11.   Timothy Keeney, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Management, closed shellfish beds in all eight salt ponds as a health precaution.

12.   Those that did arrive spent their daytime hours basking in the sun, floating on the bays and salt ponds and the gently heaving bosom of the Atlantic.

13.   We found the dovekie, captured it with a crab net as cars whizzed by, and put it in a salt pond a mile away.

14.   When geese leave the salt ponds to feed during such weather they usually fly high and carefully inspect possible landing sites.

15.   Furthermore, excessive growth of salt mushroom in the salt ponds have reduced the evaporation area and thus impeded the flow of brine.

16.   Project director James Conyers said he crawled three hours through a salt pond on the island of Anegada to find the chicks.

17.   The salt ponds will be purged of toxic deposits and turned into habitat for migratory birds and other species.