| Over time, nitrogen discharges
from septic systems into the groundwater and travels slowly to the
coastal embayments. This has resulted in water quality problems (state
establishes standards), sea grass bed loss and the associated aquatic
biota (like bay scallops), fish kills from low oxygen conditions in the
bottom waters as excess plant material decays, and aesthetic issues.
Since the quality of our coastal waters is important to fishing,
tourism, and the sense of place amongst residents, it is important to
meet this challenge in an expeditious fashion. The Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) Southeastern
Massachusetts Estuary Project has established nitrogen loading targets
(total maximum daily loads or TMDLs) for the coastal water bodies on
Cape Cod. It is up to each town to develop a plan to meet these targets
by reducing the nitrogen loading from septic systems and fertilizer
usage within their boundaries. One of the primary tools in this endeavor
will be sewering and construction of a centralized treatment plant,
either town-wide or in the densely populated areas adjacent to these
saltwater bodies. The political challenge involves finding ways to fund
these large public infrastructure costs, even though it is clear that
most of the cost will be borne by the residents. There will be private
costs to homeowners in order to re-route pipes in their basements from
their septic systems to the streets in order to connect to the sewers.
Each town or groups of towns that border a coastal water body will
need to develop a plan to meet the state TMDL requirements. It is
unclear at this time what the Mass. DEP regulatory requirements will be
to complete this planning process and begin implementation. Given the
large cost of these infrastructure improvements (hundreds of millions of
dollars), the County Wastewater Collaborative is exploring funding
options from the state revolving loans to grants from the state or
private foundations.
The Cape Cod Group would like to develop activists in each town to
follow this planning process to see where we can help the towns meet
their wastewater challenge. We will lobby local/state/federal officials
to move forward expeditiously to address this problem and find ways to
implement the plans with a variety of funding mechanisms. Given that
there is a lot of nitrogen in the groundwater upgradient from the
coastal bays and the sediments within our coastal waters have high
nitrogen levels, it will take time to see improvements in water quality
and recovery of the natural plant and animal populations. As these
nitrogen reduction plans are being implemented, one is likely to see
improved water clarity as an early indicator of change. Now is the time
to start, so that we can protect one of the things that makes Cape Cod a
special place. To contribute to our in our work in helping towns address
this issue, please contact David Dow (see
contacts page for contact
information.)
The County government and nine Cape Cod towns have asked our
Congressional representatives to obtain a $ 500-600K appropriation. This
would be used to fund a National Academy of Science's peer-review of the
Massachusetts Estuary's project's model on which DEP computes to
nitrogen loading reductions (Total Maximum Daily Loads) for each
watershed on Cape Cod.
This will slow down the wastewater infrastructure upgrade process and
probably delay the release of the 50% of the watershed nutrient loading
reports from the School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) at
UMass-Dartmouth that have not been provided to the effected Cape Cod
towns. The SMAST reports for the Massachusetts. Estuaries Project have
not received independent scientific review of its model which bothers
town decision makers who have to ask the public for $3-6 billion over 30
years to fund the wastewater infrastructure upgrade.
Modeling efforts elsewhere on predicting the recovery potential of
water quality and key habitats in coastal embayments following nitrogen
loading reductions from human activities in coastal watersheds have
shown poor results. This would devote this proposed money to improved
coastal monitoring programs and establishing adaptive management regimes
to offer mid-course correction to the town water infrastructure upgrade
approaches. Many of the towns will pursue multi-phase implementation
strategies for sewering and construction of advanced, centralized
treatment plants, so that mid-course corrections are a feasible option.
Other issues that require addressing are: removal of the nutrient
phosphorus; eliminating contaminants of emerging concern in the treated
sewage effluent before it is discharged back into our sole source
aquifer for drinking water; removal of toxic sediments in embayments and
replanting eelgrass shoots to establish beds which are key habitats for
wildlife, and so on.
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