From the Mashpee Enterprise · October 7, 2022 · By Mackenzie Ryan
Brian L. Howes of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology presented summer 2021 results from the Mashpee Water Quality Monitoring Program to the select board on October 3, 2022. He said excess nitrogen, from population growth and the septic systems that came with it, is the cause of impairment in Waquoit and Popponesset bays. Although 2021 was a mild year for nutrients, he described water quality as extremely poor. The Quashnet River measured about 1.5 milligrams of nitrogen per liter, two to three times the threshold of just under 0.5 set for restoring Waquoit Bay’s main basin, and Howes called it the worst habitat in Mashpee and probably among the worst on the Cape. Chlorophyll was well above impairment levels in parts of the bay, and the Childs and Eel rivers have spiked over the past six years.
Howes said data from 2019 to 2021 show the upper estuaries of both bays continuing to degrade and pushing nutrients into the lower reaches, and that no part of Waquoit Bay, from its tributaries to its basins, is healthy; only the inlets are slightly better because of cleaner sound water. He said dredging the Mashpee River would not meaningfully reduce nitrogen. The program’s long-term baseline will help the town earn nitrogen removal credits under the state’s Title 5 changes and will track the effect of the first sewer phase. He warned that declining water quality threatens property values and thanked town staff, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and volunteer samplers.
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.
