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Long-Closed Cape Shellfish Beds Re-Open

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Dec 17, 2008 9:36 am US/Eastern

Long-Closed Cape Shellfish Beds Re-Open

DENNIS (AP) ―

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Two decades after pollution closed a pond and river on Cape Cod to shellfishing, they're being reopened in what a local selectmen calls a "small miracle."

Swan Pond and Swan Pond River were put off limits to shellfishing in 1988 because of high fecal coliform levels, caused by flocks of waterfowl, road runoff and cesspools that ringed the pond.

But town officials in Dennis helped clean the area by dredging and enforcing a rule against feeding waterfowl. It also improved road drainage and enforced septic system regulations, drastically reducing the number of cesspools.

Shellfish constable Alan Marcy tells the Cape Cod Times that the notice the area was clean enough to allow shellfishing was the most important thing to come across his desk in 20 years.