A $50,000 grant will help implement strategies to reduce nitrogen emissions in Wareham’s watershed and provide the Board of Health with new software designed to monitor waste water systems in town, according to Robert Hancock, vice president of Education and Public Engagement for the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

The Buzzards Bay Coalition recently received a $50,000 grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust to support its work to improve the quality of water in the town of Wareham. The grant is funded by a specialty license plate program through Massachusetts Environmental Trust and be issued over the course of two years, Hancock added.

Using the grant money, the Buzzards Bay Coalition will provide the Board of Health new software designed to monitor waste water systems in town and any training needed on that software, Hancock said.

Additionally, the funding will go toward implementing the Wareham Nitrogen Consensus action plan to reduce nitrogen in Wareham’s watershed.

Excess nitrogen is threat to the health, biodiversity, and recreational use of Buzzards Bay and its many estuaries. Nitrogen emissions have been cause for concern in Wareham for more than a decade.

In 2009 and 2010, Coalition staff sat down with about 50 advocates of tough new nitrogen standards. Cranberry growers, town officials, and concerned citizens came up with the “Wareham Nitrogen Consensus.” The 41-page action plan contains a list of 15 agreed-upon recommendations to clean up the nitrogen in Wareham’s water.

“[The grant funding] will be used to continue the consensus process, and move it from planning to implementation,” he said. “The intention is to reconvene every six months.”

Hancock said the Nitrogen Consensus group will reconvene this fall to discuss changes and updates to the group’s action plan, that was first released in June 2010.

Five months after the consensus group issued its report, a net-zero nitrogen bylaw covering new developments of 10 or more units was submitted by the Board of Selectmen to last fall’s Town Meeting warrant. After contentious debate, it passed by a two-thirds majority, and responsibility was handed to the Board of Health to draft enforcement regulations.

The bylaw was deemed unenforceable by the Board of Health and was repealed by Town Meeting voters in April.

Since, Board of Health members have been working to create new standards for nitrogen output. The board is currently in the process finalizing language of draft regulations.