Falmouth Pond Coalition
To Protect and Preserve Falmouth’s Freshwater Ponds through
Organizing, Partnership, and Education
Learn More About Pond Science & Cape Cod Friendly Landscaping
From These Two Recent Webinars
Falmouth Pond Coalition's two recent webinars attracted lots of interest and positive reviews. You can see the recordings here:
Freshwater Pond Science 101 https://youtu.be/e_RX9EZAKX8
Cape Cod Friendly Landscapes: An Ecological Approach https://youtu.be/CX1E57XsUYc
On August 22nd, Julie Hambrook, Ph.D., Director of APCC's Pond & Cyanobacteria Monitoring Programs, and Liz Moran, Ph.D., Planning and Restoration Specialist at Anchor QEA, made basic freshwater pond science accessible in a terrific presentation and Q&A segment.
If you missed our May 1st webinar, it was equally impressive and informative. Cape Cod Friendly Landscaping was conducted by Kristen Andres, APCC's Associate Director for Education & Informational Services. It provided excellent and practical guidance on how to transform your property into a natural, beautiful, and environmentally friendly landscape.
Freshwater Ponds Advisory Committee Meeting, October 10th, 7pm
Civil Defense Room at Falmouth Town Hall
Falmouth's Freshwater Ponds Advisory Committee's mission is to "Advise the Select Board and Town Manager on the protection and preservation of Falmouth’s freshwater ponds and to recommend goals, strategies, action steps, and measurable outcomes that can be integrated into the Town’s overall Strategic Plan."
The Freshwater Ponds Advisory Committee (FPAC) is formulating recommendations for how the town can support pond protection and remediation. Issues being discussed include nutrient overload from septic systems, fertilizers, and stormwater; environmentally-friendly landscaping; enforcement of Falmouth's fertilizer bylaw and setback restrictions; removing sediment from storm drains and replacing/repairing poorly functioning storm drains; conducting research on the condition of Falmouth’s freshwater ponds; expanding water testing; developing pond management plans; and more.
The Committee is seeking input and advice from community members and town government officials in Falmouth, policy experts and freshwater pond activists in other towns on the Cape and beyond, and other freshwater pond protection organizations. Falmouth residents are encouraged to attend the meetings.
Check the Falmouth Enterprise or the Town website to keep informed about future meeting times. The Committee's Agendas and Minutes are posted at
https://www.falmouthma.gov/AgendaCenter/Freshwater-Pond-Advisory-Committee-86.
iNaturalist App
For those wanting to learn about what plants, birds, and other animals live around their ponds, we encourage you to consider using iNaturalist. You can learn more at https://www.inaturalist.org/ and by using this instructional video. Learning about the life in and around your pond can help you know what animals are disappearing, warn you about growth of invasive plants, etc.
Current Projects
Five Ways to Preserve the Health of Your Pond
See this new document we produced for our recent forum. https://www.falmouthpondcoalition.org/resources/homeowners/preserving-your-pond
Learn About Water Issues - Join a Tour!
The Falmouth Pond Coalition organizes educational tours to increase understanding of issues affecting fresh and saltwater ponds, rivers, estuaries, and bays in Falmouth. Among the sites we visit are the Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center in Mashpee. Please contact us at falmouthpondcoalition@gmail.com if you are interested in either of these tours or if you have other educational sites to recommend.
Saving our Waters by Installing Eco-Toilets and Urine Diversion Devices
Keeping urine out of our ponds, rivers, estuaries, and bays will do more to protect our waters than anything else we can do, including banning the use of fertilizers, installing Innovative/Alternative (I/A) septic systems, limiting road runoff, etc. Eco-toilets that divert urine or incinerate waste are a great option. Check out these links for the Wostman Eco-Flush and the Cinderella Comfort. Please contact falmouthpondcoalition@gmail.com for more information.
In the News...
Falmouth Enterprise – Sep 13, 2024
Freshwater Advisory Committee Begins Creating Plans For Rehabilitating Ponds
Falmouth’s Freshwater Ponds Advisory Committee is building a roadmap for what the town needs to do to improve and protect its ponds.
Last Thursday, September 5, the group met to review recommendations that it will take to Town Manager Michael Renshaw and the select board on what the town should do for its 28 freshwater ponds.
Five of the committee’s six members compiled 15 tasks covering topics ranging from stormwater and property management to pond research and public education.
