Thanks to a $419,000 grant, work will continue on efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution in Buzzards Bay by expanding Water Pollution Control Facility capacity. 

Together, the Buzzards Bay Coalition and the facility officials are exploring options for moving the town’s sewage outflow pipe from the Agawam River to the Cape Cod Canal.

By moving the pipe, which discharges treated wastewater, the facility would be primed to take in additional wastewater from surrounding towns, said Water Pollution Control Facility Director Guy Campinha.

Over the years, Campinha has led the effort to eliminate as much nitrogen – a major pollutant – as possible from water discharged from the facility. Too much nitrogen promotes plant growth, and can create massive algae blooms harmful to sea creatures.

By discharging into the upper area of the Agawam River, a sensitive location, ecologically speaking, the town’s capacity is limited. 

However, the Wareham facility is currently the best-performing treatment plant on Buzzards Bay and gets the nitrogen levels present in the discharged wastewater to the lowest the Coalition has seen baywide. Campinha said the facility gets the nitrogen load down to four parts per million.

The Buzzards Bay Coalition’s grant was part of a total of $4.5 million awarded to 14 cities and towns. The funding is provided under the 2018 Southeast New England Program Watershed Grants, a collaboration between the Environmental Protection Agency New England and Restore America’s Estuaries, a national nonprofit. The goal of the grant program is to build and support partnerships to tackle the region's most pressing environmental issues.

Specifically, the money will be used to set up six nitrogen-monitoring stations near where the new outflow pipe is proposed, said Campinha.

“The idea is to establish a baseline level so when we start discharging into the Cape Cod Canal we have something to compare the new levels to,” said Campinha.

He added that because Wareham has reduced nitrogen levels by so much, the Environmental Protection Agency is backing the move.

Campinha said moving the outflow to the canal would allow the facility to increase capacity from 1.56 million gallons per day to 7 million gallons per day. For a fee, the sewage from Bourne, Plymouth and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy would be treated as well, Campinha said.

The increased discharge capacity would allow the town to expand its treatment facility to accommodate in-town  and regional growth, he said. That could lead to economic opportunities while improving water quality.

“More sewage capacity means more industry can come in, but the ultimate result of this is to put less nitrogen into Buzzards Bay,” he said.