2006-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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i i I t' and priorities related to developing the facilities that Implementation Committee (WIC), on which will be needed to meet the TMDLs and clean up our Commissioner Fudala had served since its inception. waterways. As one potential strategy for dealing with In its place, the County created a Technical Advisory funding and development of sewer facilities in the Committee(TAC)to which Commissioner Fudala was most cost-effective way, discussions have begun with appointed by the County Commissioners. The TAC the Water District with regard to potential expansion serves as a group of wastewater and planning advisors of its role into sewer facilities or merging the Sewer to the Collaborative, sharing information among the I Commission and the District. The Districts legal towns, making recommendations on County funding counsel has provided an initial memorandum regard- for wastewater studies and participating in the Bevel- ing the legal and legislative actions needed to under- opment of a regional wastewater plan. Commissioner take that process. Organizational and financial issues Fudala also continued to serve on the County's EPA will be part of S&W's work on the WNMP and dis- Watershed Grant Working Group and on DEP's state- cussions with the Water District will continue in 2007 wide MEP Implementation Committee and has been i in the hope of settling on a course of action. appointed to a County-wide MEP Implementation committee, also funded by an EPA grant, which began Discussions were also begun in August with the work in January 2006. School Department relative to the School Committee's request that the Commission take over operations of Commissioner Berrelli attended a joint meeting the High School wastewater treatment plant. The of the New England and New York Water plant had major operational problems,particularly rel- Environment Associations in June, at which he was ative to excessive nitrogen levels, needed major main- part of an S&W presentation on the computerized tenance and was faced with new and stricter regulatory sewer system design modeling project for the standards by DEP which could significantly add to the Popponesset Bay watershed mentioned above. cost of operations. As the year ended,the parties were Commissioner Fudala was a featured speaker at the still in discussions regarding the future management EPA Cape Wastewater Conference in November and and ownership of the plant, but through the diligent served as a panelist at the Cape Cod Low Impact work of Commissioners Berrelli and Desmarais and Development Conference in April. Earth Tech, the plant's operating contractor, nitrogen levels had been greatly reduced, maintenance had The Commission also continued its participation, improved and a set of recommendations for plant along with representatives of Barnstable, Sandwich, improvements were developed. the state and the county, in the EPA-funded DEP Popponesset Bay "Pilot Project". The project is using The Commission continued to educate itself this group as a"guinea pig"to study the regulatory and regarding wastewater technologies, meeting with con- implementation issues of the new TMDLs in order to sultants and vendors regarding available products. help set state policy, as well as to identify innovative Most interesting this year were vacuum sewers, mem- approaches to nitrogen removal, local regulations and brane bioreactor and "Nitrex" wastewater treatment inter-municipal cooperation. Under the latter cate- systems, which have shown excellent nitrogen reduc- gory, the group worked with SMaST to investigate the tion capabilities, and "GeoFlow" subsurface waste- possibility of converting some of the abandoned cran- water discharge systems, which could be easily berry bogs into ponds to enhance nitrogen attenuation, installed under existing ballfields and lawn areas. but the major focus of the group was on finding a fair approach to splitting responsibility and costs for meet- 2006 was the first year of operations for the ing the Popponesset Bay TMDLs among the three County's"Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative", towns. A suggested method has been developed, with intended to focus on seeking state and federal funding great assistance from Mashpee residents Ed Baker and assistance for wastewater facilities on the Cape, on Jim Hanks, which involves a theoretical equal reduc- coordinating wastewater facilities planning by the tion of attenuated nitrogen loads in all subwatersheds towns and on otherwise assisting the towns in dealing and the possibility of trading nitrogen "credits" With our water quality improvement efforts. between towns to fund the most cost-effective overall Selectman John Cahalane serves as the Town's repre- approach to facilities. The ramifications of the pro- sentative on the Collaborative. The Commission looks posal are now undergoing review by the group and will forward to taking advantage of any opportunities the soon have to be addressed politically and financially Collaborative provides for dealing with Mashpee's by the leaders of the three communities. Settling on water quality problems. such a "fair share" mechanism will be important in determining what facilities must be planned for devel- Creation of the Collaborative involved the dis- opment in Mashpee under our WNMP. banding in May of the County's Wastewater 119