Cape Cod Living

It's over

2011-09-02T16:11:00.005-04:00

There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

Barnstable Town Manager John Klimm has issued a press release indicating that he has signed an amendment to his employment contract that will end his day-to-day duties Sept. 30.

According to the Patriot:

Town Clerk Linda Hutchenrider confirmed that she signed the amendment offered by the town council June 23 this morning [Sept. 2], which also bears the signatures of Klimm and Town Council President Fred Chirigotis.

Per the agreement, Klimm will end day-to-day duties Sept. 30, and remain on-call through Dec. 15.

See: http://www.barnstablepatriot.com/home2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26068&Itemid=152

For seven years I've tried to convince folks at Barnstable would be a better place without John Klimm at the helm. We argued about inflated tax bills, faulty assessments, lousy roads, poor water, unreasonable infrastructure plans, and back stabbing local politics. History - the one we wrote - finally caught up with John. He'll take the money and run.

Mercifully, we're now on our own.

I wish EVERYONE (including John) a bright new beginning and a happy and healthy future. My bloggin' dayz are are over - for now. I've done my share.

Arf. Arf.

Does any of this sound familiar?

2011-08-19T08:11:00.003-04:00

Change
August 19, 2011

The more things change, the more they stay the same…

Four years ago the election for town council in the 3rd Precinct seemed to focus on quality/cost of our water supply, deplorable conditions of the roads and taxes; more specifically the Residential Tax Exemption and the Split-tax. Today, it seems like these issues remain and arguably have gotten worse.

Clean, affordable water; our neighbors in Centerville have it, why don’t we? There are several reasons; from old antiquated pipes to wells with diminished and compromised recharge areas. Our water quality (taste) is worse today than ever, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at your water bill as rates continue to skyrocket.

The roads? Well, they speak for themselves; virtually every road in the Third Precinct is in need of repair, and most roads are in dire need. Is there a plan to repair and resurface any of these roads?

Taxes continue to inch upward, as perceived services continue to decline. In 2005 the Town voted to join the Community Preservation Act (CPA). This Act is a tool that was created to help communities acquire and preserve open space, rehabilitate, restore and preserve historic resources, structures, and landscapes, create and support community housing, for the benefit of the whole community. Has the 3rd Precinct seem any of this money? Not in my neighborhood.

The bottom line is that the 3rd Precinct deserves better. The 3rd Precinct deserves an advocate on the town council who works for them. What has the current councilor brought to the 3rd? Not much, but he advocated for the new streetlights on Main Street (out of Precinct 3) and they look nice.

Michael Hersey
Candidate – Town Council
Precinct 3

Tom, Dick and Mary

2011-08-11T07:11:00.015-04:00

I've tried for several weeks to get one of those FAIR government types to speak to us about their fancy new political action committee.

I couldn't get Tom or Mary to speak on the record. The best I could do was Dick, who had this to say:

The slate of candidates are the strongest we have seen in 10 years. So go ahead and underestimate them. You think the grandson of Roy Richardson and the nephew of the sitting Council President is going to be a weak candidate? You couldn't be that dumb. Either Jen Cullum or Bob Jones will win. Jessica Grasetti is a shoe in in Cotuit. That leaves June Daley and Peter Leveroni on the northside. You think they are lightweights? Think again. Hank Farnham is an old and bitter man. Ann Canedy has always been a weak sister, When they followed Crocker off the cliff, their fate was sealed. So the candidate field is unimpressive is it?

And, again..

I live in Barnstable Village and am supporting Leveroni because he is a good guy and will be a good Councilor. It seems like you're living in the past.

Just so you know, I've petitioned the Town Manager to be buried alive in the time capsule in Town Hall. That ought to solve at least one of Klimm's problems.

I do think that some of the so-called FAIR candidates are weak and I wouldn't support them over the incumbents.

I don't think Hank Farnham is a bitter old man. I think he can be rather single minded, but I've been impressed with how he has conducted himself recently. His experience has allowed him handled a difficult situation rather well. I don't know that Mike's wife brings all that much of anything to the table. I saw her gathering signatures at the Klimm-fest and she wasn't at all impressive. If she's not prepared to knock on every door in West Barnstable, she'll never touch Farnham. He's too connected.

Ann Canedy is not Hank's weak sister. I think Ann Canedy is BEST qualified to replace Fred Chirigotis as President of the Town Council. Yes, she's acted like a village idiot, but that is her job. At the very least, she's capable of more responsibility. She's proven that to me. Leveroni has never once set foot in Town Hall. I don't know where he stands on the issues - any issue. I can't even find a picture of him online. He won't knock on doors. He's too important in his own mind.

I don't care much for Crocker. I think he is vulnerable and I wouldn't shed a tear, if he lost. I don't know why he got into a death match with Chirigotis over the Centerville DCPC, but I do agree that it was a very dumb idea to turn over responsibility for town zoning to the CCC. Who in their right mind would do this?

That would be Royden Richardson.

Speaking of whom, I DO think that the grandson of Roy Richardson and the nephew of the sitting Council President will be a weak candidate - especially in Hyannis - where we don't take kindly to the pretenses of our neighbors from Centerville.

The Richardson predilection toward inflicting all manner of harm on Hyannis - from unaffordable sewer expansions to dysfunctional housing programs - won't play well in our neighborhoods.

There is nothing FAIR (or, fresh) about the Richardson's ambitions for Hyannis.

Tom, Dick, and Mary had best re-think their grand ambitions. They need to speak to the voters and offer an agenda we can support. I have not seen one as yet. Not from this crew.

Bye, bye, Johnnie

2011-08-09T07:04:00.012-04:00

I was talking to this guy I know.

He went on and on about Jimmy Crocker, Hank Farnham, Ann Canedy, and James Munafo complaining about how they interfered with the town manager. Complaining about how they wanted this and that for their villages. Who were they to tell the town manager how to do this job. They are all just a bunch of village idiots and the like...

You know, they don't know their place.

Then, at the end of a very long, and very painful conversation, he asked,

"Do you really want these idiots to select the NEXT town manager?

And, I thought, that's what this is really all about, isn't it?

At the June 15th meeting that everyone is arguing about, John Klimm walked unexpectedly into an executive session with hand-written notes extolling his virtues and asked for a buy-out.

Responding to citizen outrage about Klimm's buyout offer, James Munafo, Jr. said,

"We gave them what they wanted."

This, my friends, is probably the closest thing to the truth that you'll hear coming out of the mouths of the councilors who got themselves involved in this fiasco.

John Klimm asked for a buy-out and the council obliged.

What's happening now takes on a new clarity when viewed from this perepetive.

Why did Bob Jones crawl out of the woodwork to run for a two year term? Everyone I know agreed that Jen would be given this job. Why is there a contested race in Cotuit? Why did Mike Daley write a column suggesting that now isn't the time for a new Charter? Why is his wife running against an incumbent who will be retiring in two years. And, why is Richardson running a candidate against Atsalis' candidate to beat Munafo?

I could go on, but you get the point.

This upcoming election isn't about Klimm or his contract. This election is about who sits at the table to select John Klimm's replacement.

John Klimm is outta here.

Good riddance.

No more juice...

2011-08-04T19:41:00.008-04:00

It seems rather silly to me that our illustrious Town Council is meeting today to continue their Klimm-fest when they should be considering plans to batten down the hatches, cut taxes and spending, and focus services to provide for those most in need.

Not in Barnstable. Here, we live in our own world protected by our bridges, or so we think.

In case you missed it, our good friends in Washington can't agree on much of anything, the markets are in a topsy turvy mood, and the ascent of money has taken on a decidedly new trajectory.

Considering the town's revenue sources, the spending priorities of the Klimm administration, and remarkable jerry-rigging coming out of our Finance Department, I often wonder how well prepared we are to weather a prolonged economic down-turn.

What if...

The FAA doesn't re-open. Or, Cape Air looses some or all of the $20 million a year in subsidies it receives to operate.

What if...

Federal discretionary spending is cut to the bone over the next five years. And, promises made aren't kept.

What if...

The State's coffers run low, again.

What if...

There is no more juice.

EAT GOAT

2011-07-30T20:50:00.018-04:00

Correction: Ralph Cahoon's Goon Squad (aka Barnstable Deserves Better) isn't running the recall against John Norman as previously stated.

It is the Barnstable Coalition for Fair Governement lead by Joakim's neighbor Mary Lyons and supported by Janet Joakim, Meg Loughran, and Peter Leveroni who hold this honor. Stephanie Adams of Marstons Mills is allegedly the local contact for the recall. Stephanie appears to be some kind of shrink. Perhaps, she should put some of her supporters on the couch.

I'm still try to confirm reports of "bare breasted geriatrics dancing in the firelight to Joakim's incantations." If you have any additional information on this event, please let us know.

I wonder sometimes if we could do without Town Council altogether. None of these so-called elected officials do anything - except chew on each other.

I heard that Janet Joakim has joined forces with Ralph "The Goon" Cahoon to promote the recall of respected councilor John Norman. Joakim reportedly made an appearance at a meeting held deep in the woods of the Mills.

As word of bare breasted geriatrics dancing in the firelight to Joakim's incantations surfaced, hundreds of RECALL JOAKIM bump stickers were dusted and spread across Centerville.

The super-secretive Goon Squad responded to this security breech by purging their Facebook roster. 25 of 48 members suspected of disloyalty were un-friended in a single night.

There is even talk of a recall effort aimed at Council President Fred Chirigotis, but RECALL Chirigotis doesn't roll easily off the tongue. RECALL THE GOAT was considered. I prefer EAT GOAT. It fits neatly on the bumper of a car.

Commenting on this mess, your name required wrote:

If Norman is recalled, Joakim and Chirigotis shall be as well. Support is growing by the minute.

You can't make this stuff up. All this was told to me.

Who is the Walrus?

2011-07-17T09:17:00.025-04:00

"I like the Walrus best," said Alice, "because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters."

"He ate more than the Carpenter, though," said Tweedledee. "You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise."

"That was mean!" Alice said indignantly. "Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus."

"But he ate as many as he could get," said Tweedledum.

This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, "Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—"

I still have not figured out why we are having this conversation. How did we lose sight of the idea that our government serves us.

Is this about Grissom's boorish behavior in Cotuit? Did Klimm drive "outside his lane" to protect his niece? Did Chirigotis over-react and make a bad situation much worse? Remember, it was Munafo who called for the resignation of Fred Chirigotis - as well as - the Town Manager. Or, is Crocker just trying to eat too many oysters.

More importantly, why are there children with little or no political education placing their names on the ballot from papered addresses in bids to council us?

Do you really think that the name Richardson means anything in Hyannis? Will the affordable housing list, like the street light list, be used, AGAIN. Only this time to unseat an established candidate to secure for the Town Manager his legacy. And what is this legacy - affordable homes with no jobs, a new downtown, or is there more than vanity at play here in Blunderland?

I'm with Alice.

I just want to know why do they eat so much?

from The Walrus and the Carpenter

Klimm's fastball misses strike zone

2011-07-15T07:17:00.004-04:00

I really don't have much to say about the political hanging, other than this...

Hank Farnham, John Norman and Ann Canady are to be applauded for their very public and very constructive reviews of the Town Manager's performance.

Clearly, John Klimm is the issue. Megalomania is a word which comes to mind.

I'll write a little more later. Now, I have to go buy some distilled water so that I can make a pot of coffee to start my day. Despite all the speeches and praise of the Town's faltering administration, the water in my house is still undrinkable and will be for as long as John Klimm thinks that his role in our community is political gamesmanship.

