Digital Extra

"I feel quite comfortable that things are moving right along, that Nature is taking care of itself," the biologist, Joseph DeAngelis, told a General Assembly commission that is drafting aquaculture legislation.

He based his assessment on checks that he and other URI researchers made at 15 places two miles out and east and west of where the North Cape oil barge ran aground on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, after an engine room fire disabled the Scandia, the tug that was towing it.

DeAngelis said the researchers took water samples from surface to bottom on the second and seventh days after the accident, and dragged a trawl net through the area on the eighth day.

Oil was found in 30 percent of the water samples, but only one contaminated surf clam was found on the second day. On the seventh day, only traces of oil were found and in only a few water samples, he said.

No oil was found in surface-water samples, "and not a single dead animal" was found in the trawl on the eighth day, DeAngelis said.

These findings were generally confirmed by the research vessel Albatross of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which ran checks farther out in Block Island Sound late last week, he said.

DeAngelis said URI researchers hope to make more checks today to help determine how soon the area can be reopened to commercial fishing, to help and determine the liability of Eklof Marine, operator of the North Cape and Scandia.

He did not say -- and was not asked by the commission -- how much of the barge's oil may have entered coastal salt ponds in Narragansett, South Kingstown, Charlestown and Westerly.

DeAngelis urged the commission, headed by Rep. Eileen S. Naughton, D-Warwick, to consider liability issues in any legislation it drafts because of other kinds of damage he has seen to aquaculture projects in Chesapeake Bay.

Vessels trying to free themselves after running aground on shellfish beds, or merely taking short cuts across them, can cause a lot of damage, he said. So can the dredging of shipping channels, he said.

Most of the two-hour commission meeting was taken up by testimony on the opportunities and problems facing Rhode Island aquaculture projects -- and an offer of help.

Matt Weaver of Newport urged state tax breaks for new aquaculture projects that provide employment without damaging the environment.

Daniel A. Curran of Adamsville, a senior fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Marine Policy Center, said that legal questions, jurisdictional issues and financing problems are serious issues for aquaculture.

The last issue is the most serious, and may require state help, he added.

Howard E. Schachter, president of AquaMetric Industries Inc. and chairman of the Narragansett Bay Commission's citizen advisory committee, said his and related firms can provide technical help to aquaculture projects on land sites, chiefly in removing fish wastes.

Naughton said that the commission will meet again on Monday, Feb. 5, and Monday, March 11, at 3 p.m. in Room 35B at the State House.