1999-TOWN MEETING RECORDS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

ARTICLE 16 To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds or borrow $426,640 to the Sewer Commission Facilities Plan Account, to be expended under the direction of the Sewer Commission for consultant services and associated costs related to the development of a Watershed Nitrogen Management Plan/Effluent Pipeline Preliminary Design, and to raise such appropriation, the Treasurer, with the approval of the Selectmen, be authorized to borrow $426,640, or any other sum under and pursuant to Chapter 44, Sections 7, 8(16) and 8C of the General laws, or any other enabling authority, and to issue bonds or notes of the Town therefor; provided that said appropriation and borrowing authorization shall be contingent on receipt of a loan for this purpose from the State Revolving Fund Program of the Department of Environmental Protection, or take any other action relating thereto. Submitted by Sewer Commission Explanation: The Mashpee River, Ockway Bay, Shoestring Bay, parts of Popponesset Bay and portions of the Waquoit Bay estuary have seen rapidly declining water quality, fish and shellfish kills caused by inadequate oxygen levels, excessive algae, foul odors and other problems due largely to excessive nitrogen levels. Those nitrogen levels result primarily from the increasing levels of residential development in the watersheds of those bays and the use of traditional septic systems for disposal of wastewater. In 1998 the Town funded the first phase of an effort to deal with those problems. That first phase, a study of critical nitrogen levels in the Popponesset Bay estuary by Dr. Brian Howes and the University of Massachusetts Center for Marine Science and Technology (CMAST), will identify the level of nitrogen inputs which can be tolerated by the Mashpee River, Shoestring Bay, Ockway Bay and the main body of Popponesset Bay. This article would fund the second phase of the project, involving development by CMAST of similar information on tolerable nitrogen levels for Hamblin Pond / Little River, Jehu Pond / Great River and the Quashnet River estuary, nitrogen modeling by CMAST of alternative approaches to nitrogen reduction, and development, by a wastewater engineering firm, of a plan and preliminary design for the wastewater facilities and other measures required to reduce nitrogen loading to the tolerable levels identified by CMAST in the most cost-effective manner possible. The funding amount requested is based on the fees required for the additional work by CMAST and the wastewater-engineering firm. Funding for this article is subject to approval of an application by the Town for funding assistance, in the form of a zero interest loan, from the Massachusetts Water Pollution Abatement Trust State Revolving (loan) Fund. Should the Town's application not be approved, the Commission's intent is to seek alternate funding at the October Annual Town Meeting. Recommendation: The Finance Committee recommends approval. 16