12/13/2011 SEWER COMMISSION Minutes

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How can Mashpee prevent the Nitrogen in clean waste water from entering our estuaries? We can collect all the septic waste and, after processing, implement additional Nitrogen reducing systems. The expense for additional processing may not be necessary if we can implement one or more of the following:. 1) Install an outflow pipe into Nantucket sound. At this time it is prohibited due to previous abuse by cities which often dumped raw sewerage into the ocean. Today's clean waste water, which has removed pathogens and meets the drinking water standard of a maximum of 10 mg/liter of Nitrogen, is not a pollutant to the ocean. 2) Install clean waste water sprinkler systems in conservation areas or in town owned property to fertilize the natural fauna and let the decaying peat moss unlock Nitrogen compounds into harmless Nitrogen gas. This process consumes the Nitrogen compounds before they leach into estuaries, it is being done in numerous areas now including golf courses and municipal watering systems. 3) Stop the direct injection of clean waste water, high in Nitrogen, into our watershed by piping clean processed waste water to areas that leach directly into Nantucket Sound. 4) Install PRB's where appropriate and cost justified. PRB's ( Permeable Reactive Barriers) act as watershed filters where organic compounds provide Carbon for nitrogen compounds in waste water to react with changing them to harmless Nitrogen gas. Properly implemented, in appropriate areas, PRB's effectively stop Nitrogen compounds from reaching watersheds. How can I become involved in implementing an effective solution to Nitrogen pollution? 1) Contact your Town elected officials and confirm you want to stop the pollution of our estuaries. Ask them to cooperate among themselves and adjoining towns to address appropriate solutions before our estuaries reach the point they are liabilities not assets. 2) Contact your State representatives and confirm legislative action is needed to enable watershed solutions to be implemented across town lines. Thus making the primary town polluter responsible for corrective action and providing for secondary town polluters' to reimburse the primary town for services provided on an egalitarian basis. 3) Contact your County and State representatives and confirm legislative action could save Cape Towns millions of dollars by allowing Outflow pipes to dispose of clean waste water into the ocean thus protecting our estuaries from all waste water Nitrogen.