Cape Cod’s iconic bays and ponds have suffered from decades of wastewater pollution, mostly coming from people’s homes. Tough new regulations are forcing communities on the Cape to clean up the water, but two of the most prominent solutions come with hefty price tags.
Pat Uhlman on the shore of Shubael Pond in Barnstable, Mass. The pond was closed for most of summer, 2019, because of a toxic algal bloom.
Uhlman’s pond did clear up that fall, but algal blooms are an ongoing problem on the Cape. Even the more common, nontoxic growths are destructive, creating low-oxygen dead zones that kill fish and native plants.
"People like Cape Cod and want to come to Cape Cod, and to a certain extent, they're loving it to death."In the 1950s, Cape Cod was sleepy and semi-rural, with about 50,000 full-time residents. But the Cape's population boomed in the second half of the 20th century. Now there are aboutA fisherman casts his fishing line out into the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich.
"What do you need to grow plants? Heat and water and nutrients. We've added the nutrients and we're turning up the heat," Gottlieb said."So those two things have come together and are really causing problems." A sign on a busy Route 28 in Barnstable warns of ongoing construction work to lay sewer pipes. and expanding sewer lines for millions of dollars more. Mashpee is spending $54 million on the first phase of its"And there's another cost: seemingly non-stop construction on the Cape's already over-trafficked roads.
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