John Klimm threw some impressive fast balls last night, but he and Gary Blazis couldn't hit the strike zone. More than a few hitters got on base and scored.

Don't let the facts stand in the way of a compelling argument

2011-07-12T05:56:00.016-04:00

Talk about hype and misdirection. The Cape Cod Times has ganged up with all the usual suspects to champion a continuation of John Klimm's overly generous contract.

See this letter from Meg Loughran of West Barnstable:

Those perplexed by effort to oust Klimm must object

Barnstable taxpayers and voters need to understand that we are going to be paying upwards of $300,000 to get rid of John Klimm, our town manager, who:

* Just one year ago, was offered a five-year contract by the very councilors trying to oust him.
* Received 4.5 out of a possible 5.0 on his most recent evaluation by councilors.
* Has led the town in maintaining a triple-A bond rating status.
* Has delivered a balanced budget with no layoffs, and no requests for a Prop 2½ override.
* Has improved communication between citizens and town government through an award-winning website, weekly and monthly newsletters, live and archive streaming of all meetings, Channel 18 TV programming, and a citizens leadership academy.
* Has been offered an "agreement" that states that there is "no cause for discipline, suspension, removal or termination of the town manager."

This action is being spearheaded by six of 13 town councilors, who will say only that they think it's "time for a change." If something seems wrong with this picture to you, come and be heard (or just seen) at the Knight Auditorium at Barnstable High School on Thursday, July 14, at 7 p.m.

Meg Loughran
West Barnstable

No overrides? Meg was probably in Florida last year when two overrides failed at the ballot box. And, just so you known, communications usually involves the interchange of ideas between parties. Otherwise, it is know as propaganda. Sticking your picture on a website and jamming our mailboxes with one-sided accounts of town events hardly constitutes communications.

And, here's a plea for open government from the Barnstable Coalition for Fair Government (all nine of them) courtesy of Sean Gonsalves:

Finally, some residents in Barnstable are starting to get it. They call themselves the Barnstable Coalition for Fair Government, and their aim is to shine a light on how and by whom important decisions are made.

Residents in other towns should follow their lead, because when it comes to local government (and the same is true of newspapers, by the way), the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

See: Gonsalves: Time for residents to start squeaking

Commenting on this newfangled Coalition Scary wrote:

The most frightening thing about the Coalition is their capacity for righteous self-delusion. They apparently really believe they are striking a blow for fair play, open process, blahblahblah. Cut to a videotape of Joakim and Rugo shouting "Move the question! Point of order!" For years their faction has had a stranglehold on the council, its agendas, and its committees. Its obsessive need for total micromanaged control is what provoked this insurgency in the first place. Why the hell didn't they throw a watered-down, staged, and predetermined "investigation\inquiry" to their minority colleagues? Answer- anything less than 100% dominance is always unacceptable to whatever gang of thugs happens to rule the council. Expect nothing less from the Crocker bunch should they prevail.

I spoke with a bunch of folks over the past few days regarding Town Manager John Klimm. Nearly everyone I spoke with commented on his boorish behavior and divide and conquer political tactics as a reason for their dissatisfaction with the current situation. We can't build consensus or more forward together with such a divisive personality at the helm.

The overwhelming consensus is that it is time for a change. Throw all the bums out - every last one of them.

Can Munafo finish what he started?

2011-07-09T08:43:00.015-04:00

John Klimm's gravy train is moving to a familair venue. Due to overwhelming demand for a front seat at the public hanging, Town Council will meet at Barnstable High School's roomier Knight Auditorium on July 14.

Reportedly, efforts are under way to promote a large turnout of residents to ask questions about and comment on the offer to "buy-out" the Town Manager's contract. A group which calls itself the Barnstable Coalition for Fair Government sprearheaded by former school committee chairman Ralph Cahoon is encouraging citizens to turn out.

According to their Barnstable Deserves Better Facebook page:

Let's make sure our Town Council knows we're fed up with its embarrassing behavior. It's time for the Barnstable Circus to end - no more clowning around!

On July 14th we are asking residents to show up at Town Hall & speak up (if you like), or if you can't be there to send an email or make a phone call. We need to our elected leaders know we've all had enough. Please "share" this information with your friends!

See: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Barnstable-Deserves-Better/214684871900716

This page has 9 followers.

With all the talk about "galvanization" and the "tremendous outpouring of alarm and concern by citizens all over Town," I'm starting to wonder just how many Klimm-boobs will show up to voice their support for higher taxes, unrelenting fee increases, poor roads, and an unaffordable sewer program.

John Klimm seems to have forgotten that 80% of town residents voted against his over-ride requests in November. Four out of every five residents do not support John Klimm's priorities.

Commenting on Klimm's change of venue, oldies but oldies wrote:

The next council meeting has been moved to BHS. Apparently BCfFG will be bringing in a lot of Klimm supporters. This is almost as exciting as the news Bob "Status Quo" Jones will be running in 13. Now there are two Klimm supporters running there. Maybe it's time to recycle Gary Brown as well.

I doubt that any show of support - no matter how grand - will dissuade the Crocker Six. They are committed. I'm just wondering, if my town councilor, Jim Munafo, can finish what he started. Remember, Munafo was to first to publicly call for the town council president and the town manager to resign.

See: Munafo drops his gauntlet. No one notices.

Well, now Munafo has everyone's full attention. Let's see what he can do with it.

As I understand it, John Klimm is under no obligation to "accept" the offer to buy-out his contract. Furthermore, in a letter from his attorney, John Klimm threatened to sue anyone who questioned his job performance.

That alone, should be reason enough for a second spanking.

Reader Note: In the collateral damage department, Billy Bob Mills writes that Atsalis is asleep at the wheel.

Three strikes and you're out, Mr. Atsalis. Surely, the Mid-Cape area can field a qualified challenger to the veteran legislator, who has been flouting campaign finance laws for too long.

See: Atsalis asleep at the wheel

Is John Klimm winning?

2011-07-07T06:43:00.012-04:00

According to Paul Gauvin, John Klimm "isn't going anywhere." Nor should he.

See: GAUVIN: Klimm decision his to make; leaving post would taint legacy, hurt town

And, in a truly remarkable turn of events, the strong-man (Klimm not Gauvin) has threatened to SUE anyone who mentions is name. Shades of Brooke Mueller, don't ya think?

Again, according to the Barnstable Patriot, John Klimm's counsel attorney J. Albert "Tip O'Neill wasn't a crook" Johnson of Boston, representing the town manager, allegedly wrote that Klimm and others have become aware that, contrary to the provisions of the "buy-out" agreement, “several of you have sought to disparage the reputation of my client by comments to others indicating that there may be factors for cause which are untrue and without any basis in fact.

Any such statements whether written or oral communicated to anyone or any entity will be prosecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.”

See: Town manager retains counsel

John Klimm has apparently decided to join Crocker in a political death spiral. You can't threaten to sue your employer and expect to keep your job.

Your name required commented:

Klimm's gotten an overwhelming response from the VOTERS, who pay the bills. Read Al Johnson's letter - he says Klimm will continue to serve - His departure will not stop the council divide. It'll just piss off the cherrygoat camp. Taxpayers don't want to buyout Klimm's contract and then pay some novice to step in for another 6 figure salary. It's stupid. Change the charter or wait until 2015, when the TM's contract expires.

I doubt this statement. John Klimm may have two to three hundred vocal supporters (on his payroll), but most of us are disgusted by the current situation and would prefer that everyone exit stage right. if it costs us a few buck ($10 per head to be exact), so be it.

And, now, the Joker has tossed herself into this maelstrom with a letter claiming that other members of the council agreed on votes in private before casting them in public.

See: Barnstable councilor alleges illegal voting bloc

The Joker ran Town Council like a High School cheer-leading squad some years back with the outcome of every vote pre-arranged. And, we're supposed to believe that what Crocker is doing anything different?

Commenting on this whole sordid affair, butter wouldn't melt said it best:

It's hard to have any sympathy for any of the players in this sordid game.

The only thing we know for certain is that it isn't Janet Joakim's fault.

It never is.

Reader note: We are still waiting for a challenger to stumble onto the field in the 3rd Precinct. Take our poll (top right). Incumbent James Munafo, Jr. has taken an early lead in the polling.

Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund: Comment on Citizen Groundwater Evaluation Report

2011-07-06T21:04:00.001-04:00

The CCGPF has spent 4 months focusing on compiling the water quality data on upper Namskaket marsh and Hurley's Bog. Independent testing has been conducted for comparison purposes. Individual members of the Orleans' Citizens Peer Review Panel have been providing assistance in interpreting the results from the sources named in their report. To my knowledge this is the very first time that this information on water quality on Namskaket has ever been assembled in one report and disseminated to the public in a layperson format.

Please feel free to share this CCGPF Comment freely. A wise man once said that "whoever controls the information, controls the discussion."

The CCGPF objective has been to establish a "direct connection" between the discharge of effluent at the Tri-Town "infiltration beds" and the outflow of polluted groundwater downslope on Hurley's Bog and upper Namskaket marsh. The survey work and sampling performed by Goodrich Land Research, LLC has been exemplary reflecting "state-of-the-art" use of GPS and GIS. There has been no known challenge to the efficacy of the CCGPF or the Goodrich methodology for conducting this ground-breaking study.

It's time to state some findings and conclusions:

1. The Town of Orleans has spent over $1million in taxpayer funds on Wright-Pierce for consulting services. W-P has developed a CWMP that calls for increasing the discharge of effluent at T-T from 32, 000 gpd to 640,000 gpd. Despite stacks of reports and reams of paper, the Town's consultant has never compiled a summary statement of the likely groundwater impacts of this effluent and freshwater load on Namskaket. The record reveals a complete disregard for these valid environmental and financial concerns. The W-P evaluation of the hydrogeology at the T-T plant siting has been a "sham" of "misinformation, dissembling and intentional obfuscation." The CCGPF directly attributes this pattern of activity to Mike Giggey, the Town's consulting engineer.

2. As a result, the Town of Orleans has not been able to formulate a valid scientific basis to support its CWMP and the proposed use of T-T for a mega wastewater treatment plant. The official record compiled on these key groundwater issues is "incompetent, dishonest and makes a mockery of scientific methodology." This record, when reviewed as a body of work, raises serious questions of professional negligence, improper influence and persistent use of misinformation in the evaluation and permitting process. Liability should rightfully attach.

3. The Town of Orleans has been effectively misguided by its engineer. It is self imposed to a remarkable degree by the town's failure to require a more stringent evaluation of the groundwater issues on Namskaket marsh. This inaction has publicly revealed the CWMP's "fatal flaw." The Plan actually promotes groundwater degradation and salt marsh destruction. Taxpayers were initially "snookered" at town meeting by W-P and town officials who based their claims on a "false premise" that the effluent transport route would flow harmlessly beneath Namskaket marsh and emerge out on Cape Cod Bay. These early misrepresentations were an outright lie and constituted a breach of industry standards for any siting evaluation. These claims have remained part of the record giving rise to confusion and more misinformation.

4. The CCGPF has concluded that there's a direct "causal connection" between wastewater discharged into the T-T infiltration beds and the transport of that effluent via the subsurface groundwater "conduit" to the numerous seeps--downslope--outflowing to the west and northwest into Namskaket marsh and Hurley's Bog. This effluent stream has now been established as a "point source" under the Clean Water Act to a degree of scientific certainty. The discharge of effluent at T-T is already having a "direct adverse impact" on Hurley's Bog and Namskaket marsh that will become more pronounced under the projected discharge scenarios in the CWMP.

