Push Offers More Moorings to Residents

By: James Kinsella
Published: 11/11/11

Under an effort mounted by the Barnstable Marine & Environmental Affairs staff with the support of the Barnstable Waterways Committee, a number of town residents this fall got what some of them probably thought they never would get: a mooring in town waters.

Two rounds of mooring offerings were conducted this fall and a possible third round is under consideration.

When added to a mooring offering conducted in June, the numbers show that of 1,351 people on mooring waiting lists this year, 431, or 32 percent, so far have been offered moorings in town.

As of October 24, a pending total of 130 applications had been submitted for the openings, a response rate of 30 percent.“I think it’s great,” the town’s mooring officer, Joe Gibbs, said last Friday about the special effort.

“It’s great to get more people out there.”“It’s been 10 to 15 years or more that some people have been waiting,”

Mr. Gibbs said.The effort comes on the heels of an analysis of open mooring spaces in the town.

Depending on the size of boats in the town waters, Mr. Gibbs said the total number of mooring spaces runs from 2,500 to 2,600.

Some of the open spaces, Mr. Gibbs said, come from attrition as a number of people do not renew their mooring permits, as more space opens as people upsize or downsize their boats, or spaces shift slightly in the mooring fields.

Among the people who have been offered moorings so far this year are those who won a lottery to be placed on waiting lists for fields including North Bay and East Bay.

Moorings remain on the minds of the members of the waterways committee, which has scheduled a workshop to further discuss the topic at 6 PM Tuesday at the MEA offices on Phinney’s Lane.