If there’s one thing this year’s contentious negotiations between the town and the Bare Hill Rowing Association have revealed, it’s how poorly residents understand the state and local bylaws that govern the use of Harvard’s treasured great pond.
So says Harbor Master Bob O’Shea, who hopes to set the record straight at the forum he and the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee will co-host at the Bromfield School cafeteria this coming Monday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. (For details, see the sidebar that accompanies this article.)
“It’s not about the BHRA,.” O’Shea told the Press in a recent interview. “If anything, I’m picking on the town.” The town, he said, is not being a good steward in allowing the number of boat racks, moorings, slips, and other facilities to increase without regard to safety or providing for the enforcement of state and local rules already in place.
Role gains new visibility
The BHRA may have “exacerbated the situation,” he said. But “any large user would have done the same.”
Though Harvard has had a harbor master for years, this year’s prolonged negotiation between the Parks and Recreation Commission, the selectmen, the schools, and the BHRA has given the role new visibility.
State law says that to put anything into a great pond—a body of water larger than 10 acres—you must have a permit. “My role is to represent the state in the permitting process,” says O’Shea. This allows Harvard to issue its own permits to landowners who want to place docks, slides, moorings, or other structures in the water. Boat permits are the responsibility of the state.
O’Shea has the authority to regulate, for example, the placement of the rowing dock in fall and spring and the number of boat slips at the town dock next to the site of the old boathouse. Rules of behavior, such as maximum speed and direction of travel or how near a boat can approach a swimming area, are set by the state or town.
The problem, O’Shea says, is that although a town bylaw (Section 13.8) allows Harvard to establish penalties for violating its rules, none are in effect, nor is there a way to enforce them. A harbor master could serve as the enforcer, but that requires certification as a public safety officer, which O’Shea says he does not have. The state’s environmental police do occasionally patrol the pond and have been known to issue tickets to violators, but most violations go unpunished.
Complaints, but no enforcement
“I get complaints all the time,” he says. About fishermen talking too loudly in the early morning. About people leaving a water jump in the water so that it floats onto someone else’s property. About water skiers going the wrong way on the water or skiing without a spotter, as required by law.
O’Shea hopes next week’s forum will lead to a better understanding of the rules governing use of the pond. “We may hear that there are areas to change in the town’s bylaws,” he told the Press. And he would like to hear opinions on whether town permits should be written with conditions that would make water activities on the pond safer.
“But the beach is off limits” as a topic, he says. Any suggestions regarding the beach will be put into a “parking lot,” he says, a sheet of paper to be handed off to the beach’s landowner: the town of Harvard, as represented by its Board of Selectmen.