5. As a result of W-P's intentional misconduct, anti-scientific approach and incompetence, the Town of Orleans has been split politically into bitter disputes among neighbors and friends. Taxpayers have been misinformed about the projected costs of this project to be imposed on the property tax structure--without betterments--and the cost of removal of their Title 5 systems. They have been lied to about the environmental impacts of freshwater overloading on Namskaket Creek. They have been misled by false claims of septic nitrogen overloading on town watersheds.

6. The Tri-Town plant and its wastewater disposal system has been shown to be a "point source" --conclusively under the Clean Water Act.

The CCGPF is now prepared to go to federal court in due course to challenge the CWMP in all respects were it to remain on track despite growing opposition.

See: Summary Data for Seeps at Hurley Bog and USGS Sample Data at Namskaket Marsh and Hurley Bog Creek

How Now Brown Cow?

2011-06-28T07:05:00.009-04:00

The Cape Cod Times has weighed in on Klimm's departure.

See: Support Klimm

Their take on the deal is, "Don't take it." They conclude, "Let the November elections become a referendum on Klimm's performance. If the voters are not happy with his services, re-elect those who booted Klimm. If they are happy with Klimm, boot the councilors who voted him out."

This could get ugly.

In case you are curious, it seems that the mutiny we witnessed in Town Hall last week was part of a grand plan after all. You wouldn't know it from the explanations offered to the public by the Crocker Six, but John Norman definitely thinks there is a plan. He said as much in his now famous "fast ball" speech:

YouTube of John Norman's "fast ball" speech, courtesy of CapeCog.com

I know there are folks who think life is like baseball. But, when trying to explain the inexplicable I prefer the Facebook status, "It's complicated." And, it's going to get a whole lot more complicated, if Klimm refuses to accept the offer made by the Council to step down.

Klimm had his chance to run for mayor. He passed on the opportunity. The idea that he can now run Cullum, Hersey/Krau, and Crow as proxies is absurd.

Reader note: The Cape Cod Times is accepting moderated comments on their editorial in support of John Klimm. I encourage you to visit their site and leave a comment.

John Klimm's "Water"-loo

2011-06-25T07:21:00.007-04:00

Seems odd, doesn't it?

The Town Council couldn't just fire John Klimm. They had to "offer" him a contract buy-out, which the strong-man is only now considering.

Make no mistake about this, the entire show on Thursday was prearranged. The radio stations were talking about the buy-out "offer" hours before the executive session which produced it. Klimm spent the day inviting reporters to the evening event. And, he arrived with a prepared statement which was distributed at an "impromptu" meeting in his office following the "decision." So much for representative democracy in action.

True, what we have here is a representation of something. I'm just not sure that it is democracy.

What I saw reminded me of a palace coup d'etat. Here, the betrayers were the two no-shows who feigned "commitments" which outweighed their responsibilities to their constituents and the "good of the town."

I would have preferred a change in the charter to a stab in the back, but the result is the same.

Barnstable now faces the very difficult challenge of leaving the economic fairy land of the Klimm-era. Growth is good, if it is built on a sustainable foundation. Double digit unemployment, record level foreclosures, and a collapse of the long sought year round economy isn't that. Sure, downtown looks great, but how healthy is the community which surrounds it?

In the back of his mind, I think John was hoping for an outpouring of popular support, or even a petition drive to overturn the Council's decision. But, in the end, John lost popular support. Only a handful of aging and retired councilors came to speak on his behalf. The rest of us have long since been driven from his "fiefdom.'

John Klimm should have had the courage and personal integrity to run for mayor years ago. Instead, he's expected to be run out of town.

See: John Klimm sings to the choir in Barnstable
And: John Klimm's Exit Strategy

So, we have a change, at last. Only the direction remains uncertain.

Maybe now, we can fix the water.

2011-06-24T06:38:00.001-04:00

The Barnstable Patriot is reporting that "strong man" Town Manager John Klimm will leave office by the end of September.

See: Council votes to part ways with Klimm

Demtetrius Atsalis pulled his two votes from the council voting last night opening the door for a 6 to 5 vote for an agreement that "there is no cause for discipline, suspension, removal or termination of the Town Manager at the time of this agreement..."

The agreement will cost taxpayers $250,000.

This is a small price to pay for a new future for Barnstable.

Critters in the garden

2011-06-03T18:23:00.013-04:00

It is safe to say that Barnstable businesses experienced a collective sigh of relief this past weekend. The tourists are back! The bridges were jammed. The parking lots were full and no one got shot. We might just have a good summer after all.

Bugsy used the occasion hide out in the garden...

enjoying the scenery...

with his friends...

dreaming...

conspiring...

praying...

for a piece of...

barbecue.

Enjoy the season!!!

What's a Civic Association to do?

2011-05-25T17:49:00.028-04:00

Robert Gold has the patience of a saint. He sat through a two hour meeting with us on Monday and wrote the kindest of all possible stories about our little task force in the Cape Cod Times:

See: Hyannis task force hears residents' concerns
By Robert Gold

As you can see, we're not exacting front page news. But that's okay, because we're still trying to sort out what it is we can do and should do about all the drugs and crime in Hyannis.

The first thing we have to do is work together. I've had a very positive experience working with the Hyannis Civic Association. The association is under new management and I encourage you to join. We need the help ;-)

The long-time president is retiring and Bill Cronin stepped up to the plate to take the job. I asked Bill the other night, if there was any competition for the job. Bill said, "No. No one else wanted it."

I can understand. Working for a Civic Association in an area dominated business interests isn't all wine and honey.

But...

I think Bill Cronin will do an excellent job as president of the "Greater" Hyannis Civic Association and we should all help him any way that we can. I had a "good" relationship with Tony (at least he took my calls), but our interests were not always well aligned. No one in West Hyannis is lining up to get on town sewer and we have not gotten a lot of help from the "association" on the "water" issue. This will change under Bill's leadership. At the very least, Bill will hear you out.

My job is to help the association grow membership and build a network of neighborhood commitees to support the efforts of the Barnstable Police Department. Chief MacDonald has been more than generous with his time and we need to support his efforts to put a lid the drug use which is sweeping our streets.

The Chief will tell you that there are no bad neighborhoods in Hyannis. There are only bad houses. But, the perception that Hyannis is a slum community is proliferating. In response to a report of a solid bust in Hyannis yesterday, I read this comment on the Boston Herald website:

Revengencer50 wrote -

Dorchester criminals moving into the slums known as Hyannis? It's like the perfect storm of petty thuggery!

See: Dorchester man charged with drug trafficking

This kinda stuff has to stop. But, we're not going to beat this rap with powerpoint slides of rose covered cottages. We need to isolate the "bad" houses and the cops can't do this by themselves. A civic association with a network of "safe neighborhood" committees can get the police the help they need to stop the drugs and crime in our neighborhoods.

This is what we intend to do...

The plan is to run a series of "safe neighborhood' workshops in and around downtown and out in the boonies of West Hyannis. After our first modest success with the folks on Suomi Road, the Chief recommended that we organize a second meeting in the "Tree Streets" next month. I hope to run a third workshop on West Main, as well.

The BPD ran a series of workshops in the "Trees" last year. I pulled this comment from a participant off Cape Cod Today:

concerned quill [Member] writes:

I have to agree that crime is a problem for Hyannis. It also is a problem for all communities. To make this all the fault of bad policing is unfortunate. I had to call the Chief personally for an issue next to my home and asked him to come down. He was here in 4 mins with 2 marked cruisers. When I called him he had no idea who I was. He not only took my call but also came right down.

Any time I have called the BPD for an incident, like an argument in the yard of a neighbor, they have come in mins and last time was at 10pm with a 5 cruiser response.

The Chief and Sergeant have been very community proactive and have come to the community without the community having to go to them. It is unfair to accuse them otherwise.

I am not in a posh community, in fact I am in the middle of the aforementioned "problem areas" know as the Tree Streets.

The BPD has held community meetings for watch programs. I personally sat in a meeting where the Chief and head detective were present to represent my neighborhood and PD for community action.

We have never seen a chief as proactive for Hyannis.

You see, these meetings do work. They can create a positive buzz about a community. They can restore confidence. And, we can provide hope.

Hope - in my mind - is the first step toward success.

And, now what...

2011-05-24T06:45:00.016-04:00

A curious thing sort of happened last night. It sort of proved my point.

We meet last night with a bunch of folks from Suomi Road. They stopped by the police sub-station on Main Street and the Chief did a great job working the crowd and restoring public confidence and all that...

These are the nicest folks you'll ever meet. We'd all be lucky to have them as neighbors.

Curiously, the folks from Suomi Road really didn't want to talk about the police, drugs, or crime. They are a very tight group and there hasn't been a lot of bad stuff happening in their neighborhood.

Their biggest concern is the constant noise coming from across the pond from my neighborhood. There are a bunch of kids who use the land around the Straightway wells to ride their bikes. Recently, some hammerhead who lives down the street from me got an ATV and that vehicle is causing these folks more trouble then the pothead who managed to get himself shot.

Go figure.

Now, you can say that the problem is the kids riding their bikes. But, if you take away their bike trails, won't they just sit in the woods smoking pot. Wouldn't you rather they got a little exercise?

And, here's my point. Aren't we always mistaking the symptom for the problem in Barnstable?

Look at sewer deal we got from the DPW. The "good" folks in Town Hall decide that the cost of operating their antiquated sewer system is too high. So, "they" decide to expand the system to spread the costs around town. As a result of this expansion activity, total sewer costs increased 12%.

Wouldn't it make more sense to figure a way to cut total operating costs before we made everyone get sewer?

We got the same deal from the Hyannis Water Board. The water in Hyannis is undrinkable. You CAN drink it, but in my neighborhood it is full of chemicals and everyone seems to have figured this out. The proposed solution for this problem is to spend over $5 million dollars installing state of the art air-strippers and TWO chemical treatment facilities to pump even more chemicals in the water.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just move the wells so that we didn't have to use chemicals?

Now, as a result of last nights meeting, we're going to spend a bunch of money asking some very well paid and highly trained police officers to chase kids up and down the street because they are making too much noise. And, the "good" folks in Town Hall won't consider building an ATV park in Barnstable, because it will be TOO noisy.

Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to find a place for the kids to ride?

The kids are gong to ride somewhere. Do you want them in your backyard doing endless circles around a tree? That's what they do in my neighborhood.

Is it just me, or did someone miss the point?

Snookered in Orleans

2011-05-21T07:32:00.008-04:00

Guest post by Michael Farber

Let me be blunt here (as usual): Namskaket residents are again getting snookered into complacency by the latest town meeting vote just as they were snookered into believing the town was actually supporting the NAS study.

Do you really think town officials and the OPC have changed positions on centralized sewering?

Follow the money. Wright-Pierce is still under town contract. The MEPA review is complete. The design phase on enlargement of Tri-Town is now set to begin now that Jesse has completed the "remodeling" of Site 241. The town is still spending major tax dollars on Wright-Pierce. Nothing has really changed.

Town officials are just becoming more clever in their approach. They have just successfully waylaid any NAS study by putting Sims McGrath in charge of discussions with the other 8 towns. Once that was done the result became a foregone conclusion. Don't you all feel fooled on that one. Their ploy worked beautifully and they're now doing it again with the latest study. It looks good on its face but who actually controls the choice of engineering firms? Who controls the purse strings? By the time that study is done, Wright-Pierce will have completed the design phase, and obtained the groundwater discharge permit from the MA DEP. Regrettably, I doubt one of you understands this permitting sequence. We watched this very process occur in Chatham on an expedited basis. The whole town got fooled and the plant is now built. That is the very same path now being followed by Orleans.

