Water Quality Committee To Seek Funding For Mill Pond Expansion Project Funding
The Falmouth Water Quality Management Committee has voted to submit a letter of intent to apply for funding through the Southeastern New England Program, or SNEP, to continue nitrogen reduction work in the Mill Pond area.
Kristen Rathjen, who is from Science Wares, Inc. and a consultant for the committee, told the members that two funding calls have been posted by SNEP, but the request for proposals for the SNEP Watershed Implementation Grants is the option that the committee is more familiar with and has previously seen success with.
Committee member Matthew Charette said that he was not sure if SNEP would be likely to fund a followup program as opposed to a newer idea, as that followup proposal would happen in the same cycle during which new proposals are received. But through conversations with program officers, he said, SNEP does appear to be amenable to it.
Ms. Rathjen explained the proposal, saying that in a conversation with Brian Howes, a marine scientist with the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Technology (SMAST) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, they discussed the idea of expanding the permeable reactive barrier work in Mill Pond using SNEP funding.
“Last year they had a very small array of wood chip bags in the cranberry bog channel,” Ms. Rathjen said. “Partway through the summer they increased the number of bags. They were doing monitoring, and we put the detention pond in. I haven’t seen all of their data but preliminary data show that there is potential. In the bog channel they have pretty high flow. What they want to do for the next round is basically in that detention pond—where you have higher retention time—is [to] have bags at different depths, be able to channel and funnel water to test out different strategies.”
Ms. Rathjen said that Mr. Howes believes it could work, and said he is open to a partnership with the town and SMAST to explore the possibilities.
“The other side of this would be: can this system, once you show where you’re getting optimal removals, can you move it to different environments,” Ms. Rathjen said. “Can you put it in brackish water? Can you put it in a full saline environment? Could you put it somewhere like the Quashnet River? We talked very, very briefly about a couple of site options that might be good to explore to essentially put a pilot in a different environment. Those sites have to be vetted for flow, nitrogen load, salinity, everything else, but I kind of gave you that list and the list of potential partners for that project of things that we were looking at. Brian Howes is on board with it, and it’s just a matter of if that’s something we want to pursue from the committee’s end as well.”
The proposal will include a few alternative sites—at least one and up to four, Ms. Rathjen said—for potential expansion sites for the project. The letter of intent is due by April 26, a tight time frame as the committee’s next meeting is not until April 25. The funding, if granted, would be awarded in October and cover work for the summers of 2023 and 2024.