DPW Director Stresses Need For Planning

FALMOUTH- Is social responsibility compatible with environmental responsibility?
While some may disagree, Raymond A. Jack, director of Falmouth Department of Public Works, argued this past Wednesday at the Falmouth Conservation Commission meeting that they are.
It was a common thread he stressed to commission members during a presentation on how to best address challenges facing the town’s wetlands, which fall under the board’s purview.
His answers, in a general sense, focused on improving communication, not just at the town level, but the state and federal level. “Communication is key,” he said.
He noted that proactive meetings, such as Wednesday’s, are better than the alternative, when the two sides come together in order to resolve an issue. That is when matters become difficult, he said, because emotions tend to run high during conflict resolution.
Locally, he said, multiple town departments, committees and boards, including the DPW, planning board, conservation commission, the zoning board of appeals, and selectmen need to work together to solve problems that relate to the town’s drinking water, health of the waterways, townwide sewering and stormwater management.
“We are not that far apart,” he said of his department and the conservation commission. “We are running on parallel tracks when talking about environmental issues.” He was hopeful that by opening up dialogue, the two boards will be able to bridge the gaps.
He first touched upon the water cycle, briefly describing how water moves from the aquifer into the air through evaporation, falls back into the earth via precipitation and runoff and is then absorbed back into the ground.
Similarly, he showed “the reality cycle,” and how humans play their own part in the environment, using water for drinking, irrigation and otherwise, and then how that water is returned into the environment, either through sewering or septic systems. In this cycle, he noted that drinking water systems are dependent on wastewater systems. “You cannot divorce the two,” he stressed.
He termed humans predators, showing how the growth in population and the correlating demand for resources has impacted the environment. It is almost a conflict between social needs, he said, and the environment. However, he said, a balance needs to be struck between the two.
Unfortunately, he said, in times of crisis, referencing Hurricane Katrina as an example, “human needs generally will be the ones to win out.”
As the world population continues to grow, from roughly 7 billion now to an estimated 9.5 billion in 2050, he said, people need to take into consideration how that will affect the world. “Do we have enough water to sustain that population? No. Fuel, food? The answer is ‘no’ across the board,” he said. If no action is taken to address the problem of limited resources, he said, the situation will only get worse.
The population of 33,000 residents in Falmouth, he said, “is having a cumulative effect,” on the environment.
While protecting wetlands is a relatively new concept—he noted that 50 percent of all wetlands in this country are now gone—he urged the commission to be active participants in finding solutions to these problems.
He said that humans can turn a healthy water system into a eutrophic, or dead one, in less than a decade. “We can do it,” he said, adding “we are doing it right now.”
In terms of wastewater, he said, Falmouth has to begin to take steps to look not only at the nutrients it puts into the water, but other contaminants. From a public health perspective, he said, this is important because no one knows what impacts they may have on the environment. He referenced three-legged frogs and asexual fish as two examples.
He said it is imperative that townwide sewering become a reality because a large-scale treatment facility has the ability to be upgraded for future needs and should state or federal requirements for removing contaminants from the water become more stringent. “The regulations will not get easier, they will get more difficult,” he warned.
Smaller, alternative systems, he said, should be used in addition to sewering. “We will not be able to sewer all of Falmouth,” he said, adding that is where these alternative systems will come into play.
Because of the size of such a project and the money that will be spent, he said, it is necessary that the townwide sewering project be collaborative.
He said that collaboration should extend to other towns, such as Bourne, Sandwich, Mashpee, and even the military, noting that the Massachusetts Military Reservation is one option for siting a treatment facility to serve all those communities. He argued that it should be considered for multiple reasons. It would be one way of containing costs and sharing responsibility for cleaning up the Upper Cape’s estuaries. In addition, it removes the “Not In My Back Yard,” or NIMBY, attitude that is associated with siting a wastewater treatment facility.
The town’s sewering project, he said, needs to take into consideration future expectation for the town. He said the town should be answering one question as it relates to this—“What do you want Falmouth to be?” he asked. “What do you want Cape Cod to be? Nobody knows. Nobody has a plan.”
He said the answers to these questions are necessary to solve the town’s water quality problems. “We have to think that through to determine what we need,” he said. “We have to figure out what is sustainable.”
As one example of this, he referenced town growth. By the year 2012, Falmouth is expected to reach build out. This will negatively impact tax revenues, he said, and will put pressure to find this revenue elsewhere. It may usher in a new era of redevelopment, the signs of which have already begun, he said.
These changes will have impacts on water quality, he said, and need to be taken into consideration.
Outside of wastewater, he said, the town needs to address the effects of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer on the wetlands.
Some planning, he said, should take a long-term approach. His department, he said, is looking at ways of creating additional wells that would sustain Falmouth for the next century.
This, he said, is vital because siting a well has impacts on the types of structures that can be put nearby. In addition, he said, if this work is not done now, it becomes more costly, in terms of finding and purchasing land to create wells.
Conservation commission member Peter L. Waasdorp Jr. asked Mr. Jack about the town’s water restrictions and what impact state regulations may have on this.
Mr. Jack said that many of these restrictions, such as asking residents to water lawns every other day, have been successful efforts and done outside the realm of state regulations. However, he noted that there is a problem in Falmouth, pointing to the fact that there are large fluctuations, up to six feet, in the Long Pond water table at various times of the year. Acceptable fluctuations, he said, are more in the quarter-inch to inch range.
As to whether charging more money for water usage made sense, Mr. Jack said it did not. Those who waste water, he said, typically have the money to spend and thus, adjusting rates would punish the middle and lower class.
Commission member Linda A. Deegan asked when sewering in Falmouth will become a reality?
Mr. Jack estimated that it would happen within five to seven years, as he accounted for at least one year for permitting, design, and construction. However, sewering all of Falmouth, he said, will take at least two decades.
Ms. Deegan asked whether the town should encourage residents to install alternative systems, such as denitrifying septic systems, as a temporary solutions. It would be one way to show people, she said, that “one by one we can do something to solve the problem.”
While he was in favor of encouraging residents to use alternative wastewater systems, Mr. Jack said he was reluctant to make it a requirement, especially if using taxpayer money as a funding source.