Be realistic. The OPC didn't throw in the towel with their vote. They just set the stage for the next more decisive vote. Namskaket could easily get whacked then.

The proper inquiry should be:

Has there been a cut off in funding to Wright-Pierce pending the study on alternatives? Absolutely not. The CWMP just keeps moving forward unabated into the next phase. Have there been any substantive changes to the centralized plan based on the hydrogeology on Namskaket? Again, absolutely not. It's still the town's No.1 choice. Look at the documentation. The siting at Tri-Town has now been "redone" to stymie opposition and to minimize the risk of litigation.

What we now have is a "snookered" resistance lulled into thinking that all is well because of a $150,000.00 study. It's truly a sad commentary on how gullible intelligent people can be even after the pattern of conduct by town officials has been so clearly established. Do you really think John Kelley and George Meservey are going to back off?

Whither Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices?

Town planning pushing big sewering has been based on a false premise of population growth. Despite the optimistic forecasts, Orleans has become merely a "crossroads" on the lower cape--not a destination or home town for young families. It's now more a retirement community than a vibrant town instilling hope for the future.

Forget the environmental issues on Namskaket marsh. We now know that Mike Giggey and Wright-Pierce have been low-balling the estimates--skeptics might even suggest "milking" the town for engineering fees. Environmental litigation now looms ahead on a number of fronts because Wright-Pierce has been performing engineering work without regard for the despoilment of Namskaket and the actual "need" for sewering in town. Inexcusably, the hydrogeologic conditions on the marsh are still essentially unknown. Those studies should have been completed first--years ago----not dead last. The evaluation process under Wright-Pierce's guidance has been skewed to promote the firm's specialty--the most expensive "big pipe" system. Giggey is in essence a "luxury car dealer" trying to convince the town to buy the most costly model. Namskaket is a "crown jewel" estuary and Skaket Beach a prime recreational resource. Both are now being put at risk under the centralized plan. Salt marsh restoration is being recognized Cape-wide as the path to the future. Orleans is going in the opposite direction. The rationale for sewering has collapsed with the loss of population and these environmental concerns. No rational person can escape these factors.

Why is it that town officials continue to ignore these pressing matters? It's not a complicated evaluation. Orleans simply cannot afford the overblown sewer system being recommended by Wright-Pierce. Why throw good taxpayer money after the $1 million in engineering fees already spent on this misbegotten plan? It's time to cut losses and move forward in conducting a "bona fide needs assessment" in town. Even spending $150,000.00 on studying alternatives is premature at this stage. Where is the empirical proof of actual need for septic nitrogen remediation in town? Pleasant Bay? Town Cove? Rock Harbor? Namskaket?

Why is it that Orleans wants to become the regional wastewater hub for the lower cape? Why does Orleans want to assume all the financial liability and environmental risk for this unnecessary development? Why does Orleans want to place Namskaket at risk to "service" Eastham and Brewster?

Bottom line: Why do town officials and Wright-Pierce continue to refuse to adopt Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices?

On the losing side of the drug war

2011-05-18T22:14:00.006-04:00

Like it or not, This is Hyannis:

HYANNIS — A 68-year-old man became the fourth Hyannis shooting victim this year when someone fired at least two and possibly four shots Monday night through the front windows of his small home on Suomi Road.

Neighbors identified the victim as Theodore Hyora, a retired plumber, and said he was taken from the scene by Hyannis Fire and Rescue to Cape Cod Hospital with a wound to his arm.

Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald said Hyora called the police himself after being shot in the right biceps. Hyora said he heard a knock on his door late Monday night and when he approached the door, someone tried to force the door open, the police chief said. Hyora was able to shut the door but he was shot through one of the front windows or the door, MacDonald said...

A few neighbors, who asked not to be identified, said they frequently had seen vehicles and pedestrians going to and from 20 Suomi Road, and they suspected there might be marijuana being used at the property.

It doesn't have to be this way...

Talking Dog Asked to Sit

2011-05-10T17:39:00.034-04:00

It appears that the Greater Hyannis Civic Association has decided to send yours truly to school. I've been asked to "sit on the chair" of the the Police, Drugs, and Crime Task Force. As I mentioned, we're going to try and make something of this opportunity. That's going to take some effort.

The Chief is busting his butt to get ahead of the drug induced crime wave sweeping Hyannis. He's got a new task force of his own out on the street right now. They reportedly made seven arrests their first two days on the job. The Chief has already visited with the local judges so that they understand that the arrests made by this new unit are the bad guys that need to be off the street. I'll tell you more about it next week after the formal announcement. I don't want to steal the Chief's thunder. This is his deal and he deserves all the credit for pulling this team together.

Our task force is tailoring it's recommendations to compliment the Chief's plan. There's only so much we - like all of us - can accomplish by calling the police for every little thing. We need to take responsibility for our neighborhoods and our downtown. Our Task Force is looking for community-based solutions which give us more flexibility in dealing with a range drug and crime issues. You can't just throw money at this problem. We need to be sma't about it.

We've got a pretty good group of folks helping us out. We have representation from the church community, the service provider community, several business owners and a bunch of folks from around town including my neck of the woods - far, far away - west of the rotary.

We're small compared to other groups. I'm told the task force working on regulations for absentee landlords has 38 members. We've got a fraction that, but I prefer a smaller, more focused group. It's easier to make progress and let everyone speak their mind. It's not to late to join up, if you want to help.

We're presenting our initial recommendations early next week. We're suggesting improvements in enforcement, community outreach, prevention, education, treatment, and youth opportunity. The recommendations came together pretty quickly, because most of us have already spent a good deal of time dealing with drug and crime issues in one way or another.

My job as "chair sitter" is to pull together the recommendations from the group and present them on Tuesday.

While it is true that 250 t o300 Hyannis residents showed up mad as hell about the drugs and crime in Hyannis a few weeks ago, it is also true that many of those left convinced that Voices of Hyannis was an empty political show. I want to convince you that this is not the case.

Stop by Tuesday night. It's not often that you get to see a talking dog perform.

Arf. Arf.

Reader note: For those of you following the Orleans wastewater debate, Doreen Leggett is reporting that the vote in favor of a second look at wastewater technology was overwhelming supported at Monday’s Town Meeting by a vote of 510 to 6.

Go team.

Read more: Second look at wastewater study passes in Orleans - Wicked Local Orleans

For those of you who think that Hyannis Water is all cream and roses, read this. With all due respect to Deb Krau, I wouldn't want to explain these numbers.

Voices of Hyannis - One week later

2011-05-04T19:07:00.012-04:00

For those you interested in a follow-up on the Voices of Hyannis "gala" in HyWest last week, I thought I'd share some thoughts. I attended the first meeting of the Police, Drugs, and Crime Task Force last evening at the new sub-station on Main Street.

I sat in the parking lot of the old police station for ten minutes before I figured out that we were supposed to be meeting in the new sub-station. I forgot that the Greater Hyannis Civic Association never actually leaves the village of Hyannis.

What's a pug to do?

I have say, that our task force meeting was very well attended. We even had one other guy from the other side of the rotary present. Bill Cronin did an excellent job of setting the agenda and moderating the meeting. Chief MacDonald attended and he was very patient and very reassuring.

The focus of our group is prevention/education and enforcement. I bitched and moaned about the affordable housing situation, but this "issue" will be vetted by the Landlords - Rentals - Regulations task force. Our good friend Milton Berglund will be pontificating there. I thought I'd spare myself the aggravation and threw my hat in with Bill.

The Chief is a remarkable guy. When you see him at Town Council protecting Janet Joakim from herself, you don't really get a sense of his full capabilities. But, the Chief has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of people, places, and events in Barnstable. If you mention a street and a crime, he'll tell you who was arrested and the time they are serving. If you mention an arrest, he'll tell you the date of the next parole hearing. More importantly, I think the Chief isn't the sort of guy who will hang you by your thumbs just because he can. Don't get me wrong, he is a tough guy, but he's also a very decent guy.

The police are aware of the concerns many of us have expressed on this blog about increases in drug activity and crime in our neighborhoods. The police are working on a plan to beef up enforcement activities around town and I'm sure that in just a few weeks you'll hear "some politician" taking credit for all their hard work and planning. That's okay. Like many of us, Chief MacDonald welcomed the enthusiasm and community support demonstrated by Hyannis residents last week. I think we're all hoping this initiative produces results.

While it may take a leap of faith for many readers of this blog to believe that the Greater Hyannis Civic Association might actually be able to deliver on the promise of cleaning up the neighborhoods of Hyannis, I plan to give them the benefit of the doubt. More, I'm going to try to help them pull this one out of the hat.

I think Bill Cronin was a little surprised by how amiable I can be when I'm playing for the home team.

Arf. Arf.

Paul Niedzwiecki dumps a bombshell

2011-04-28T05:04:00.013-04:00

At a recent update before the Chatham Board of Selectmen, Paul Niedzwiecki admits that sewering all of Cape Cod is unaffordable. This little admission is $300 million too late for Chatham.

Please be patient with this video technology. It is a little funky. Click VIEW FULL PROGRAM and then BACK to load clip. Also, you may need to download the plug-in from Microsoft.

I received this reaction to Niedzwiecki's casual remarks. I usually polish these comments, but sometimes the raw text tells a better story:

I could not believe my ears so I played the video again and again tonight and this is what he said- almost offhandedly. If it weren't so serious it would be jaw droppingly laughably illustrative of the total incompetence or duplicity of government agencies and their willingness to say anything to a naive community to get what they want.

Wastewater (sewering) he said " is simply unaffordable with a $3 billion price tag for the Cape. We are hopeful to get a reprieve from regulators to allow us to take more time to look at Innovative methods and adaptive practices (he said that with a straight face) to deal with the issues we have and remove the nitrogen we need to remove in order to remediate our southern and western estuaries."

(That would be us. $300,000,000 too late Mr. N )

"The Cape can't handle or support that kind of massive Capital construction project with the kind of population density here on the Cape. (Would that be 6800 taxpayers- or was it 30,000- supporting a $300-500,000,000 project?) "There's got to be another way", he said. (Oh really)

"The conventional approach ( centralized sewers?) cost 5-6 times the cost of 25 years ago in Boston." He then said but Chatham "can use adaptive management and is a potential regional hub. ( Are you kidding me? The CCC and EPA are running Chatham and we will have no say about regionalization. This after all the denials that we were going to end up being be the sewage dumping ground for the lower cape. There is no question in my mind that was the plan and intent from the beginning)

This is the man along with Gottlieb that said Chatham is "out in front and will be the envy of every town in the commonwealth. "Not likely . We are the idiots thanks to Hinchey wanting this feather in his resume, that everyone is going to take a lesson from.

In my view Neidzweicki and Gottlieb cost Chatham $300,000,000 by standing before this Board and assuring us alternative methods were studied and rejected. He should lose his job and Chatham should sue the CCC.

I am beyond speechless. He is not going to get away with casually dropping that bomb shell when it was only supposed to be "an update." Didn't this strike anyone on the Board as a 180' turn requiring a question of some kind?

Wait until we get the report from Ciolek. I have a feeling Mr. N may have anticipated what it’s going to say and that's why he knows it’s unaffordable elsewhere. He came to prepare us for the other shoe to drop.

Come to Chatham for its lovely hotels, coastal beauty, historic preservation and state of the art sewage treatment plant for the lower Cape.

I understand that Yarmouth is next on the hit list for big sewer. We're curious to learn, if Bob Ciolek has his finger in this pie, as well.

