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and Legal Tools (the "Tools" report), demonstration Report of the grants to individual towns for a variety of wastewater Sewer Commission planning projects and funding of a County contract with the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) to provide the towns with computerized groundwater modeling To the Honorable Board of Selectmen of potential wastewater discharge sites. and the Citizens of the Town of Mashpee Your Sewer Commission has been very aggres- During 2004, the Commission continued work- sive in obtaining services provided through the WIC. ing toward developing a solution to the Town's waste- The chairman sat on the subcommittee which selected water and nitrogen loading problems. The the Tools report consultant and defined the project's ` Commission's Watershed Nitrogen Management Plan scope of work, and was able to have Mashpee included /Effluent Pipeline Preliminary Design is intended to as a case study for the project, focusing on the issues identify the most cost-effective approach to reducing involved in potential municipal acquisition of private nitrogen in each watershed to levels that do not harm wastewater collection and treatment systems. the bays. The engineering firm of Stearns & Wheler, Mashpee has more of these than any other town on the along with Dr. Brian Howes of the UMass-Dartmouth Cape, and some are likely to serve as important ele- School of Marine Science & Technology (SMaST), ments of future Town facilities. were contracted to complete the project. We also secured $33,000 under the WIC's Until late in the year, our project was stalled by Demonstration Grant program to have Stearns & delays in the Commonwealth's Massachusetts Wheler develop a plan for wastewater collection sys- Estuaries Program (MEP), under which SMaST has tems in the Popponesset Bay watershed using been contracted to do modeling of nitrogen loading SewerCAD computer modeling. This work will serve and pathways, and to establish nitrogen loading tar- as a direct input to our Watershed Nitrogen gets, for all estuaries in southeastern Massachusetts. Management Plan. The MEP report for the Popponesset Bay watershed was finally delivered in September, with the Quashnet The Commission has also taken advantage of the River/Hamblin's Pond/Jehu Pond watershed report groundwater modeling contract with USGS. Potential promised by the end of the year. The reports' nitrogen Town-owned and other sites were reviewed for dis- j! targets are to be submitted for approval to the U.S charge of treated wastewater. Seven were selected, Environmental Protection Agency as "TMDLs" (Total which will be modeled to determine how much dis- char e capacity is feasible where the water will o Maximum Daily Loads) for our watersheds and must g p y g be used in developing the mitigation measures to be and what potential impacts discharge could have. This recommended by Stearns & Wheler. While waiting work will also be directly input to our Watershed for the state studies, our 0% State SRF loan lapsed, Nitrogen Management Plan. although we have been assured that it will be renewed when we reapply at the beginning of 2005. Once the Popponesset Bay was also chosen as one of three loan is renewed, we will be able to re-start the estuaries for which the Mass. Department of Watershed Nitrogen Management Plan project. Environmental Protection (DEP) has been funded by EPA to conduct a "Pilot Project" to study a variety of Meanwhile, the Commission and our consultants regulatory and implementation issues in response to have not been idle. The Chairman sits as the Town's the MEP project and the forthcoming TMDLs, includ- j representative on the Barnstable County Wastewater in "watershed-wide permitting" and "nutrient trad- Implementation Committee (WIC), which serves as a ing". The chairman sits on the Pilot Project commit- forum for sharing information, funding local planning tee as well as on DEP's MEP Implementation studies and participating in the development of a Committee. regional wastewater strategy. The Committee was very active this year and obtained County funding for We were also very active in review of the MEP Popponesset report, and plan to thoroughly review the a variety of wastewater planning and management pro- Quashnet / Hamblin's / Jehu Pond report when it is jects. These included County Health Department monitoring of on-site enhanced wastewater treatment released, as these reports and their nitrogen loading targets will be the basis for the Watershed Nitrogen systems throughout the Cape, including Mashpee, in cooperation with local Boards of Health, a major con- Management Plan, which, after years of waiting, we will now be able to fully undertake during 2005. sultant report entitled Enhancing Wastewater Management on Cape Cod: Planning, Administrative 137