The Massachusetts Estuaries Project (MEP) is a collaborative effort of the Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and the School for Marine Science
and Technology (SMAST) at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to restore
and protect estuaries in southeastern Massachusetts. MEP works with regional and
local agencies to address the issue of nutrient overloading in ponds, bays and estuaries.
Communities, such as the Town of Falmouth, contribute to the cost of the assessment.
The MEP program technical reports summarize their evaluations and determination
of the nitrogen limits. These limits are then used by MassDEP as Total Maximum Daily
Loading (TMDL) values, which are submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (US EPA) to become regulatory thresholds.
The goal of the technical evaluations is to collect data, do water quality modeling
and determine the amount of nitrogen that a water body can assimilate, called the
nutrient threshold. The first step in the process is to collect data on the quantity
of nitrogen present in the watersheds. This data is collected by volunteers, towns
and other entities. Falmouth and its many citizen volunteers have a great history,
successfully initiating this process and collecting many years of data. SMAST and
MassDEP use hydrodynamic and water quality modeling, site specific assessment information
and other data to determine the nutrient threshold.
The community will typically then develop a Comprehensive Wastewater Management
Plan to assess how to reduce the load of nutrients in local watersheds. As mentioned
above, this data is also provided to MassDEP and US EPA and the nitrogen thresholds
and limits become the TMDL limits, with regulatory implications.
The first three links below contain the results of the Falmouth MEP studies for
the waterbodies and watersheds being evaluated in this CWMP:
http://www.oceanscience.net/estuaries/GreatGreenBournes.htm
http://www.oceanscience.net/estuaries/LittlePond.htm
http://www.oceanscience.net/estuaries/Quashnet.htm
These links detail nitrogen limits for other estuaries in Falmouth:
http://www.oceanscience.net/estuaries/WestFalmouth.htm
http://www.oceanscience.net/estuaries/OysterPond.htm
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Restore and protect water quality and the quality of life in Falmouth |
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Enhance the economic sustainability of our community |
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Preserve the beauty and value of our property for future generations |
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