The Buzzards Bay Coalition is stepping up its campaign against nitrogen pollution, and Wareham is in the spotlight.

Two billboards, paid for by the Coalition, have popped up on opposite sides of town in recent weeks. The two-sentence message on the signs reads, "You are paying to clean up Wareham's water. Find out who isn't." Readers are then directed to a website, www.stopnitrogen.org, where residents are encouraged to support tougher standards for new and upgraded septic systems.

Meanwhile, the Coalition announced in December that it was taking the first steps toward legal action against the state Department of Environmental Protection and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for what it says is a delay in the completion of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project.

Wareham is among the many towns for which the planned mapping of nitrogen pollution has not been completed.

Even without the New Bedford-based Coalition's focus, nitrogen may be the hottest political issue in Wareham. Entering the watershed from failed septic systems, from fertilized lawns and cranberry bogs, from the sewage treatment plant, and even from large flocks of geese, nitrogen fuels the growth of undesirable plant life -- which chokes off the oxygen supply for other marine life.

Reducing nitrogen pollution was a primary goal of Wareham's controversial, expensive expansion of its sewer system.

It is now the goal of the proposed new regulations for septic systems. And determining the sources of nitrogen pollution is the goal of the uncompleted Estuaries Project.

It is unclear how effective either of the Coalition's campaigns will be in Wareham. The new regulations face an uphill battle against residents who are fearful of their cost. And the University of Massachusetts says the only reason the Wareham portion of the mapping project has not been completed is that Wareham has not contributed the money required of any town that wants maps.

The purpose of the billboards and Stopnitrogen.org are to show support for new nitrogen regulations proposed by the Board of Health as they apply to new construction, said Rob Hancock, Buzzards Bay Coalition vice president for education and public engagement.

One billboard is located on Route 6, while the other is on Cranberry Highway in East Wareham.

The proposed regulations are intended to reduce nitrogen flow into Wareham's waterways by requiring that failed septic systems be replaced with systems that meet a nitrogen limit of 12 mg/L. Septic systems installed for new development would also be required to meet that limit.

The regulations would also allow the Board of Health to charge residents who replace their system an annual monitoring fee for two years following the installation.

The regulations would not require that owners of homes with working septic systems complete an upgrade to their existing septic system unless they expand their property and increase their wastewater.

Pointing out, by way of a large colorful chart, that taxpayers paid $22 million for a sewer plant upgrade in 2005, that newly sewered homeowners paid $15,000 to $20,000 in "betterment fees," and that developers are paying "$0" to "continue installing inadequate septic systems," Stopnitrogen.org states: "Developers building new homes in Wareham want to continue installing old fashioned Title 5 septic systems that leak nitrogen and re-pollute the water all over again."

"We want folks to be active on this, to let the Board of Health know the they want clean water and that if they ask for new and expanded septic systems, it's not going to affect their lives," said Hancock.

Links on the Stopnitrogen.org website take visitors to a page where they can e-mail or postal mail a letter of support to Board of Health Chair Lisa Irish.

Hancock stressed: "We support the regulations as it applies to new construction."

The regulations, if approved as written, will also impact residents who have a failed septic system.

"What we have said is, 'Let's focus on new construction for expansion to existing systems,'" said Hancock. "If the Board of Health doesn't pass regulations for new construction and expanded systems, there's a chance of undoing [the work of sewering], which means the money [residents] have invested will be wasted because developers of some of this new construction don't want to kind of play their part."

The Board of Health has not voted on whether to move forward with the new regulations. A public hearing to address the regulations was postponed in October after hundreds of residents filled the Town Hall auditorium above its capacity. It has not yet been rescheduled.

The Board of Health has been working on the regulations since April after a bylaw that required that new developments contribute no nitrogen to the watershed was deemed unenforceable and repealed by Town Meeting voters.

Massachusetts Estuaries Project

The Massachusetts Estuaries project was launched in 2002 and intended to collect, analyze, and present available data about nitrogen pollution in Southeastern Massachusetts and on Cape Cod. The intent was to provide local and state officials with the data needed to make good decisions about how to control nitrogen pollution.

To date, the project has been provide with $6 million in state funds and $6 million from some of the communities whose estuaries are included in the project.

The Buzzards Bay Coalition now wants to know where the results are.

Korrin Petersen, a senior attorney for the nonprofit environmental group, said the Coalition has "been asking since 2009 to come up with a schedule for reports that are way past due."

In a Dec. 9 letter addressed to UMass/Dartmouth and the Department of Environmental Protection, Buzzards Bay Coalition President Mark Rasmussen explained: "We are commencing an investigation into why, after the expenditure of more than $6 million and up to seven years of delay, Buzzards Bay communities remain without the Massachusetts Estuary Project reports need to properly assess and begin restoring the health of their harbors and coves."

The Coalition requested public records from UMass/Dartmouth and the DEP regarding the management of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project.

UMass/Dartmouth officials say that many of the towns with delayed reports have failed to provide their required portion of the funding for the projects and/or provided insufficient mapping data. Wareham falls into both groups: no money contributed and insufficient data supplied, officials said.

For the towns on this side of the Cape Cod Canal, the state offered half of the funding needed to complete the studies and analyses of the various estuaries, said UMass/Dartmouth professor Brian Howes. Towns opting to participate in the voluntary study have to contribute the other half of the cost, which is based on the number of estuaries in each particular town.

UMass/Dartmouth has completed reports for 81% of the 63 estuaries in the towns that have opted to participate in the study, said John Hoey, the university's assistant chancellor.

In Wareham, researchers were able to "cobble together" data to produce a report on one of Wareham's estuaries -- the Wareham River -- at no cost to the town, said Howes.

But there are four other areas that need to be studied: the Weweantic River; Buttermilk Bay (the cost shared with Plymouth and Bourne); Onset Bay, Shell Point Bay, and Broad Cove; the Agawam River, Wankinco River, Broad Marsh, and Marks Cove.

Howes said there has never been a contract with Wareham for any of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project work.

"We did [the Wareham River report] to try to get things moving in the region" for the project, he said. "The hope is that we'll still be able to preserve state matching funds for [Wareham]" should the town be able to contribute its portion of the funds.

The Wareham River report was twice issued in draft form. Then, researchers discovered that the "land-use data in Wareham was not sufficiently robust," Howes said. Scientists have to redo their analysis and issue the report again. Howes estimated the report would cost another $30,000 to $40,000 to complete and reissue.

"We haven't given up. ... We're doing everything in our power to get things done," Howes said, including trying to help find other sources of revenue to fund the research.

Hoey said that the Coalition's "actions right now are delaying progress ... because they are distracting the scientists from doing their scientific work and bogging them down with record-keeping and record searches."