Digital Extra

In the midst of the North Cape crisis last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made public its plans for spending $567,299 awarded in a legal settlement of damages resulting from the 1989 World Prodigy oil spill. The money was compensation for natural resources in Narragansett Bay that were harmed by the spill.

NOAA wants to:

--Build six artificial reefs off Bonnet Shores in Narragansett and stock them for five years with juvenile lobsters at a cost of $270,000. Each reef would be about 60 feet long, made of rocks and boulders, submerged in 20 to 30 feet of water.

--Transplant quahogs from polluted waters to two "spawner sanctuaries" at the mouth of Greenwich Bay and in the upper Sakonnet River at a cost of $75,000. Some 200,000 quahogs would be transplanted in each of two years.

--Harvest eelgrass from Ninigret Pond and plant it at 10 locations around Narragansett Bay, using staff from the National Marine Fisheries Service's laboratory in Beaufort, N.C., and help from the state Department of Environmental Management and the University of Rhode Island. Total cost: $100,000.

--Expand a culvert and channels bringing tidal waters into the saltwater marsh at Sachuest Point in Middletown to improve the health of the marsh. Total cost: $80,000.

An additional $42,299 will be set aside for administration and cost overruns for the four projects.

The legal settlement was awarded to NOAA in 1991. But since then, there has been extensive wrangling with the state DEM over the best ways to spend it.

David V.D. Borden, an associate DEM director in charge of fish and wildlife, said last week that the DEM wanted to spend the money on a lobster and quahog hatchery for the Bay. He said NOAA initially favored a shellfish planting project.

"So it's been a long and labored process," Borden said.

NOAA officials couldn't be reached for comment. But in the report last week they said they rejected the hatchery proposal because the World Prodigy settlement didn't provide enough money to operate the hatchery long enough to make it productive.

They also said hatcheries run the risk of introducing disease organisms and reducing genetic variability in fish stocks. In fact, hatcheries "remain an unproven technique to enhance populations of these species," the NOAA report said.

The four projects above were selected because they are proven, cost-effective techniques for improving fish stocks, it said.

"NOAA's goal is to restore the resources injured by the World Prodigy oil spill and compensate the public for the lost use of those resources by enhancing habitat value for numerous marine resources, with specific emphasis on lobsters, quahogs and estuarine finfish," the report said.

The restoration plan is considered a draft and anyone may offer comments or suggestions before it is officially enacted.

Comments may be sent until March 1 to John Catena at the National Marine Fisheries Service, One Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, MA 10930, or by calling Catena at 508-281-9251.