From APCC · November 4, 2026
The Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) reports in its November 4, 2026 eNewsletter that MassDEP issued a groundwater discharge permit earlier this year to a developer for a new wastewater discharge in Falmouth, the Easterly facility. APCC says the permit requires treatment that lowers, but does not eliminate, nitrogen from the effluent. In APCC’s account, the permit does not make the permittee responsible for offsetting the residual nitrogen. It shifts that job to the town of Falmouth without defining what will be done, when or how it will be paid for. APCC and local partners in Falmouth appealed the permit. APCC says the appeal hearing took place last week and that the state’s sole witness, the permit writer, admitted to being directed to write the permit as it was issued.
APCC says DEP’s regulations require groundwater discharge permit holders to fully offset any residual nitrogen, because most Cape estuaries already receive too much nitrogen from wastewater. APCC argues that the permit therefore fails to meet DEP’s own requirements and is functionally unenforceable. It says DEP and the permittee argued in their filings that new regulations unrelated to groundwater permit regulations moved responsibility for offsets from developers to towns. APCC says the hearing did not reveal who gave the direction or why, and that it has filed a public records request with the state to find out. The Falmouth Enterprise reported in March that the Easterly is a proposed 300-unit apartment complex on Sandwich Road, and that the appeal, filed by APCC, the Coonamesset River Trust and 10 Falmouth residents after the town chose not to appeal, is about nitrogen reaching Coonamesset Pond and the Great Pond watershed (our summary).
Read the item in APCC’s November 4, 2026 eNewsletter →
This is CPWB’s summary of an item in APCC’s November 4, 2026 newsletter. The full item is published by APCC.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
