From the Mashpee Enterprise · March 5, 2021 · By Ryan Spencer
Matthew C. Patrick, chairman of Citizens for the Protection of Waquoit Bay, showed the Enterprise places where stormwater runs directly into Waquoit Bay tributaries: an outfall on Martin Road into the Quashnet River, pipes on the Barrows Road bridge into the Childs River, and an eroded roadside on Red Brook Road beside the brook, which flows into Hamblin Pond. Patrick had identified more than a dozen major outfalls and more than 40 possible ones, and wrote to Mashpee and Falmouth officials asking that road runoff be kept out of the bay’s watershed. He said runoff carries metals from tires, hydrocarbons and nutrients, that catch basins do little to stop them, and that vegetated swales are the better practice.
Andrew R. Gottlieb, a Mashpee selectman and executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, estimated road runoff supplies just under 10 percent of nitrogen loads, compared with about 85 percent from septic systems and wastewater, and described stormwater as a poorly regulated source of many contaminants. He said Mashpee has been removing direct road discharges and adding bioretention swales. Eric T. Turkington, chairman of Falmouth’s Water Quality Management Committee, said each runoff site needs its own costly design and that road ownership varies. Falmouth’s DPW, the Cape Cod Conservation District and CPWB planned to meet on March 18 to discuss solutions.
This is CPWB’s summary of a news article. The full article and its photos are published by the Mashpee Enterprise.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
