Letter: At last, a plan to resolve Westport River's nitrogen overload

Posted 10/28/20

To the editor,

At their meeting on October 19, the Westport Select Board took a major step forward toward addressing critical water problems in the Town of Westport. After a very comprehensive and …

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Letter: At last, a plan to resolve Westport River's nitrogen overload

Posted

To the editor,

At their meeting on October 19, the Westport Select Board took a major step forward toward addressing critical water problems in the Town of Westport. After a very comprehensive and well-presented briefing on the recently completed Targeted Integrated Water Resource Management Plan (TIWRMP), the board endorsed the plan as a guide for future action. They recognized that this action does not solve the problems, but it does inform the community as to how best to proceed to begin addressing them. 

The plan is the culmination of 15 years of effort that started with initiating the state-mandated and guided Westport River Estuaries Project. That project led to a report, completed in 2013, indicating the river was suffering from excess nitrogen and that action was required to avoid further degradation of water quality. On the basis of that report, the state and federal governments specified the limits of nitrogen that would need to be reached, called Total Maximum Daily Loads or TMDLs, to restore the river to good and sustainable health. The plan also shows that there are many polluted water wells in Westport that are a serious threat to public health … most of those polluted wells are close to cesspools and other failed septic systems.

The plan provides evidence of two positive trends over the past decade that have helped to reduce nitrogen levels in the river - changes in local agriculture that have lowered the nitrogen entering the river from that source and a decline in atmospheric deposition of nitrogen from rain. The change in agriculture resulted mainly from a reduction in livestock especially in feedlots near the river. Reductions in atmospheric deposition of nitrogen reflected mainly the phasing out of coal-fired power plants and reduced vehicle emissions across the country. In the past decade Cape Cod has experienced similar reductions in atmospheric deposition, but those have been largely offset by the buildout of new homes and businesses resulting in no net reduction in nitrogen in most of the Cape Cod estuaries. 

The plan for Westport shows that the same thing will happen here, that is nitrogen levels in the river will rise significantly in the coming decades, if we do not take steps to prevent it. And the plan spells out a number of possible solutions with estimates of both potential benefits and costs. 

Three such measures were described in the presentation to the BOS and are already moving forward. They are as follows:

  • Preparation of preliminary engineering design for a first phase of new sewering along Route 6 from the Fall River border to Route 88 that would largely serve existing and new businesses and increase tax revenue. Planning for this project received financing from the state due to efforts by Senator Michael Rodrigues.
  • Feasibility studies for two possible satellite wastewater treatment facilities to serve dense residential areas far from any potential sewering connections. These two sites are Cadman’s Neck and the East Beach community on 1st, 2nd and 3rd Streets. 
  • The proposed regulation of the Board of Health that would henceforth require denitrifying septic systems for all new construction in the town and also for replacing cesspools and failed septic systems over time as described in a related letter in this paper.

The Board of Health already manages a Community Septic Management Program that provides low (2%) interest rate loans payable over 20 years to residential owners who undertake replacement of failed septic systems with denitrifying systems. This will greatly relieve the upfront costs of such projects. 

David C. Cole

Westport

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.