From Scientific American and WBUR · February 12, 2024 · By Duy Linh Tu, Sebastian Tuinder, Barbara Moran, Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, Joseph Polidoro and Jeffery DelViscio
This 11-minute documentary short from Scientific American, co-published with WBUR and supported by the Pulitzer Center, explains why Cape Cod’s bays and ponds are choking on algae. Javier Lloret, a research scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, estimates that 90 to 95 percent of the nitrogen reaching these waters comes from wastewater. The Cape’s sandy glacial soils let septic effluent move quickly into groundwater and on to the shore, and the population has more than doubled since the 1970s with little sewering. About 85 percent of homes still use septic systems, and only six of the Cape’s 15 towns have sewers. The film cites the Association to Preserve Cape Cod’s finding that in 2022, 90 percent of the Cape’s coastal embayments needed restoration right away.
Officials put the cost of sewering the Cape at well over $4 billion, and Barnstable is in the early years of a 30-year sewer plan. The film compares the nitrogen released by a standard septic system (85 milligrams per liter or more) with older I/A systems (about 19) and newer enhanced I/A systems (under 5). Brian Baumgaertel of the Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center argues for a blend of sewers and alternative systems, and Falmouth residents Hilda Maingay and Earle Barnhart show the urine-diverting composting toilet in their home. Lloret closes by warning that climate change could change how nutrients reach the Cape’s estuaries. The same film is on Scientific American’s YouTube channel as “Cape Cod Has a Big Problem Simmering Just Below Its Surface.”
Watch the video at Scientific American: “Cape Cod Faces a Rising ‘Yellow Tide’” →
This is CPWB’s summary of a news video. The full video and its transcript are published by Scientific American, in partnership with WBUR.
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