Hyannis Pride

2011-04-26T22:30:00.014-04:00

One foggy day...

a community showed up...

to speak their mind...

about the drugs and crime which are overwhelming our community.

A little pride can go a long way.

See: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110427/NEWS/104270320

In case you missed it, here's the video:

This video was deleted. it was too annoying.
There was some very fancy video equipment at this event last night and I'm pretty sure none of it is owned by the Patch. humm...

Thanks to Greater Hyannis Civic Association for organizing this event.

Can Hyannis find its voice?

2011-04-24T06:30:00.010-04:00

Meeting organizers are hoping for a standing-room only crowd to discuss what residents do and do not like about Hyannis this Tuesday.

Most folks I know in Hyannis have a stubborn pride in the place. They like it, but they can't tell you why.

I like the wind in my hair and the sun in my face. I like the fog in the morning and the rain on weekends. I like the song birds who stop in my yard twice each year. I like the diversity of my working class neighbors. I like the kids - even when they spend much too much time looking for trouble. I like the lack of pretense. I'm not fancy and neither is Hyannis.

Well, maybe Hyannis is getting a little fancy these days.

After years and years of concentrated development in our downtown, Main Street is looking pretty good. Prices are getting a little high, but you can have a good time there, if you don't stay too late. The drugs and crime you read about in the newspapers tell only part of the story. There are plenty of folks in Hyannis who are doing just fine. Yes, we have more than our fair share of dysfunctional neighbors, but they are still neighbors and we all have to learn to live in this place together.

I'm curious to see how Deb Krau tries to harness the "good" in Hyannis.

Krau is sponsoring a Greater Hyannis Civic Association meeting for everyone with a stake in the future of Hyannis, West Hyannisport, and Hyannisport this Tuesday, April 26 at 7 p.m. at Hyannis West Elementary School on West Main Street. Krau teamed up with some folks to plan Tuesday's meeting, which they will use as a springboard to begin fixing, not just discussing, the village's problems.

See: 'Time for Hyannis to raise its voice'

I encourage you to attend.

Happy Easter

Have you ever seen Barnstable's MADEP Discharge Permit?

2011-04-23T10:37:00.012-04:00

Several months ago I read a blog post which stated that the treatment facility in Falmouth has been operating under a DEP groundwater recharge permit, which expired in 2002.

See: Wastewater Performance Anxiety

This made me wonder, if Barnstable's permit is up to date? Well, it isn't.

Barnstable's DISCHARGE permit EXPIRED in 1985 and after 4 years of wrangling a DRAFT permit was more or less accepted in 1989. That DRAFT permit was not "certified" until 2007, but a new permit has still NOT been issued.

See: 1980 permit and 1989 draft permit.

Ann Mastrioiannai noted on her 1989 submission, "Enclosed is the 'latest and greatest' edition of our Groundwater Discharge Permit #21-1. It reads more like an historical document than a modern day directive!"

It is now 2011 - more than 26 years since the last permit expired - and, Barnstable still does not have final approval to discharge effluent into our groundwater.

I asked the folks up in Lakeville the status the town's discharge permit and received this reply:

Legally, Barnstable is still operating on the permit issued in 1980. As a courtesy they are operating as if the 1989 permit is in effect. That permit could not be issued until the Town completed their CWMP and received a Secretary’s Certificate closing the MEPA process. That Certificate was issued in 2007 and we are waiting for the Town to complete more hydrogeo work before issuing a new permit.

I asked Gary Lopez to comment and on this timeline and he responded:

That's not exactly fact...

In 1993 the DEP rescinded the 4.2 mgd. In the late 90's the town began an Environmental Impact Report that had a dozen changes up to 2007. The Cape Cod Commission got involved. Nothing was finalized although a conditional certificate was granted.

Everything is in the air...

For example the town hasn't applied for a groundwater discharge permit for the 7 McManus property acres. The Barnstable Fire District at a town meeting when we kicked up the fuss appropriated $50,000 to fight the .5 million gallon discharge, even though Ells spent $2 million to install the forced main from the sewer plant to the property.

The town still hasn't picked out a second effluent dump site (they simply name a few spots, all nearby; industrial park, airport, Stewarts Creek.

They are going nowhere without an outfall pipe.

Regarding the Silent Spring report published last year, I received this response from the MADEP:

During our discussion you questioned the presence of PFOA and PFOS that was discovered and reported in the Silent Spring report of May 2010 and expressed that it was an unsafe concentration because Massachusetts does not have a drinking water standard for these compounds.

However, we agree with the conclusion of the Spring Report excerpted below:

Health-based drinking water guidelines are available for several of the organic chemicals detected in Cape public drinking water. No samples exceeded the health-based guidelines for these chemicals. For the two perfluorinated compounds and one of the organophosphate flame retardants we detected, federal and regional U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offices15, 16 and several states17, 18 have developed health-based guidelines, which are not enforced but provide a recommended level designed to protect human
health.

• For PFOA, the highest level we detected (22 ng/L) was about one-half of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s health-based guideline of 40 ng/L for PFOA, and was around 15 times lower than the Minnesota Department of Health’s health-based value of 300 ng/L and EPA’s short-term provisional health advisory value of 400 ng/L.

• For PFOS, the highest level we detected (110 ng/L) was about one-half of the EPA’s short-term provisional health advisory value of 200 ng/L, and was about one-third of the Minnesota Department of Health’s health-based value of 300 ng/L for PFOS.

Please note that these compounds are being reviewed by the U.S. EPA for inclusion as a regulated contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Gary Lopez commented on this poor excuse for oversight:

The perchlorate plume was discovered in late 2006 when 50 nanograms per liter was discovered in a Hyannis Water Supply test well. The state's maximum contaminate level at that time (and as far as I know to this day) was 2 ng/l, so the level detected was 25 times the MCL.

The county spent a quarter-million-dollars or more cleaning up the stuff that got into the groundwater from residue from flares used to ignite fires at the Barnstable County Fire Academy that a few years earlier was responsible for diesel oil spills in the same groundwater that was cleaned up.

If I recall correctly, it wasn't even the State which discovered this plume.

In the four months that I've been working with the MADEP to document their oversight activities in the Town of Barnstable, I have found little or no evidence that anyone is minding the store.

I don't know what "additional" hyrdogeo work the MADEP has asked for, but I don't recall a request in the 2011 CIP to complete this work either.

Who knows...maybe the Town of Barnstable will get a valid discharge permit again in my lifetime.

A marsh dwellers last fight

2011-04-22T14:48:00.030-04:00

I'm ready to make political hamburg out of the whole bunch. Sometimes a little crazy is a good thing -I've got 400 yrs of inbreeding just waiting to dance! - Steve Ellis

I went to my very first Cape Cod Commission meeting the other day to "observe" the Orleans Pond Coalition in action. I can't even begin to tell you how appalled I was by the experience.

All the players who are conspiring to "fix" the May 9th Orleans Town Meeting where there with bells on - Carolyn Kennedy, Jane Corlette, Judith Bruce, and Chet Crabtree.

These inlanders from the pond trotted out Margie Fulcher (Nickerson) as their spokesperson to endorse their plan to inundate Namskaket Marsh with 600,000 gallons per day of unwanted effluent. Margie is the Chairperson of the Orleans Board of Selectman. Without any regard for neighborhood concerns Ms. Fulcher enthusiastically endorsed this fool-hearty plan.

Tom Cambareri who has turned a blind eye to Hyannis water for a professional lifetime also spoke. Cambareri knows what 600,000 gallons a day of effluent will do to this marsh. Why he endorses this plan defies reason.

It was unbelievable.

And, and...

There was this county gal running this meeting, telling this sub-Commission of whatever what to do and, and I got this really great picture of her next to Steve Ellis who was politely standing there with seven generations of rage just waiting for a chance to speak.

Steve asked, "Does anyone really care out this marsh?"

Steve is local for like forever. He does some fishing, chases whales for the tourists and spends his spare time recording frog sounds out on the marsh.

He says, "I'm leaving Cape Cod. My family harvested salt hay on this marsh 175 years ago and I'm done. I'm moving to Georgia next year and I'm telling my kids to leave with me. This is my last fight."

Steve grew up on this marsh. His family donated 30 acres to this fraudulent Conservation Trust they have out in Orleans and he picked apart every single idiotic "scientific" idea that these pond dwellers have about living on Cape Cod without even raising his voice or reading from a piece of paper.

Steve Ellis had the room in tears.

Margie Fulcher (Nickerson) just sat there surrounded by her scientific experts shaking her head while Steve spoke.

You could hear Margie muttering, "I don't hear you. I don't hear you."

Reader note: Steve wrote to "suggest" in his ever so polite way that I'm not that good "cape" writer. He sent me copies of his The Scallywag Chronicles to help me along. See: Volume I & Volume II

Oh boy oh boy...let the games begin!

2011-04-21T21:27:00.011-04:00

The Orleans Pond Coalition is planning to "influence" the May 9th Town Meeting wastewater vote. We intercepted this email from Carolyn Kennedy documenting their activities today.

From: Steve Bornemeier
Date: April 21, 2011 4:12:45 PM EDT

To: Judith Katherman, Tom Dewing, Anne Hanyen, Tony Davis, Robin Davis, Skip, Mary Allen Bradley, Ann Kilguss, Alan Levick, Joann Figueras, Pam and Harry Herrick, Sheila Bonnell, Dave and Robin Hubbard, Eileen Grodin, Allison Jackson, Len and Sally Short, Charlie Ashby, Judith Bruce, Patty Platten, Bob Donath

Cc: Carolyn Kennedy

Subject: A message from Carolyn Kennedy and the OPC

Dear Pond Group Leaders,

With an important Town Meeting coming up on May 9, please consider responding to the suggestions below from Orleans Pond Coalition President Carolyn Kennedy. With any interest, please contact Fran McClennen, Carolyn or Judith, or reply to me directly. Thanks! Steve

Hi to all-- Judith Bruce, Fran McClennen and I are suggesting that OPC sponsor a series of disussion groups prior to town meeting in homes throughout the town for our members and friends. Judith and/or I would attend each meeting to facilitate the discussion and we would use the Q/A's that we all reviewed at our last board meeting as a basis on which to begin the discussions. Fran will coordinate these discussion groups by finding people who would host a meeting at their house. She will also help hosts with invitations and can supply lists of invitees to supplement the host's list. We would hope that some of you would volunteer to host one of these meetings. If you are able to do so, please email Fran to let her know. Then you can contact me and/or Judith so that we can find a mutually convenient time to hold the meeting.

I hope you have Town Meeting on May 9 on your calendar. We will need every vote possible to move the wastewater issues along.

Thanks! Carolyn

This is how the game is played.

If you want to dump your "sh*t" in someone else's backyard, you host disussion (sic) groups prior to town meeting in homes throughout the town.

It seems Judith Bruce has the "get up and go to" to organize and attend all of these private OPC meetings but not enough energy or interest to walk down the bike trail to see the multiple effluent outbreak seeps on Hurley's Bog. Imagine claiming a health problem for not attending the CCGPF Tour on April 20th, and then concocting this scheme the very next day to pack the vote at town meeting. What a girl!

Remarks by Jeffrey Eagles at the Cape Cod Commission Hearing on the Orleans Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan (CWMP) presented April 14, 2011

2011-04-15T19:38:00.004-04:00

Good evening, my name is Jeffrey Eagles and I am a resident of Orleans. I am by virtue of professional training an environmental engineer and an environmental scientist.

