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EPA under the Act. The Town is faced with the need Report of the to identify how we will meet those targets. Sewer commission The only remaining portion of Mashpee not cov- ered by an MEP report or TMDL is the extreme west- f x To the Honorable Board of Selectman and the ern part of the town,including most of the Johns Pond Citizens of the Town of Mashpee: Estates,Winslow Farms and Childs River West subdi- visions. These areas will be covered by an MEP The Commission went through major changes in report for Waquoit Bay, Childs River and Eel River i 2010, with the loss of two members and the change which is being undertaken by the UMass-Dartmouth from a three to a seven member makeup. Early in the School of Marine Science & Technology (SMaST) year, Donald Desmarais resigned from the and is jointly funded with the Town of Falmouth. Commission and Matthew Berrelli moved from (Mashpee Town Meeting provided 25%, or $23,625, Mashpee. Both put in more than 5 years of much of the MEP report costs.). appreciated work on the Commission. In May, six new members were appointed by the Selectmen. Once TMDLs for most of our watersheds were determined, our engineering consultant, GHD (for- Much of the next four months was dedicated to merly Stearns & Wheler, LLC), completed a "Final bringing the new members up to speed on the nitrogen Needs Assessment Report" in April 2007, analyzing problem in our estuaries, the cleanup targets devel- existing environmental resources and demographics, oped by the state's Massachusetts Estuaries Program existing wastewater infrastructure, wastewater flows for the Popponesset Bay and "Waquoit Bay East" and nitrogen loading,nitrogen loading targets,develop- estuaries and. adopted as "Total Maximum Daily ment of wastewater nitrogen priority areas, a summary Loads" (TMDL's) by EPA, the technologies available of needs and a discussion of funding opportunities. In for dealing with wastewater collection and treatment November 2007 a "Final Technology Screening and the work completed previously on the Report" was delivered, identifying all of the potential Commission's Watershed Nitrogen Management Plan wastewater treatment, sewering and effluent discharge l Effluent Pipeline Preliminary Design (WNMP) pro- technologies and identifying their favorable and unfa- ject. The NMP project is intended to identify the vorable characteristics, costs and effectiveness. W most cost-effective approach to reducing nitrogen in each of our coastal watersheds to levels that do not At a series of meetings with our Community harm the bays. By late fall, the Commission was Advisory Committee (CAC) and consultants, five ready to move forward with the next steps in the plan- alternative scenarios were proposed for dealing with ning process,distilling the five nitrogen removal"sce- wastewater nitrogen. Four scenarios were developed narios"that had been developed and tested previously by GHD and delivered in March 2008. One involved down to more specific plans. A proposed draft plan leaving existing private sewer systems in place and was.developed, and as of the end of the year had been public sewering of the rest of the watersheds,one used distributed to three wastewater collection system ven- acquisition of some of the existing private treatment dors for development and costing of preliminary col- plants as the basis for a municipal system, one aban- lection system plans. doned all of the private plants and created a large tra- ditional public sewer system for the whole area, and As reported in previous years,the Massachusetts one presumed that each of the towns in the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Popponesset and Waquoit watersheds "goes it alone" Massachusetts Estuaries Program (MEP) modeled rather than cooperating on the most cost-effective nitrogen loading and pathways, and established nitro- watershed-based approach (inter-municipal coopera- gen loading targets,for both the Popponesset Bay and tion and cost-sharing will be a major issue that must omil Quashnet River/ Hamblin's Pond/Jehu Pond water- be addressed by Mashpee and the surrounding three sheds ("Waquoit Bay East"). The recommendations towns). A fifth scenario was developed by a second from these reports were used by DEP to set formal consultant, Lombardo Associates, Inc. in July 2008, nitrogen targets, the TMDLs, for each of the sub- based on neighborhood"cluster" systems using Septic embayments of our estuaries. TMDLs,to be enforced Tank Effluent Pump (STEP) sewers and "Nitrex" by DEP,are required by the federal Clean Water Act, wastewater treatment technology for smaller clusters and the DEP TMDL reports have been approved by or other treatment technologies for larger clusters 137