The short version
In late 1979, after a year of meetings and two public hearings, the Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs designated Waquoit Bay and its surrounding marshes, ponds and rivers an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). The designation was requested by Falmouth and Mashpee officials. This short document sets the boundary and explains why the state considered the bay worth special protection. One of its reasons was a warning: the bay flushes poorly, so pollution would tend to stay put.
What the state did
An ACEC is a state designation for places with highly significant natural resources. It focuses attention on the area and means certain state-reviewed projects get closer scrutiny. Secretary John A. Bewick signed this designation under the authority of the Coastal Zone Management (CZM) program.
- Nomination: On July 9, 1979, the Selectmen, Conservation Commissions and Waterways Committee/Harbormaster of Falmouth and Mashpee jointly nominated the Waquoit Bay estuarine system. Local citizens had first proposed it at a CZM meeting more than two years earlier.
- Public review: CZM staff held meetings in both towns, a public hearing at Falmouth Town Hall on September 27, 1979, where an informal vote was 50–3 in favor, a boat tour for 18 citizens and officials, and a second hearing on October 25.
- Boundary: The ACEC follows the low-tide line on the seaward side and largely the 100-year flood boundary on land. It takes in the bay, Bourne, Bog, Caleb, Witch, Fells and Jehu ponds, parts of the Quashnet River and Red Brook, the upper Childs River and South Cape Beach. The main navigation channels and a culvert under Monomoscoy Road were excluded.
What it found
- A large, largely unaltered estuary. The area has a long barrier beach, dunes, many acres of salt marsh, productive shellfish beds, herring runs and floodplain. It easily met the rule that an ACEC contain at least five types of significant resource areas.
- Clean water, valuable uses. The finding describes the estuary’s
unpolluted water
and its support for swimming, boating, fishing and shellfishing. It cites a late-1960s state study that found Waquoit Bay had the greatest diversity of estuarine fish among nine Massachusetts estuaries sampled. - Easily harmed. Because the bay connects to the sound only through narrow cuts, the whole basin is susceptible to poor flushing. Pollutants discharged into it would tend to stay concentrated, and impacts on shellfish and finfish could be severe.
- Economic stakes. Shellfish permits, boatyards and the wholesale shellfish trade brought significant income to both towns. Groundwater mattered too, because shoreline residents relied on private wells.
What it means for Waquoit Bay today
The ACEC designation is the foundation of Waquoit Bay’s special legal status, and it came from a local, two-town request. Its description of clean water is a reminder of how much the bay has changed. Its warning about poor flushing proved right: nitrogen that enters through groundwater lingers in the bay’s shallow basins and fuels the algae that have replaced its eelgrass.
The document’s concerns were mostly about filling, dredging and building on undeveloped land, especially Washburn Island and South Cape Beach. Two years later, citizens founded CPWB to fight a plan to develop Washburn Island. That story is told in how Waquoit Bay was saved from development. For a picture of the bay at about the time of designation, see what Waquoit Bay was like in 1967.
Read the report
Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. (1979). Designation of Waquoit Bay as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern and Supporting Findings. Signed by John A. Bewick, Secretary of Environmental Affairs, November 1979. Boston, MA. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/waquoit-bay-acec
License: A Commonwealth of Massachusetts government document, not openly licensed. The state’s ACEC program publishes the designation, boundary maps and current information on its website, so we link there rather than hosting a copy.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
