Governor Signs Wastewater Bill To Broad Acclaim From Cape

     Governor Deval L. Patrick yesterday signed what has been called the most important piece of legislation for Cape Cod in years.
     The Clean Water Act will ease the burden for towns like Mashpee and Falmouth in paying for their massive wastewater treatment projects by offering long-term, zero-interest loans.
     Reactions from local officials involved in the issue ranged from “glad” to “so thrilled.”
     “I am pleased that he signed it. I think it is an important thing for the Cape. It is going to make dealing with the wastewater problem that each town faces a lot more affordable,” said Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative and one of the key architects of the bill.
     “I am just so thrilled. This is the best news for the communities on the Cape,” said Margaret A. Geist, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. “We have been waiting for this. It heralds a new day for the economic vitality and the environmental health of the Cape.”
     Ms. Geist lauded Mr. Gottlieb, Representative Sarah K. Peake (D - Provincetown), and Senator Robert A. O’Leary (D- Barnstable).
     Senator O’Leary said in a press release, “The Massachusetts Clean Water Act addresses one of the biggest remaining environmental problems in Massachusetts. Now we have the tools to address one of the great remaining environmental problems in the Commonwealth. This legislation gives cities and towns exactly the financial and planning support they need to address their vast wastewater obligations.”
     John J. Cahalane, chairman of the Mashpee Board of Selectmen and the town’s representative on the regional collaborative, said, “I am very happy to see something constructive come out of the collaborative. It shows that something can be done and hopefully we will go out and find more sources. I think this is just the beginning.”
     Dropping the interest rate from two to zero percent could save many towns as much as the project will cost in principal, Mr. Gottlieb said. So if a project costs $200 million, the town will save having to pay that amount in interest, he said.
     Ms. Geist said, “We don’t know what the final price tag is going to be for wastewater infrastructure on the Cape, but the fact that this bill is going to cut it in half is a great thing. Usually you hope for 10 percent, but we got half here. That may well save some towns from bankruptcy in trying to deal with this over the next decades.”
     Mr. Gottlieb said of the other financing options being discussed, including retooling the local aid formula, none compare to that level of financial assistance.
     Representative Matthew C. Patrick (D - Falmouth), however, said the price tag for many towns will still be too large.
     “It is a nice discount for towns that are very close to implementing sewage treatment projects, but I think it is still going to prove beyond the reach of a lot of towns that need to do this. We really need to clean up our bays and estuaries. But the cost is a real burden that I don’t know if a lot of towns are going to be able to handle,” Mr. Patrick said.
     Mr. Patrick said the governor vetoed a project that he included in the overall bill that would have funded a project to study the viability of an alternative to the massive sewer projects. The urine diverting toilet pilot project was vetoed along with a host of other drinking and wastewater provisions.
     Mr. Cahalane said that while the bill is extraordinarily important for Mashpee and other towns, he hopes the collaborative will be able to track down additional, much-needed funding. “It has to be just the beginning because by the time we are done towns are going to be spending a half a billion dollars for their sewer systems,” he said.
     The federal government repaid communities for the vast majority of the cost of building wastewater treatment infrastructure up until the mid-1980s. The only assistance now available to towns, though, is through low-interest loans, as will likely be the case for the foreseeable future, according to various local, regional, state, and federal officials.
     Several Cape towns are looking at price tags of upward of several hundred million dollars in order to comply with the federal Clean Water Act, which requires states to remove pollution from surface waterways such as bays, rivers, and ponds. The state is in turn requiring towns to meet the water quality standards.
     In order for towns to be eligible for the state loans, which under the new legislation have been extended to 50 years, they must adopt mechanisms to replace the current septic system regulations to control development and have a Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan in place, which both Falmouth and Mashpee are working toward.
     The legislation also allows towns to require property owners to tie into sewer lines if they are called to do so in the comprehensive wastewater plan. To control growth, towns will be allowed to limit bedroom additions on properties that link into the sewer system. Properties that use advanced septic systems, known as denites or innovative/alternative systems, as several hundred in Mashpee do, may not be required to tie into the sewer line if they adopt a monitoring plan approved by the state.
     Rep. Patrick and Mr. Gottlieb emphasized the need for towns to get moving on the project planning and public relations. The provision sunsets in 2019.
     Rep. Patrick said convincing residents to support the costly projects may prove to be the most difficult part of the effort.
     The bill coasted with unanimous votes in both chambers of the state Legislature, but the governor’s signature was seen as uncertain due to the cost of the measure.
     At a town hall-style meeting in Barnstable earlier this week the governor said he would “proudly” sign the bill, but then intimated that he might be looking for some sort of compromise on how long the loans would remain at zero interest, which would have effectively killed the bill because the Legislature’s formal session has closed for the year. The concerns raised by the governor’s comments turned out to be for naught, as he signed it along with a $1.64 billion environmental bond bill.