My subject is the impact of the discharge of freshwater from the proposed Orleans sewage treatment plant on salinity levels and plant and animal habitats of the Namskaket and Little Namskaket tidal salt marshes. I have read the March 2011 letters from the Town of Orleans and Wright Pierce dismissing this issue as insignificant. I differ with their conclusions based on basic principles of environmental science which they have chosen to ignore and based on Massachusetts law.

I request that you keep in mind the DEPʼs two objectives in pursuing nitrogen reduction:

• water quality improvement
• and, healthy habitats for plants and animals

Also, when people discuss averages, think of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. On average, its impact on the United States was minor...it did not have a significant impact on the way we live on Cape Cod. But the localized impact on New Orleans and the Gulf coast was devastating.

In their communications to you, both the Town of Orleans and Wright-Pierce use averages to compare the proposed Orleans sewage plant freshwater discharge, in the first case, comparing the discharge to the groundwater flow rate and, in the second case, comparing it to the tidal prism. In both cases, when averaged over the entire marsh, the percentage increase of freshwater is small.

However, their averaging argument is in conflict with the way the sewage plant freshwater discharge enters and impacts the salt marsh. The freshwater does not become uniformly...or even nearly uniformly...distributed over the marsh.

Dr. Peter Wieskel spoke before you on the 1st of March and explained that freshwater enters the salt marsh at the margins of the marsh and through the creek beds. Dr. Weiskel was very clear that freshwater does not get evenly distributed in the marsh.

The impact of freshwater as Dr. Weiskel explained is localized. In the case of the sewage plant discharge, the impact of freshwater is localized to the edges and the creek bottom in relatively small areas of Namskaket and Little Namskaket marshes nearest to the proposed plant.

The increase in freshwater flows in these localized areas of the two marshes will impact the plant and animal habitats because of changes both in terms of the salinity of the water they are exposed to and the salinity of the soil in which they live. Soil and water salinity changes in the marsh will change the mix of plants and animals that live there.

Salinity changes will change and degrade habitats. This is not a matter of averages over the entire marsh; this is about the specific impact in the specific area of the marsh where a species lives. The success or failure of plant and animal species depends wholly on the conditions right where they live today.

Just like Hurricane Katrina damaged a relatively small part of the US, additional freshwater going into Namskaket and Little Namskaket marshes will do its damage in localized areas.

It is appropriate to remind everyone of words from the Cape Cod Commission website:

“Cape Cod is renowned for its rich natural environment. The Cape Cod Commission's Natural Resources and Open Space program area focuses on the protection of sensitive plant and wildlife habitats, unusual natural communities, and open space areas. Commission staff can provide technical assistance or reference in the protection of sensitive resources...”

Namskaket and Little Namskatet tidal salt marshes are two of our open spaces with sensitive plant and animal habitats that the Cape Cod Commission is trusted to protect. The Inner Cape Cod Bay Area of Critical Environmental Concern includes both Namskaket and Little Namskaket tidal salt marshes. This is a fact that the March letters from Wright-Pierce and the Town of Orleans to the Cape Cod Commission fail to mention.

Massachusetts law protects the ACEC and requires us to protect the habitats in the ACEC. The EOEEA has a duty under the law to protect the ACEC. In addition, the Orleans Conservation Commission has a duty to protect the ACEC and the Orleans Conservation Trust has a duty to protect the habitats under the covenants conveying property in the marsh into conservation.

Quoting from the legislation establishing the Cape Cod Commission:

“The purpose of the Cape Cod commission shall be to further:

the conservation and preservation of natural undeveloped areas, wildlife, flora and habitats for endangered species; the preservation of coastal resources including aquaculture; the protection of groundwater, surface water and ocean water quality, as well as the other natural resources of Cape Cod..”

On 12 February 2009, the Orleans Wastewater Management Steering Committee, the Orleans Wastewater Management Validation & Design Committee and the Orleans Board of Selectmen held a joint meeting to discuss a list of suggested engineering solutions for improving water quality in Pleasant Bay. The Validation committee had developed the list of “suggested” solutions to stimulate discussion of alternatives for water quality improvement....methods which could produce positive results in years rather than decades. The meeting was attended by DEP representatives and Mr. Giggey of Wright-Pierce. The attendees also included a trustee of the Orleans Conservation Trust and a member of the Orleans Conservation Commission. The meeting is available on video recording from the town.

One of the Validation committee suggestions included pumping oxygen rich seawater into Meetinghouse Pond. The Orleans Conservation Trust trustee immediately declared that pumping seawater into Meetinghouse was not allowed because it would alter the salinity profiles along the edges of the pond and damage the plant and animal habitats in the pond. We were told that the amount of salinity change and the amount of impact however small would not be allowed because Meetinghouse Pond was part of the Pleasant Bay ACEC.

The suggested solution was rejected by the Town of Orleans because salinity changes would damage plant and animal habitats within an ACEC! The Town dismissed the idea in just a few minutes.

The Orleans Town officials and town organizations who rejected the proposal now seem to have collective amnesia when it comes to the very same issue in the ACEC which includes Namskaket and Little Namskaket marshes.

Are the town, county and state governments all going to abdicate their duties and responsibilities with respect to the protection of the Namskaket and Little Namskaket marsh habitats? Is it acceptable to use wastewater planning that improves habitats in Pleasant Bay while at the same time it degrades habitats in Namskaket? Is the Pleasant Bay ACEC of a higher rank or more deserving of our care than the ACEC at Namskaket?

Who is will stand up and expose the hypocrisy of using averages to obscure the impact of the sewage plant effluent discharges? Who will stand up and expose the hypocrisy of a wastewater plan that damages habitats in ACEC at Namskaket and Little Namskaket marshes in order to improve the Pleasant Bay ACEC?

Who is going to stand up and protect the plant and animal habitats of Namskaket ACEC? Perhaps, the EOEEA or the Cape Cod Commission?

I hope that you will consider this matter seriously when taking action on the matter before you.

Thank you.

Jeffrey Eagles

To download a PDF version of this text in full, click here.

Peter Weiskel from the USGS responds to the Cape Cod Ground Water Protection Fund regarding plans to sacrifice Namskaket Marsh

2011-04-14T22:57:00.023-04:00

Here is Peter Weiskel's response to the concerns expressed in the previous post entitled Sacrificing Namskaket Creek for No Good Reason.

Dear Bugsy,

Thank you for your e-mail. In response--

USGS does not now, and has never recommended that Namskaket Creek be used as an "outfall pipe", USGS does not make recommendations concerning environmental policies. We conduct studies of basic geologic, hydrologic, and biological processes that can be used by the general public and government organizations to make decisions.

USGS has conducted studies of the hydrogeology of the glacial aquifer underlying the Tri-Town facility, the physical and chemical development of the treated effluent plume downgradient of the facility during the 1990s, the baseline water quality of Namskaket Creek, and the baseline distribution of salt marsh plant species in Namskaket Marsh. The findings of these studies are documented in a series of reports that are available to the public. The first 3 studies are summarized in reference 1 below; see reference 2 for the marsh vegetation study; see reference 5 for locations of creek sampling sites.). Since the summer of 2010, we have resumed sampling of Namskaket Creek at the same sites sampled in the 1990s, to assess possible changes in the concentration of nutrient constituents at low tide. Changes could be indicative of possible plume discharge to the creek system.

In 1983, when Dr. John Teal wrote the report referenced below, he made a reasonable inference (given the lack of site-specific groundwater-level information at the time), that the wastewater plume would move directly toward Hurley's Bog from the infiltration beds, in accordance with the local water table slope, which typically mimics the local topography. When USGS began a detailed study of the actual movement of the plume, it became clear that the primary direction of movement was to the northwest, toward the Bike Trail (see Figure 4 in reference 1 below). The reason for the northwestern movement is that the plume moved vertically downward initially, in accord with the slightly greater density of the plume relative to ambient groundwater under the infiltration beds, and was subsequently incorporated into the regional groundwater flow system for this part of Cape Cod, which flows to the northwest, not toward Hurley's Bog. In short, the lateral direction of groundwater flow may vary with depth. At the Bike Trail (see Fig. 4), the plume is found in a coarse-grained sandy unit at a depth of about 25 to 55 feet below mean sea level, with a flow direction toward the northwwest Portions of this sandy unit appear to be capped by a silt/clay layer.

We have also conducted a limited amount of subsurface groundwater sampling below the marsh, and have found evidence that a small portion of the plume seems to be present at depth below the marsh surface, at an elevation 25 to 40 feet below sea-level. To date, we have no evidence that nitrogen from this small plume section is discharging to any of the tidal creek system.

Thanks for including the quotation from USGS Circular 1262 (reference 3 below). On page 93 of that document, there is a useful diagram of the three major pathways of groundwater flow in the vicinity of a salt marsh (Fig. 56), based in part on observations at Namskaket Marsh. As you can see from the figure, there are 3 basic pathways--- the shallow pathway, whereby groundwater discharges through the boundary seepage zone; the intermediate pathway, whereby it discharges through tidal creek bottoms; and the deep pathway, whereby groundwater flows under a marsh and out to the coast. (The figure reproduced from a book chapter that John Teal and I co-authored with Brian Howes and Dale Goehringer on nitrogen transport through salt marshes; ref. 4 below).

Three key points about these flowpaths:

1. Boundary seepage can be observed to a greater or lesser degree along the entire boundary of Hurley's Bog and Namskaket Marsh (especially its eastern boundary--- see photo on page 93 of reference 3 below). Some areas are more permeable than others, and act as "springs" for groundwater discharge.

2. The creek bottoms are also major areas of groundwater discharge, as indicated by steady ebb-tide flows of very-low salinity water (~ 2 parts per thousand or less).

3. The deep flow path is not necessarily in the same plane as the other two flows---- they can be going either "into or out of the page (or screen)." This behavior is consistent with the direction of deep flows (25-50 ft below mean sea level) at the Bike Trail, which diverge from the shallow flows.

The long-term creek sampling locations (reference 5, Fig. 2) were chosen to capture the most likely potential area(s) of plume discharge, based on our knowledge of plume location and movement. Site E captures the boundary seepage zone downgradient of the plume's leading edge. Site A captures the creek-bottom seepage from the Inner Marsh. Site B, at the mouth of the Hurley's Bog tributary captures potential discharge to Hurley's Bog. We chose to sample at the mouth because longterm sampling was already taking place on Hurley Bog Creek on the upstream side of the Bike Trail, pursuant to the requirements of the Tri-Town groundwater discharge permit.

Long-term fixed-site data are available for USGS Sites A, B, and E for 1993-1998, and currently (2010-11). In addition, quarterly data are publicly available for site HB-2 (Hurley's Bog tributary at the Bike Trail) for the 1990 to 2011 period. (These data are on file at the Mass. DEP Southeast Region, MassDEP Boston, and at Tri-Town.) We are conducting an analysis of these data for possible trends, and will report on our findings in a report on the current sampling program.

Based on our knowledge of the plume near the Bike Trail, it is approximately 25 to 40 (or more) feet below sea level at the marsh boundary. Hence it is unlikely that it is discharging into the boundary zones of Hurley's Bog or the main marsh.

Nevertheless, we would be more than willing to collect a set of samples along the length of this boundary zone (as part of our current sampling program) to test our current understanding, and determine whether plume discharge may presently be occurring along edge of Hurley's Bog.

best regards,

Peter Weiskel

References:

1. Weiskel, P.K., DeSimone, L.A., and Howes, B.L., 1996, A nitrogen-rich septage-effluent plume in a coastal aquifer, marsh, and creek system, Orleans, MA: Project summary 1988-95. USGS Open File Report 96-111.