“Many homeowners have no idea that what they’re doing to their properties has any effect on the water,” committee member Angela Tanner said.
Some of the goals might be accomplished by members themselves while others will require help from town departments, including the board of health, or even a Town Meeting vote. For instance, member William B. Kerfoot condensed his three recommendations into one drafted Town Meeting article that asks the town to commission several studies. One would map groundwater flow from and around freshwater ponds, another would establish maximum daily loads for phosphorus into freshwater ponds and the third would analyze and estimate how much phosphorus is already flowing into freshwater ponds through septic system effluent and fertilizer, among other sources.
Many impaired water bodies around town already have total maximum daily loads of nitrogen set by the state that the town must work to meet. Both nitrogen and phosphorus, in excess, can cause harmful algae blooms and damage water quality.
“The less [nitrogen and phosphorus] you put into the pond the better it’s going to be,” committee member George Heufelder said. “Our efforts should be to prevent those things from getting into the ponds.”
He suggested the committee hire a consultant to work with its members to draft a plan for studying Falmouth’s freshwater ponds and potentially seek funds from the town for long-term water quality monitoring.
“I think that’s a harder sell because people don’t relate to freshwater ponds,” Mr. Heufelder said. “They can all go to the beach, they can’t all go to the ponds.”
See full article at:
Falmouth Enterprise – Aug 27, 2024
Shivericks Pond Improvement Project Gains Support For Viewing Platform Preservation Funding
The Shivericks Pond Improvement Project has taken another step forward after securing the community preservation committee’s support for an additional $103,000 to finish the viewing platform in the park along Katharine Lee Bates Road.
At its August 22 meeting, the committee prepared a warrant article for the project, which has been in progress since 2015 and in the minds of Falmouth residents for more than a century. The viewing platform, which was part of the original plan, went over budget, so Town Planner Jed Cornock came to the committee to request emergency funding from Town Meeting this fall.
Supporting the additional funds was an easy sell for the committee, which oversaw funding for the park at the same location that opened in May. The only hang-up was over whether this will be the final act in completing this project, which has been years in the making.
See full article at:
Falmouth Enterprise – July 5, 2024
Volunteers Build Detailed Database Of Pond Health Throughout Falmouth
Three women each raised their hands to their brows, blocking the sun as they looked out over Cedar Lake where they watched a contractor spread an herbicide in the water from a boat. It is a special kind of herbicide, both they and Falmouth Pond Coalition founder Kim Comart said, one specifically designed to kill one pesky and invasive plant: fanwort.
One of the women, Joyce L. Bock, whose home offered the perfect vantage point for viewing the contractors’ work, said it probably got into the waterbody when someone dumped their home aquarium out into the water. Now, it has taken over a substantial portion of the lake and when it blooms white flowers over the surface of the water, she said it looks like a meadow. The contractors were being paid with funds raised by neighbors of the pond for the first phase of a project years in the making, she said. The immediate plan is to rid half of the lake of fanwort. The other half will be funded in the second phase, although Ms. Bock did not know when that phase will be approved.
See full article at:
https://www.capenews.net/falmouth/eedition/page-f1/page_c3d67275-57c4-53d2-8e3c-20638dfcc683.html
Falmouth Enterprise – May 31, 2024
Water Quality Advocates Want To Make UD Project Less Restrictive
A urine-diversion study is on the horizon and the Falmouth Water Quality Management Committee has wrestled with the details of how it might work, specifically whether homeowners participating in a pilot project would have to swap out all their toilets for urine-diverting devices.
Members discussed the topic during their meeting on May 22, two days after the select board approved an agreement with the Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center for a urine-diversion feasibility study.
The study, funded with $80,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, will address unanswered questions about a potential town-funded urine-diversion pilot project. The three-year project would gather data from up to 75 participating households to measure the effectiveness of the practice and give the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection information on whether urine diversion is a technology that could effectively replace expensive innovative/alternative septic systems.
Urine diversion is a wastewater management method in which urine is collected instead of being flushed down the toilet. Nitrogen and phosphorus are nutrients found in human pee, so diverting urine from the waste stream lowers the amount of those nutrients that can make their way into the town’s estuaries. That would help the town meet state requirements for Falmouth and other Cape Cod towns for reducing nitrogen in local watersheds in coming years.
See full article at:
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