2019-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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Department of Natural Resources is making steady progress with shellfish propagation and seeding, although a lack of adequate funding has set that work back a bit. With regard to the shellfish portion of the Plan, the Commission would like to applaud the outstanding work of DNR Director Rick York, who will be retiring in early 2020. Rick has been a leader on Cape Cod regarding the use of shellfish for nitrogen mitigation in our estuaries and was the key figure in incorporating shellfish into our Plan, with the potential to save Mashpee taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing the amount of wastewater collection and treatment necessary to clean up our bays. As noted, the Quashnet River watershed will require sewering, which is currently scheduled as part of Phase 2 of the WNMP. The Commission and other Town representatives had engaged in discussions over a number of years with the Towns of Sandwich, Falmouth and Bourne, along with representatives of Mass Development and Joint Base Cape Cod, around the use of wastewater treatment and discharge facilities on the Base to accommodate some of our water quality improvement requirements at existing or expanded facilities on the Base. Phase 2 of our Plan calls for wastewater from most of the western part of the town to be sent to the treatment plant on the Base, if it becomes available. Mass Development had been considering appropriate mechanisms by which it might take over ownership of, and responsibility for, the wastewater and other utilities on the base, which are currently managed by the Air Force. However, the Baker administration withdrew Mass Development from that project. Alternative approaches to accessing wastewater treatment and discharge facilities on the Base have continued to be discussed, the most recent being a proposal to operate Base facilities put forward by the Town of Barnstable and a private equity firm. Whether or not that alternative becomes available should be determined in 2020. While, as its name implies, the Watershed Nitrogen Management Plan is focused on reducing nitrogen loads to our estuaries as specified by the EPA, phosphorus, another nutrient, is of increasing concern regarding its impact on our freshwater ponds. Santuit Pond in particular, has long suffered from algae blooms related to excessive levels of phosphorus. While the majority of that phosphorus is being regenerated from the shallow pond's bottom sediments, a small portion of ongoing phosphorus inputs likely comes from 120 residential septic systems located within 300 feet of the Pond. While sewering of the area is not currently called for (based on nitrogen loads) until Phase 3 of the WNMP, as the Town develops a plan for dealing with the Pond the Commission will consider moving up sewering of those homes to an earlier Phase of the Plan. In 2017, the Towns of Mashpee, Barnstable and Sandwich negotiated and signed an Inter -Municipal Agreement (IMA) between the three Towns. The IMA identifies each town's share of responsibility for the nitrogen loads reaching Popponesset Bay and for bringing those loads down to the levels necessary to restore the ecological health of the Bay and its sub- embayments, based on the Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) established by the EPA, which were in turn based on the multi -year Massachusetts Estuary Program study done by UMass-Dartmouth as described at our mashpeewaters.com website. The IMA also commits the Towns to achieving the nitrogen reductions for which each is responsible and provides for a mechanism by which the Towns can share resources, including the transfer of funds from one Town to another to pay for facilities or other actions which may be the most cost-effective in achieving the necessary nitrogen reductions. In June 2018, an initial meeting was held between Mashpee, Sandwich and Falmouth regarding development of a similar IMA for the Waquoit Bay watershed and its sub-embayments. No further progress has been made on a Waquoit Bay IMA and, aside from general cooperation between the towns, no formal actions have been taken regarding implementation of the Popponesset Bay IMA. During 2019, the Commission was pleased to welcome two new members, Kenneth M. Dunn, serving as an at -large member, and Anne Malone, serving as our Precinct 2 representative. We look forward to their contribution to the Commission's work. We still remain two members short, needing a Precinct 3 representative and another at -large member. Any volunteers to fill those positions will be much appreciated, as there will be much to do in the next few years. As noted in previous years, the Commission and Mashpee officials and residents have serious work cut out for us. It took decades for our waterways to get into their current poor condition and it may take a longer IRK