MassDEP Seeks Public Comments on Cleanup Plan To Restore the Health of Chatham's Southern Estuaries

- Public Meeting Set for January 31, 2008 at Chatham Town Hall -

The Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) will hold a public meeting next week seeking comment on a draft document identifying the need to limit and reduce the nutrient nitrogen in the coastal waters of the Stage Harbor/Oyster Pond, Sulphur Springs/Bucks Creek, and Taylors Pond/Mill Creek systems.

The meeting will be held Thursday, January 31, from 7-9 p.m. in the Chatham Town Hall.

The embayment restoration plan for these estuaries, formulated by MassDEP and the University of Massachusetts/Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), is proposed as part of a comprehensive multi-year, collaborative project intended to improve estuarine water quality in 89 embayments along the southeastern Massachusetts coastline.

These coastal water bodies - with watersheds completely in Chatham - are currently impaired by excess nutrients, mainly nitrogen. Nitrogen is the primary cause of eutrophication that can lead to:

* Loss of eelgrass beds, which are critical habitats for shellfish, and fish;

* Undesirable increases in macro-algae, which are much less beneficial than eelgrass;

* Periodic extreme decreases in dissolved oxygen concentrations that threaten aquatic life;

* Reductions in the diversity of bottom-dwelling animal communities; and

* Periodic algae blooms.

Steady population growth and increased land use development, particularly during the last several decades in southeastern Massachusetts, has created an overabundance of nitrogen in Cape Cod harbors, bays and estuaries. The primary controllable source of nitrogen is wastewater discharged both from septic systems and wastewater treatment systems. Stormwater runoff, leaching lawn fertilizers, and atmospheric deposition also contribute varying quantities of nitrogen.

At the public meeting, MassDEP staff will present a draft Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for limiting nitrogen to the amounts that the water bodies can absorb without violating water quality standards and impairing uses such as fishing and recreational activities. The plan calls for reducing watershed sources of nitrogen by up to 80 percent. Most of the reductions will be from better treatment and handling of wastewater, but nitrogen from stormwater and fertilizer use should also be controlled wherever possible.

"This cleanup plan charts a new path for enhancing recreational opportunities and restoring ecological health on Cape Cod," MassDEP Commissioner Laurie Burt said. "The Cape Cod Commission and the town of Chatham have taken great initiative and have been committed to providing the leadership necessary to improve future water quality conditions."

The major components of this effort included multiple years of chemical, physical, and biological studies within the estuary systems, and the use of a dynamic water quality model that linked the watersheds and embayments to determine the present sources of nitrogen and the loading rates from each, the nitrogen concentrations in each embayment, the nitrogen concentrations that will result in the restoration and protection of the embayments, and the target nitrogen loading rates that will achieve those protective concentrations. This watershed modeling and TMDL analysis will serve as a planning tool for communities to implement new comprehensive wastewater management strategies in order to improve estuarine water quality.    

A copy of the MassDEP Draft TMDL Report for Total Nitrogen and a further explanation of the TMDL Program is available on MassDEP's website at: www.mass.gov/dep/water/resources/tmdls.htm

The Massachusetts Estuaries Project Final Technical Report  "Linked Watershed-Embayment Model to Re-evaluate Critical Nitrogen Loading Thresholds for Stage Harbor/Oyster Pond, Sulphur Springs/Bucks Creek and Taylors Pond/Mill Creek," on which the southern Chatham estuaries TMDL is based, is available at: www.oceanscience.net/estuaries/reports.htm

The public comment period ends at 5 p.m., February 22, 2008. Written comments can be submitted to: Steven Halterman, Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Watershed Management, 627 Main Street, second floor, Worcester, MA 01608. Electronic format comments should be sent to: steven.halterman@state.ma.us.

###