this important project. It imposes a burden to provide insurance that is not required for other public works projects. This article is also based on misinformation about the project and how it will be implemented. The Herring River Restoration Project is being conservatively designed and will be carefully implemented. Tide levels will be changed carefully while the system responses are monitored. This will ensure that the restoration benefits we expect are achieved while any unintended outcomes are avoided. Private properties and businesses will be protected from impacts related to changes in tides. Project budgets will have contingency funds to cover any unintended project-related changes and costs. Shellfish resources will benefit from increased tidal exchange. We all stand to benefit from cleaning up the River, which is now polluted and contributing to shellfish closures below the dike.
This article also seeks to bypass the local decision-making process agreed to by the Town, and Cape Cod National Seashore. All decisions about how the project is implemented will be made locally by the Herring River Executive Council, which includes two members from our Board of Selectmen, our Town Administrator, their counterparts in Truro, and the Superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The Executive Council is guided by recommendations from the Herring River Restoration Committee and the public. Local control means that local concerns can be addressed immediately.
We urge you to vote no on this article because it threatens a project that stands to generate significant benefits for the entire town for years to come.
The most important sentence explaining the HRRC's opposition to protecting the assets of the Wellfleet taxpayers with liability insurance appears to be: "This article seeks to prevent the Town from accomplishing this important project." Why would the need for insurance deal a fatal blow to the project? A plausible explanation is that, from an actuarial standpoint, potential insurers would judge the risk of the Herring River project to be so great that the costs of liability insurance would be prohibitively expensive. No cost estimates for such insurance have been disclosed to the public.
The moderator of the Wellfleet town meeting on April 24, 2017, declared that the motion to approve the above article failed on a voice vote.