certainly help the species. However, 

 because sturgeon take years to mature, 

 unassisted recovery could take a long 

 time. 



By identifying the regional 

 differences, Waldman and Wirgin have 

 provided crucial information to better 

 assist the sturgeon's comeback. 



Adapted from an article written by 

 Julie Zeidnerfor Coastlines, a maga- 

 zine published by the New York Sea 

 Grant Institute. 



Homeowners Should Screw 

 Down Roofing Material to 

 Thwart Hurricane Damage 



Hurricanes that rage through 

 coastal communities often wreak the 

 most havoc for homeowners by ripping 

 apart their roofs. Many folks respond 

 by pounding in more nails, but a South 

 Carolina Sea Grant researcher has 

 found that a screwdriver, not a hammer, 

 is the best defense against high winds. 



Timothy Reinhold, professor of 

 civil engineering, and other researchers 

 at Clemson University used their wind- 

 research facility to compare the 

 effectiveness of screws and nails when 

 holding down roof sheathing. Roofing 

 material secured properly with screws 

 withstood up to five times more wind 

 pressure than material held in place by 

 nails only. 



The American Society of Civil 

 Engineers established guidelines after 

 Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida. 

 They required that roof sheathing be 

 held in place with nails every three 

 inches on edges and at corners. How- 

 ever, nails driven this close to each ! 

 other could cause rafters to split and 

 thus weaken the roof's ability to 

 withstand high winds. 



Reinhold recommends that 

 homeowners use No. 8 screws to attach 

 the plywood underlayer to the rafters 

 when they reroof and that they space 

 the screws 12 inches apart. 



According to Reinhold, 

 homeowners will spend less than $300 



on the modifications for a 2,000- 

 square-foot roof. 



Community and Researchers 

 Join Forces to Bring 

 Back Bay Scallops 



Residents in areas surrounding 

 the Westport River estuary in Massa- 

 chusetts are prying into scallops. They 

 want to restore shellfish harvests that 

 have declined due to worsening water 

 quality. Since 1993, participants in the 

 Bay Scallop Restoration Project have 

 worked to understand the life cycle of 

 scallops to help the creatures thrive. 



To achieve this goal, the project 

 founders enlisted the help of Rhode 

 Island Sea Grant researcher Michael 

 Rice and his graduate student Karen 

 Tammi to look at ways of increasing 

 the estuary's stocks. Rice and Tammi 

 decided to experiment with artificial 

 collectors — onion bags filled with 

 monofilament line — for juvenile 

 scallops (spats) to settle on. 



The researchers encountered a 

 problem early in the project: too few 

 adults for brood stock. Using 200 

 borrowed brood scallops placed in 

 spawner rafts, the researchers ob- 

 served the creatures and determined 

 when spawning occurred. Westport 

 residents and students from local 

 schools constructed and situated spat 

 collector lines to help ascertain the 

 most productive breeding sites. 



After just one year, harvests 

 increased significantly, and Rice and 

 Tammi reaped scientific rewards. 

 They found that scallops will settle on 

 man-made collectors and that certain 

 areas in the estuary were more 

 productive than others. 



Armed with these conclusions, 

 the researchers and hundreds of 

 volunteers carried on the next year. 

 The 1994 season also produced a 

 greater harvest — both of scallops and 

 information. The time of the major 

 spawning was pinpointed, and 

 participants gathered more than 7,000 



seed scallops for the next season. 



In 1995, the project focused on 

 confirming previous results and 

 initiating mud crab predation control. 

 By incorporating a spat bag with a 

 smaller mesh size, researchers were 

 able to minimize predation by crabs 

 and increase harvests even more. 



This restoration project and others 

 like it are successful on several fronts. 

 They unite a community in an effort to 

 improve water quality and shellfish 

 harvests, provide a hands-on science 

 classroom for local students, yield 

 important scientific data for marine 

 researchers and, in some cases, boost 

 the local economy. 



Adapted from an article written 

 by Malia Schwartz and Tracey I. 

 Cragofor Nor'easter, a magazine 

 published by the Northeast Sea Grant 

 Programs, m 



COASTWATCH 23 



