The short version
Falmouth's wastewater plan calls for periodic updates, and this December 2019 document, prepared by the engineering firm GHD with the town's Water Quality Management Committee, is one of them. It reports what the town's monitoring shows, how its pilot projects fared, and how each south-coast watershed is expected to reach its state nitrogen limit (called a TMDL). The monitoring shows all five estuaries, Waquoit Bay among them, still over their nitrogen targets, with little change in recent years. Sewers are planned as the main fix for Little Pond, Great Pond and Green Pond, while Waquoit Bay is at an early stage because it is shared with Mashpee and Sandwich. This summary is based on the report's executive summary (pages ES-1 to ES-19).
What the report covers
The executive summary pulls together the town's work on nitrogen since 2011, in these parts.
- Water quality monitoring by UMass Dartmouth's School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST): every two weeks in July and August, in Little, Great, Green and Bournes Ponds since 1989 and at 19 stations in Waquoit Bay since 2001.
- Results of the town's pilot projects, funded mainly by a $2.77 million bond approved in 2011: eco-toilets, a fertilizer bylaw, shellfish aquaculture, nitrogen-reducing (I/A) septic systems, permeable reactive barriers (underground walls that filter nitrogen from groundwater), stormwater and inlet widening.
- Updates for Little Pond and West Falmouth Harbor, where plans are already underway.
- Planning scenarios for Great Pond, Green Pond, Bournes Pond and the Eel Pond and Childs River parts of Waquoit Bay.
- A funding timetable and a note on the town's outreach to the public.
What it found
- Still impaired. SMAST's data show all five estuaries, Waquoit Bay included, remain nitrogen-impaired. Conditions have held roughly steady since 2004 in the four ponds and since 2010 in Waquoit Bay. Nitrogen is highest at the head of each estuary and lowest near the mouth, and the key stations still exceed their targets.
- Septic systems are the main target. For Waquoit Bay and the neighboring ponds, the report names household septic wastewater as the largest controllable nitrogen source.
- Eco-toilets did not catch on. About 170 homeowners responded to the town's offer, and only nine fixtures were installed. They removed 48% to 86% of nitrogen, but concerns about resale value and upkeep led the town to conclude that a large program would not be embraced, and it has no plans for more.
- Fertilizer rules. Falmouth's bylaw bans fertilizer within 100 feet of coastal estuaries and limits timing and amounts elsewhere. The town expects it, along with stormwater practices, to earn a state credit of 25% of the nitrogen load from those sources.
- Oysters help locally. Little Pond's three-year trial produced small, local improvements in water quality. In 2018, the Waquoit Bay oyster gear was estimated to remove about 108 to 167 kg of nitrogen per acre per year, against a proposed town target of 130. The town is starting a pilot in the Eel River that contracts commercial growers to meet a nitrogen target, with full-scale growing expected in 2020.
- Septic upgrades need better performance and financing. In West Falmouth Harbor, 20 I/A systems were installed in the first phase of a project with the Buzzards Bay Coalition. The town set a goal of 12 mg of nitrogen per liter, since it considers the state's 19 mg/L standard too high, and concluded it needs state-approved systems reaching 10 mg/L. It also said cost is a main concern and that loans would need terms like the town's past sewer betterments.
- Sewering under way and planned. Little Pond's sewer area (about 1,350 properties) was more than 95% connected, and is expected to deliver at least 83% of the needed nitrogen cut, though the full effect may take about seven years to show. For Great Pond, the town studied sewering about 1,791 more properties, which with the Little Pond sewer area would deliver at least 59% of the cut needed there. The town anticipated a $60 million bond vote in spring 2024.
- Waquoit Bay is early in the process. The Waquoit Bay watershed is shared by Falmouth, Mashpee and Sandwich, and the three towns had only begun an inter-municipal agreement to divide the nitrogen reduction among them. According to the Massachusetts Estuaries Project report, the main basin needs no formal reduction. Falmouth is looking at sewer extensions to the Antler Shores, Seacoast Shores and Seapit peninsulas (about 1,300 properties), shellfish farms in Eel Pond and the Childs River, and a 12.4-acre conversion of retired cranberry bogs along the Childs River that began in 2019.
What it means for Waquoit Bay today
This report speaks to the Bay directly. It confirms the 2019 monitoring picture, a bay that is not improving, and it shows that for the Falmouth side of Waquoit Bay there was no settled plan: the nitrogen shares among the three towns were still to be decided. It describes a toolbox of sewers, oyster farms, bog restoration and upgraded septic systems, along with estimated shares for each. Those are the town's own estimates and projections as of late 2019, not measured results, and the report notes that the bog restoration was too new to show nitrogen benefits.
The document is several years old, so check it against later developments before relying on its timetable. For how the Childs River bog restoration has done since, see our summary of the first-year results on the Childs River. For restored cranberry bogs on the Coonamessett, which feeds the neighboring Great Pond, see groundwater seeps in a restored bog. On the fertilizer bylaw, see evidence on fertilizer ordinances. Little Pond, Great Pond and the other ponds are outside the Waquoit Bay watershed, though close by.
Read the report
GHD. (2019). South Coast Embayments and West Falmouth Harbor CWMP/TWMP NPC update: Executive summary. Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts. https://www.falmouthma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/6941/CWMP-TWMP-NPC-Update-Report-Executive-Summary-2019
License: The report is a Town of Falmouth document prepared by GHD. We found no open license on it and it is not a US federal work, so we link to the town's copy rather than host the PDF. This summary is based on the executive summary only (pages ES-1 to ES-19), not the full report. The card image is the first page of the executive summary.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
