A recent report published by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission is highlighting potential solutions for mitigating contaminants found in Up-Island watersheds.
The commission has been working on Water Quality Management plans for each up-Island town. The first phase of the planning describes existing conditions of local water bodies; the second and most recent, presents options for how to control water pollution.
That report, released this month, serves as a kind of inventory of all potential changes and improvements to local water quality management for up-Island towns to consider. The purpose is to educate local governments and stakeholders on possible solutions, along with presenting to the town the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
Developed via collaboration among the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and RJS Development Solutions, the report cites dozens of possible methods and technologies that can be used to reduce nitrogen loading at its source, improve the health of the groundwater that’s been impacted by excess nitrogen runoff, and restore water bodies that have been subjected to an accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorus waste.
Funded by the state’s department of environmental protection, the 57-page report looks into the ways all five up-Island watersheds — Chilmark Pond, James Pond, Menemsha Pond, Squibnocket Pond, and Tisbury Great Pond — can be restored from past and current degradation, along with options for future protection against excess nutrient loading.
According to the report, most of the excess nitrogen found in Aquinnah, Chilmark, and West Tisbury comes from existing residential and business wastewater treatment systems, fertilizers used by homeowners, agriculture, and stormwater runoff.
Potential solutions include increasing land conservation efforts, regulating development of concentrated residential areas, improving stormwater and wastewater management (both individual and town systems), enacting larger-scaled composting sites, and promoting green infrastructure.
Other possible measures consist of limiting the use of non-agricultural fertilizer, altering and restoring coastal habitats, promoting aquaculture, and decreasing the number of impervious surfaces from which stormwater and rainfall runoff. That run-off alone accounts for around 15 percent of the total nitrogen load in up-Island watersheds.
Criteria that will be used to evaluate potential solutions include cost and the likelihood of obtaining grants or funding, environmental impacts and consistency with the Island’s efforts to enhance climate resilience, how soon the measures can be implemented and whether the solutions are long term and adaptable to growth, and public acceptability.
A subsequent matrix report will be released in the next few weeks, MVC Executive Director Adam Turner told The Times. The process mirrors Cape Cod’s water quality plan, a compilation of updated data to help assist towns in making informed decisions on watershed management.
The upcoming report will show how much of an impact each potential measure could have, the feasibility of each option, and how efficient each solution is estimated to be.
Although the commission will be offering recommendations to each town, what methods or strategies to adopt will ultimately be up to the towns.
Think what the Island would be like without the MVC.
Without all these job killing rules and regulations.
We are a Capalitist/Christian nation.
The Lord gives us the power and money to succeed.
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