APPENDIX M 



CAPE COD AQUIFER MANAGEMENT PROJECT (CCAMP) RECOMMENDATIONS 



CONSTRUCTION GRANTS, GROUNDWATER DISCHARGE PERMIT PROGRAM, AND 

 GROUNDWATER CLASSIFICATION 



December, 1987 



The following are recommendations from the Cape Cod Aquifer Management 

 Group's Institutions Committee concerning the DEQE Groundwater Discharge 

 Permit Program and Groundwater Classification system and EPA's and DEQE's 

 involvement in awarding grants for the construction of wastewater treat- 

 ment plants. This set of recommendations deals with issues that are par- 

 ticularly crucial for Cape Cod. Domestic wastewater and discharges from 

 commercial establishments form the most prevalent sources of groundwater 

 contamination on Cape Cod. Despite the extreme importance of the programs 

 mentioned above to the protection of the Cape's groundwater resource, the 

 effectiveness of these programs in preventing contamination is limited by 

 national policies, resources, and procedural and communication difficul- 

 ties . 



The Construction Grants program is also important to Cape Cod. Only 

 three of the 15 towns on Cape Cod have proceeded to the construction phase 

 of the 201 grant process. There is tremendous pressure right now to ad- 

 dress the sewage disposal needs of the remaining towns before the federal 

 Construction Grants' funds terminate in 1990. However, the facility sit- 

 ing efforts of Construction Grants as well as other programs are hampered 

 in those towns which have not yet designated the areas they will be rely- 

 ing on for future water supplies. Generally, towns have not planned com- 

 prehensively for their long-term water supply and wastewater treatment 

 needs. In addition, the federal and state dollars available to communi- 

 ties for wastewater disposal have no counterpart for funding local water 

 supply planning planning that should logically come first. The in- 

 creasingly short time period remaining to conclude the 201 grant makes it 

 imperative that the timing and content of Division of Water Supply input 

 be clarified and formally agreed upon so the grant process can move for- 

 ward smoothly. CCAMP believes long-term planning and enhanced coordina- 

 tion are critical. If mistakes of the past, such as the siting years ago 

 of Barnstable's wastewater treatment plant on a prime recharge area of the 

 town's aquifer are to be avoided in the future, then an emphasis on both 

 long-term planning and enhanced coordination are particularly crucial to 

 the current, more conservative Construction Grants process. 



Further constraint on the Construction Grants program's attempts to 

 locate disposal sites on Cape Cod is the State's Ocean Sanctuaries Act. 

 This Act prohibits new discharges to designated marine sanctuaries 

 including those waters surrounding Cape Cod, forcing the use of facilities 

 that discharge to the ground. CCAMP supports the current examination of 

 this law by the Ocean Sanctuaries Task Force and urges this group to 

 address the problems and necessary trade-offs connected with land disposal 