2. DeSimone, L.A., Howes, B.L., Gohringer, D.G., and Weiskel, P.K., 1998, Wetland plants and algae in a coastal marsh, Orleans, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USGS Water Resources Investigations Report, 98-4011.
http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/#search:basic/query=weiskel/page=1/page_size=100:12

3. Barlow, P.M., Ground Water in Freshwater-Saltwater Environments of the Atlantic Coast http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2003/circ1262/ (see fig. 56).

4. Howes, B.L., Weiskel, P.K., Goehringer, D.D., and Teal, J.M., 1996, Interception of freshwater and nitrogen transport from uplands to coastal waters--The role of saltmarshes, in Nordstom, K.F., and Roman, C.T.eds., Estuarine Shores--Evolution, Environments, and Human Alterations: New York, John Wiley, p. 287-310.

5. DeSimone, L.A., Weiskel, P.K., Howes, B.L.; and Smith, K.P., 1998, Water-quality data collected in a coastal marsh, Orleans, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, March 1993-January 1998, USGS Open File Report 98-184.

Peter K. Weiskel, Ph.D.
Associate Director
U.S. Geological Survey
MA-RI Water Science Center
10 Bearfoot Road
Northborough, MA 01532
508-490-5026 (voice)
508-490-5068 (fax)
http://ma.water.usgs.gov/

Sacrificing Namskaket Creek for No Good Reason

2011-04-12T18:14:00.006-04:00

Friends of Namskaket Creek,

Rarely in the practice of environmental law are there moments when the stated positions of opponents collapse on their face as a matter of fact and law. Thanks to the brilliant historical research of Mary Hartley and the transcription work of Barbara O'Connor, we now have been blessed by one of those special occasions.

See: THE COASTAL IMPACT OF GROUND WATER DISCHARGE: AN ASSESSMENT OF ANTHROPOGENIC NITROGEN LOADING IN TOWN COVE, ORLEANS, MASSACHUSETTS, John M. Teal, W.H.O.I. (Excerpts)

Please read the excerpts posted above very carefully. John Teal is without question a national authority on groundwater/leachate/effluent plumes on salt water marshes. In 1982 and 1983, his team at the Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institution conducted an extensive study on Namskaket Creek. His findings and conclusions have been excerpted here.

It is now perfectly clear that town officials in Orleans have known for 28 years that the discharge of effluent from the Tri Town Treatment facility would be outflowing directly into Hurley's Bog. For those of you who have studied the issue of effluent directional flow patterns on Namskaket marsh, this is a stunning confirmation of what has now been observed by members of the Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund during their recent fieldwork on Hurley's Bog and upper Namskaket.

We all know now that town officials have been knowingly and intentionally misrepresenting the facts to residents of Namskaket claiming falsely for years that the effluent plume would be flowing beneath the marsh and emerge out on Cape Cod Bay. John Teal addressed this issue-- point blank-- back in 1983. He did not dodge the issue or disguise the groundwater facts. He stated the obvious without equivocation. The leachate, i.e., effluent discharged from Tri Town, would primarily be flowing into Hurley's Bog--period. In fact Teal specifically concludes that it would not flow beneath the marsh.

Now consider the veracity of the past statements of George Mesevey and Michael Giggey concerning the plume directional flow. Their subterfuge has been ongoing for years. It continues to this day. They have exhibited a stunning disregard of the known hydrogeological facts on Namskaket marsh so plainly revealed by Dr. Teal and his team back in 1983.

Apparently Kelley, Meservey and Giggey are willing to sacrifice Namskaket Creek-- a "crown jewel" of the lower cape-- at all costs now that the town has spent over $1 million on engineering fees backing the town's centralized sewering plan. What if townspeople had known early on that Namskaket Creek would be turned into an open effluent drainage ditch? What if folks had known that the town's plan called for the despoilment of a prime salt marsh habitat?

The Teal Final Report is truly electrifying to witness in the context of the present discussion over the actual location of the Tri Town plume. The level of deceitfulness by certain town officials has now been exposed for all to see. The Tri Town plume can be readily viewed outflowing just 510 feet downslope from the infiltration beds into Hurley's Bog.

See: Hurley's Bog Field Observations

As Dr. Teal found and concluded, there is no transport time or opportunity for assimilation of this nitrogen ladened effluent. In fact this raw effluent has been flowing for years from Hurley's Bog, through the single culvert into the Hofe Trust property and then down creek to the mouth of Namskaket Creek and Cape Cod Bay.

Is it any wonder then under this Teal scenario that Namskaket Creek has been closed to shellfishing since the opening of the Tri town treatment plant?

Via email from the Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund

Barnstable Airport admits Hyannis Water Contamination

2011-04-10T16:24:00.003-04:00

Did you see this new video from CapeCog.com?

Mark Nelson, an engineer with the Horsley Witten Group, admitted that hydrocarbons at the airport created a massive plume that stretched from the west side of the airport (back of Kmart Mall) to Yarmouth Road (Willow Street) on the east side and the Hyannis Water Supply’s Mahar Wellfield.

It's been there for 30-40 years...

Read more >>

Munafo drops his gauntlet. No one notices.

2011-04-09T06:43:00.014-04:00

In case you were wondering, the federal government didn't shut down as planned last night at midnight. Perhaps now, we should turn our attention to shutting down Town Hall.

The Barnstable Town Council is teetering on the brink of collapse. After months of squabbling, James Munafo, Jr. publicly called for the resignation of the council president AND the town manager.

Mr. Munafo reportedly said,

I’m calling for the town council president to resign his position, as well as the town manager to resign.

He might have said, "I'm calling for the resignation of both the town council president and the town manager," but that would have been grammatically correct.

After a momentary delay in the proceedings, Ann Candey brushed aside Mr. Munafo's "recommendation" and called for the commencement of the Trough-fest planned for that evening.

Ann Candey reportedly said,

We’re doing the budget right now. We’ll have plenty of occasions to talk about interpersonal issues, but right now we’re doing the town’s business.

What she meant to say was, "My village has $665,000 in this pot. Shut up while I eat."

See: Barnstable Town Council Approves $10 Million In Capital Projects

I have to wonder why Mr. Munafo choose this occasion to call for Mr. Klimm's resignation.

Mr. Munafo could have called for the resignation of both the town council president and the town manager when Hyannis water ratepayers were stuck with $10 million dollars of unsecured debt to finance the acquisition of the ol'Barnstable water Company. Mr. Munafo could have called for their resignations when 320 homeowners in Stewart's Creek were railroaded into an unnecessary sewer expansion. He could have drawn a line in the sand years ago when our taxes and the fees the town charges for services were raised in the midst of the greatest economic downturn of our life times.

But, no...

Mr. Munaofo only called for the resignation of both the town council president and the town manager when Don Grissom, a fellow hack, was pushed out of his cushy job as Council Liaison. Only then, did Mr. Munafo feel his spine and stand and call for the resignation of both the town council president and the town manager.

No one noticed Mr. Munafo dropping his gauntlet for good reason.

Noise ordinance considered for Town Hall Roosters

2011-04-03T10:44:00.008-04:00

We've seen quite a bit of rooster-ish behavior in Barnstable these past few months. Thankfully, a noise ordinance will be considered on April 7th to address community concerns.

As you may know, the ancient Greeks believed the Rooster rose to attention and saluted the sun every morning symbolizing victory over night. In Christianity the Rooster is noted for crowing three times after Peter denied Christ.

Celtic and Norse lore describe the Rooster as a creature of the Underworld calling out for the souls of the fallen in battle. In dreams, the Rooster is a sign of time passing in our lives. Hearing a Rooster's voice in our dreams may indicate we need a wake-up call.

In Barnstable, the Town Hall Roosters, who lead legally unfettered lives, are nothing more than a nuisance and should be removed from office or contained in small boxes from dusk to dawn.

See: Rooster Noise Ordinance Headed For Town Council

A wag of the tail to John Norman for keeping his sense of humor.

In response to Janet Joakim's letter to the editor decrying partisanship on Town Council, Norman commented:

You got me!

As I read Councilor Joakim's letter I was shocked that the most partisan person on the council was opining about the partisan atmosphere on the Barnstable Town Council. An atmosphere the former and current President have worked hard to cultivate. One only has to look at the childish seating assignments. Conservatives all the way to the left and Liberals as close to the President as possible. I actually started to get mad, as I was reading her letter. Then I remembered today is April's Fools day. You got me! I knew you couldn't be serious. Touche!!!

See: A personal apology for council distraction

Joakim claims in her letter to think "out-side the box." The proposed noise ordinance will ensure that Ms. Joakim is kept in her box for at least a few hours a day.

Free-range Joakim is a taste sensation I can live without.

Murder, Mayhem, and Unmitigated Gall

2011-03-29T18:31:00.005-04:00

Have you read Cape Cod Today's recent articles about Hyannis? Pleasant Bay resident and online publisher, Walter Brooks, wants us to take extraordinary measures to protect the tourist trade.

Walter Brooks writes:

Best known as the scene of two recent murders where the perpetrators discharged firearms into a dwelling, The Wedge also witnessed a fire bombing that featured Molotov Cocktails being thrown into a dwelling where children slept and numerous police calls involving violence, drugs and domestic complaints. The apparent vortex of the crime wave sweeping downtown Hyannis, The Wedge is a major contributor to the damage downtown Hyannis has done to the tourism industry Cape-wide.

To save the tourist trade, Brooks recommends an increased police presence, random police checks of Hyannis motorists, and background checks on Hyannis tenants all in the name of protecting his ad revenue.

Walter Brooks opines:

We realize that the level of enforcement proposed here is a mighty inconvenience for Wedge residents who are where they’re supposed to be, doing what they’re supposed to be doing when they’re supposed to be doing it. We would like to think that the good citizens who live in the Wedge won’t mind a period of inconvenience if it lessens the possibility that a bullet might come flying through their living room or that one of their kids might be hit by a bad guy trying to escape the police.

See: Taming “The Wedge”

Doing what they’re supposed to be doing? What, like laboring for short change in a seasonal market?

This seems like an odd recommendation coming from a man who heralds his own beatnik past and makes his living selling Police & Fire news online. Cape Cod Today reports more than 100,000 page views in Police and Fire News and another 30,000 page views for Court Reports this month alone. Crime sells. Even Hank Farnham is a reader of Hyannis Patch's almost daily updates on the murder and mayhem in our community.

What is wholly absent from all these "reports" is an understanding of the root causes of this crime infestation.

Not so long ago, a Cape Cod Living reader offered his thoughts on the problem.

leave your keys on the table and get lost wrote:

Hyannis appears to have reached its final tipping point. For far too long it has been run as an arena for the needs of power players who do not reside in the village. On the one hand it exists as a marketplace where the maximum number of tourists can be supplied or served up for "harvest" by the maximum number of largely seasonal and extractive businesses. On the other hand it acts as a dumping ground for all the disagreeable services which the entire town of seven villages requires. This benefits the bloated local social services octopus directly. It also allows the residents of Osterville, Barnstable, etc. to live in a pleasant bubble free from riffraff, sewer plants, drug clinics, ad nauseam. Many people who have chosen to live and make a stand in Hyannis, many of long history here, are finally understanding that this village is no longer worth living in. The priority list is clear. At the top are businesses and the entrenched government bureaucracy which operates solely to service them and the wealthy outer villages. Next comes the mass of tourists on which many local businesses feed. Next comes a supply of low paid labor to keep the machine working. Finally we must include the self-sustaining supply of homeless and oxy-addled victims on whom social service agencies prosper. Other than paying inflated property taxes Hyannis residents serve no purpose whatsoever in this efficient scheme. If you're not buying five dollar plastic cups of generic "chowdah " or ten dollar cheeseburgers, what excuse do you really have for breathing Hyannis air?

