There's a movement afoot among some Cape and Southcoast politicians to thwart the new DEP regulations on septic pollution. So we're all fighting back. If you get the Boston Sunday Globe, check out page A7 in today's paper to see the full-page ad demanding state and local officials commit to new septic rules to cut …
Continue reading A Plea to Local + State Lawmakers to Support New Septic Rules
Visually, the water is usually less than translucent, smells, and is clogged with a vast field of dying red and green algae,” said Gary Markowitz, co-founder of Cape Cod advocacy group Save Our Shoestring. “Visitors to our home note the contamination and the smell and have renamed the bay in conversation — of course, in …
Continue reading “Pooponesset Bay” Memorialized in Boston.Com Article!
Note from Save Our Shoestring: We couldn't agree more with Zenas Crocker of the Barnstable Clean Water Coalition, who says the DEP's proposed changes should target properties close to waterways first. "You treat first those areas that are closest to the water because these are the ones that are contributing the most load most quickly," …
Continue reading WBUR Covers Mass. DEP Proposed Changes to Title 5
Yesterday, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] released its long-awaited draft regulations intended to fix the disaster that is Title 5. The release follows the DEP's preliminary announcement in June 2022 of pending changes to septic system siting in nitrogen sensitive areas. [See our post on the June announcement.] When implemented, the regs. will …
Continue reading Mass. DEP Releases Draft Plan to Clean Up Cape Waterways
If you're free tonight, head over to Freedom Hall [976 Main St, Cotuit] at 7:30pm when the Cotuit-Santuit Civic Association hosts a meeting/discussion with Chris Kilian from the Conservation Law Foundation. Chris will update us on CLF's work to preserve and restore Cape Cod's waters through litigation and community pressure. Save Our Shoestring has worked …
Continue reading CLF Update on Lawsuit at Freedom Hall 10/18/22 at 7:30pm
Photo: The Patriot Ledger, August 7, 1996 Remember the old Standells’ 1965 tune Dirty Water, a tongue-in-cheek ode to the (then) filthy Charles River? Well, 30 years and a ton of hard work later, Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld showed just how clean the Charles had become by leaping (off-script) into the chilly brown waters of …
A History of Inaction Massachusetts leaders have long been considered in the vanguard of environmental stewardship and coastal resource preservation. But for 20+ years, State, County, and Town leaders have known about the link between excess nitrogen loading in a watershed and deteriorating water quality on Cape Cod. They’ve known that Shoestring Bay and the broader …
The common refrain we hear from state and local government officials every time we plead for a moratorium on Title 5 septic installations and the immediate approval of High Performance Innovative Alternative (HPIA) septic systems is, “It’s too soon. The data is inconclusive. And IA systems aren’t good enough.” Well, the State of Washington would …
On June 1, 2022 the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued the much-awaited draft of its "let's fix Title 5" Fact Sheet [download] entitled "MassDEP Regulatory Strategy for Estuaries Impaired by Nitrogen." The proposed rules could "require upgrades of all existing systems to add nitrogen removal technology within five years of the regulation’s approval …
Save Our Shoestring 