This is the same post, but redacted to include the movement of a decimal point.
Skip down too; What level of nitrogen do you want and Armando Carbonell.
The $1 BILLION waste water treatment plant/sewer system in the western part of town to process septic waste from Cotuit, Centerville, Marstons Mills, and Osterille (or anywhere else on Cape Cod for that matter)
is a total waste of money,
because it's impossible for the facility to reduce the level of nitrogen loading in the embayments…
PICTURE THIS;
The densest non-sewered area of Barnstable is the Centerville, Marstons Mills area from Race Lane – Old Stage Road, including Hunter Hill, Prince Hinkley, Old Falmouth Road, Osterville/Barnstable Road and Old Stage Road.
COMM operates two well fields down gradient of these developments;
one at the intersection of Lumbert Mill Road and Route 28,
and one on Main Street, Osterville.
COMM regularly tests the groundwater for nitrogen content from test wells/wellheads,
And would you believe it?
Nitrogen levels have never exceeded 5 milliliters per liter.
There are thousands of septic systems in a small area,
yet the nitrogen content is 50% less than that in most bottled waters.
The EPA and DEP maximum contaminate level for nitrogen is 10 milliliters per liter.
Nitrogen levels in the district’s other wells never exceeded
2 milliliters per liter,
yet there are some idiots out there who want the whole town on sewers.
These wells are from 1.7 and .75 miles from Craigville Beach and North Bay in Osterville.
You can't build a waste water treatment plant that will reduce effluent nitrogen lower than 5 mil/liter.
Even the MWRA’s $14 billion sewer system discharges effluent with nitrogen levels of 5 milliliters per liter.
Twenty years ago Armando Carbonell, the Director of the Cape Cod Commission, said it all when he asked community leaders;
“What level of nitrogen do you want in Cape embayments;
.33 or
.35 milliliters per liter?" In my original post I wrote 3.3 and 3.5 milliliters per liter.
"Because if your choice is the lower number the difference will be 20,000 fewer new houses.”
2 many houses =
2 much human waste.
If we want to clean up our embayments to .33 milliliters per liter, it'll be a herculean, if not impossible,
task if the nitrogen level is 5 milliliters per liter
(200% reduction).
2) Pump out Lewis and Upper Gates Ponds, cap the ponds surface area with 10 - 7 clay, and move the airport to Otis,
3) treat storm water before dumping into the bays,
4) restrict fertilizers on golf courses and private and public properties to organic
5) do a whole lot better job managing failed septic systems.
6) Discharge the Hyannis Water Pollution Control Facility’s effluent, and the town’s storm water into Cape Cod Bay or Nantucket Sound, (that would take changing the law).
We need hundreds of test wells strategically located from each other from which we can take samples and make measurements from ground surface to bedrock.
The availability of these test wells means we can determine the rate and direction of groundwater flow, as well as nitrogen levels.
The direction of flow is important because typically groundwater enters specific areas on which dentrification pumps can be installed to run 24/7 similar to the Otis AFB clean up as another means to reduce embayment nitrogen levels.
While Otis contaminants were typically perchlorate and hydrocarbons requiring filtration devices, denitrification can be achieved through aeration.
There are many chemicals on the market to clean up algae.
Lilly's and grass carp can be introduced into eutrophied ponds and lakes to control algae. Grass carps will eat enough algae equal to four times their weight.
Instead of one big cost-prohibitive solution with an outfall terminus, look for lots of little ones.
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