Town officials voice concerns with draft report on “pathogen-impaired” waterbodies

LAKEVILLE — At a Thursday, June 13 public hearing, Dartmouth officials voiced concerns with transparency, data collection and timeline in regard to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s draft report identifying 228 waterbodies in the state as “pathogen-impaired.”

This list includes two water bodies in town, the Paskmansett and Shingle Island rivers. 

The report, titled the Statewide Total Maximum Daily Load, provides an in-depth explanation on how water bodies are identified as “impaired,” and how to implement pollution reduction measures, staff at the Department of Environmental Protection Office explained at its third and final public hearing. 

As required by the federal Clean Water Act, Total Maximum Daily Loads have been implemented to restore the health of impaired waterbodies based on Environmental Protection Act standards. The state prepares an updated report every two years of impaired water bodies, officials said. 

This third hearing came by request after Dartmouth Public Health Director Christopher Michaud worked with Senator Mark Montigny’s Office to also extend the original June 8 public comment deadline to June 21.

At the hearing, Michaud reiterated his critiques he had made previously that the Department of Environmental Protection had failed to notify towns about the report in a timely manner and requested this deadline be extended further. 

In an interview, Michaud explained he feels the department had shown a lack of transparency throughout this report process and more time needs to be spent looking into what is causing the impairments as well as raising public awareness. 

“While it was good that they offered one more public hearing, it was really nothing more than a crumb offering to the public because so much of pathogens [remediation] is going to require the whole of Dartmouth to contribute to this,” he said.

The Paskamansett River is approximately 13 miles long and begins in New Bedford, flowing through “our major aquifer, which is our groundwater recharge area for our public water supply,” and then to the Slocum River, he said.

He added the Department of Environmental Protection has named some of the causes for this impairment, including urbanization, agriculture, overflowing septic systems and combined sewer overflows.

But with neither impaired river having a discharge outflow point for treated wastewater, he emphasized the importance of knowing more information about what is specifically causing the impairment in Dartmouth waters.

For example, he discussed the effects of urbanization and how it has led to the formation of runoffs that are too quick to allow for adequate, natural filtration.

Michaud said doing nothing could be “aggravating” the situation — “That’s a problem.”

At the June 13 hearing, Public Works Board Chair Robert Almy stated that identification of certain water bodies as “impaired,” was based on faulty and outdated data. 

“The science behind the designation of the Paskamansett River cannot be supported. Five grab samples from a river 10 miles long taken 12 and 19 years ago respectively doesn’t reflect current conditions,” he said.

Almy added, “We challenge the designation proposed, and we request all of the meta-data having to do with the sampling. If you are going to use old data, we want to know what it looks like.”

He also pointed out that the draft contains no information on how to get the public involved in this issue, nor does it provide a framework for how to adopt the measures to reduce pollution that it proposes. 

Public outreach and involvement, he said, is “the single, most important part of success. ... You have to change people’s habits to reduce the pollution that they are inadvertently allowing to get into the waterway.”

In an interview, Michaud said he requested the  data used to make the determinations about Dartmouth rivers, but was told if he didn’t find a way to narrow his scope, it would cost him over $300 for the hours of labor involved. 

He said he was confused why that labor would be necessary for data points that are supposed to be at their “fingertips” as the “foundation of this whole report.”

“This here is about public health,” Michaud said. “That should be really front and center because we rely on the Paskamansett as the replenishing waters to our aquifer.”