Thursday, June 17, 2010, 12:39:40 PM

This comment is almost a year old. Tell me what you think anyone has done since last year to address the problem of murder, mayhem, and unmitigated gall in Hyannis?

Remember, Walter Brook's ad sales hang in the balance.

Run John Run. See John Run.

2011-03-26T08:22:00.012-04:00

Do you remember Harold Tobey's famous lament?

After a string of particularly unpleasant council sessions a few years back Harold opined,

"Why can't we all get along like seagulls?"

In fact, this council is getting along just like seagulls - fighting over the entrails of the body politic.

I don't know what you think of our current Town Council, but I'm shocked at how quickly Fred Chirigotis lost control.

John Julius thinks that this is the worst council EVER. He wrote a letter to the Patriot this week which read in part:

Take a good look around. Look at the many residents here who have lost their homes in the past four years. Look at the many businesses that have gone out of business and closed recently. I saw another two commercial real estate signs just this morning on my way to work! The homes in our town have been grossly over-assessed and despite the fact that many commercial properties have been drastically under-assessed, even still many businesses have not been able to survive in this dreadful economy. And yet our town council continues to ignore this gross injustice by the town’s assessing department that has so negatively impacted so many people.

Consider a bunch of other ridiculous and disgraceful things that have transpired in the past with our wonderful, grand town council. Look at the many thousands of our hard-earned tax dollars they wasted with foolish special elections a couple years ago with the town sewer idiocy. The voters told our council twice they do not want and cannot afford their pipedream plan of sewering this entire town and yet these arrogant leaders plodded forward anyway. By the way, just who will pay for that $5 million waste of the sewer pump station to nowhere on West Main Street? Who will also pay for the massive waste that went into the ground in Stewarts Creek? Remember that fiasco? And why is the work still ongoing on West Main Street?!

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, this town council is the worst in the history of our town. Can anyone name us one thing that they have done to benefit us all here? They chased away local developer Stu Bornstein’s plan for a new hotel that cost us all valuable year-round jobs and millions more in tax revenue. They have taken thousands of acres off our tax rolls for someone’s dream of turning our town into Openspaceville. Did this council ever consider the ramifications of their actions? Do they even have this ability?

See: Barnstable Town Council needs counseling

I spoke to John about his letter this morning and he said:

"I'm so disgusted by this council that I'm thinking of running myself!"

I asked John, if I can quote him and he laughed. "You really are a trouble maker. Yes, you can quote me."

It sure would be nice to have someone with some common sense sitting on the Barnstable Town Council. We don't need to get along like seagulls. We need to get along like adults.

Reader note: I can just imagine the look on John Klimm's face when John Julius wins by a landslide.

Correction: It's so easy a PUG dog can do it

2011-03-22T20:19:00.019-04:00

We have a failure to communicate. Just a few weeks ago, residents of Orleans stormed the offices of the Cape Codder demanding a clarification of comments printed by this well respected local newspaper. Residents wanted to know if some or most of watewater flows from the proposed mega-treatment plant on Namskaket Marsh would flow INTO the marsh?

A corrected quote was published online which read:

Because of a layer of clay beneath the marsh, Peter Weiskel of the U.S. Geological Survey explained, some of the effluent/groundwater would travel beneath the vegetation into the creeks or out towards Cape Cod Bay.

Read more: Cape Commission gets earful about Orleans sewering plan

I received this email from Jesse Schwalbaum today via the CCGWPF in response to my last post. According to Jesse most of the groundwater from the site is going to end up in Namskaket Marsh.

The email I received read:

I actually created the particle track map shown on the Cape Cod Living blog. Unfortunately, it is being misinterpreted.

First of all, the model scenario shown in the figure does not represent current conditions but represents what would happen under the full proposed discharge. The full discharge is going to cause groundwater move in different ways than it does now - that is why a model is needed. But more importantly, the particle tracks (the red lines) only show the effluent-impacted groundwater while it is in the ground. That is because it is a groundwater model. All Bugsy did for the second version of the map was to show where the water would flow once it reached the surface. But that is so easy to figure out that it does not need to be modeled. The purpose of the groundwater model was to determine where the impacted groundwater would reach a body of water. That is why the particles end where the groundwater reaches a body of water.

Then again, the model only quantifies what was pretty obvious from the start - most of the groundwater from the site is going to end up in Namskaket. That could be predicted by the USGS work and it is no surprise that is precisely what the WP report says. That is what is shown in Table 5 shown on the blog (which shows percentages and total flows, which Bugsy seems to have missed). So I don't think there is any funny business going on with respect to where the groundwater is predicted to go. Orleans was told by DEP, and ultimately the MEP (which is DEP, CCC and SMAST), that Namskaket could handle the nitrogen. That's where DEP and MEP want it and that is where it is going to go. If CCPGF has a problem with that, they need to bring it up with DEP, CCC and SMAST, not the Town of Orleans or Wright-Pierce.

Hope that helps. Feel free to forward or post all or portions of this email. I wish I could help more but this is a lot to keep up with and I am a long way from retirement.

Jesse

I'm just a PUG dog, but...

When the cat eats most of my food, I only have some left. By this calculation method most is more than some, don't ya think?

If most of the wastewater is going into the marsh, the wastewater flows will look something like this:

I stand by my diagram. Sometimes, you need a PUG to state the obvious, because I don't remember anyone from the USGS or Wright-Pierce doing so.

Most - not some - of the wastewater effluent is going into that marsh and that's just how the DEP, CCC and SMAST want it - according to Jesse Schwalbaum.

End of story? Not quite.

More later...

How did the USGS and Wright-Pierce get it so WRONG?

2011-03-21T18:51:00.029-04:00

I'd like to thank everyone who pitched in to help me make sense of the madness being proposed by the Town of Orleans in their not-so Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan. I got some really good feedback on my previous post.

What really astounds me is how wrong they got it. All the hydrological modeling is WRONG.

Here's a picture of the particle study done Wright-Pierce:

Wright-Pierce came to the conclusion that water runs uphill. Our "muckers" got the goods last week. Here's a picture of what's really happening (right now) in Namskaket Marsh:

Surprise! Effluent from the Town's septage plant runs down hill.

I asked a couple of very well respected "waste" water professionals what they thought of the modeling done by the USGS and Wright-Pierce.

One (names are changed to protect the innocent) wrote:

From the diagram presented of the Tri Town septage facility and the contours, the direction of flow should have been obvious. Even if 100% nitrogen removal is accomplished, the fresh water movement itself is a huge problem in terms of environmental impact.

Another (who cracked the code on nitrogen removal years ago) sent this chart and wrote:

Any discussion on discharge to Cape Cod Bay is a red herring even by their own analysis. Take a look at their model. They conveniently only presented % to not show the major volume increase – even if you believe the model !!!!!! Namskaket becomes what is referred to as an effluent dominated water body – usually resulting in requirements for higher treatment levels than being proposed.

And, I asked our good friend Mr. Farber, if he thought the USGS had dropped the ball. Farber wrote:

Sadly yes. I've always liked the guys down south because they maintained good science and help us out on mountaintop removal. They rode a white horse. No longer. The USGS is supposed to stay out of commercial and industrial development and not compete with private firms. But that's not the problem. The USGS seems to have become an advocate for centralized sewer systems on the cape pushing them on Cockle Cove Creek and now on Namskaket Creek. The agency role is fascinating when you look at the shoddiness of their hydrogeologic work on Cockle. It's a disgrace. They had to bring in Jesse Schwalbaum to give some credence to the prior geologic modeling done by the USGS. It was so flawed their first regional model had to be politely--and completely-- canned. It was definitely batting cleanup for Jesse. The CCGPF is in discussions to retain his services.

So, here's the pitch...

We're going to beat this bad science and sloppy engineering. We're going to beat this lax regulation of our groundwater. We're going to try to SAVE Namskaket Marsh and Cockle Cove Creek.

These sewer fanatics want to grab 245 acres of salt water marsh in Orleans. Barring legal action Cockle Cove Creek may already be lost. The Hyannis water supply is undrinkable. And,that Falmouth plant has been operating WITHOUT a permit since 2002.

Yea...we trust BIG SEWER.

Here's the "thing" - again a chart and comment - from Michael try-not-to-get-arrested-for-inciting-a-riot Farber:

Land and water have laws for protection. Some good some bad. In environmental law, the differences are most apparent between the bodies of state and federal law. As a rule, federal law is far more strict than state law when enforced. Situations involving environmental policy go bonkers when one side has essentially withdrawn from the field and there's is no longer a check against lax state enforcement.

Massachusetts is one of only five states that has not achieved "primacy" over the federal Clean Water Act. Primacy is the federally delegated authority to recognize state enforcement of this law. In administrative practice, the issue over primacy has become a hot potato being thrown back and forth between the US EPA and MA DEP since 1977. You'd think the spud would cool off over time and either the state or feds would take over primacy after 34 years. Not so. Playing catch between agency "spuds" gives both the federal and state agencies an excuse to do nothing. The matter of primacy in Massachusetts has to be sliced and diced to rid the system of complacency to gain viable wastewater treatment on Cape Cod. The era of playing childrens' games, pointing figures and blaming the "other" agency for lack of CWA enforcement is sick and getting very old.

The Conservation Law Foundation has failed. We can get protection under the Clean Water Act. We can shut down these wastewater treatment plants which are ruining our environment.

If you want to help, email us. Get on "the list."

Arf. Arf.

(Not-so) Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan unravels in Orleans

2011-03-20T09:00:00.021-04:00

What started as a maiden voyage for the fledgling Cape Cod Ground Water Protection Fund (CCGWPF) has turned into a town-wide mutiny against big city sewer in the Town Of Orleans.

"Muckers" found the "bubblers" on the edge of the Town's septage treatment plant traveling due west from the infiltration beds directly into Hurley's Bog this week. The wastewater plume is not heading underneath the marsh to emerge out on the bay as claimed. In fact, the main prong from the plume is traveling directly west and outbreaking on the eastern edge of Hurley's Bog. From there, the effluent flows northwestward as a surface stream through the Hurley culvert under the bike trail directly into the Hofe Trust property.

See: USGS Report entitled "A Nitrogen-Rich Septage-Effluent Plume in a Glacial Aquifer, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, February 1990 through December 1992" USGS, Open-File Report 95-290.

Obviously, the town engineer and USGS and DEP hydrogeologists have known for years that the discharge of effluent from the Tri Town infiltration beds would move via the groundwater conduit due west directly into Hurley's Bog. Look at the arrows showing the "general directon of groundwater flow." This is precisely the observations made the other day. Hurley's Bog was covertly turned into an effluent lagoon.

Michael Farber commenting on this uncovery wrote:

Oh my--what a concerted effort at fraud being perpetrated on the residents of Orleans. Namskaket has been turned into an open effluent drainage ditch. Is it any wonder that the creek has been closed to shellfishing since the opening of the treatment plant. The effluent has no transport time for assimilation or transformation. The distance from the infiltration beds to Hurley's Bog is less than 1000 feet. The groundwater is being used as a conduit to transport the effluent directly to this lagoon and then to the navigable waters of the United States. This depicted scenario appears to be a direct violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

If discharges from a 32,000 gallons per day septage plant aren't assimilated, what will happen to Namskaket Marsh when 500,000 gpd of fresh water effluent are discharged into a salt water marsh?

In a follow-up email to Peter Weiskel USGS, Farber wrote:

We're curious: What percentage of the effluent would the USGS estimate is now being conveyed into Hurley's Bog? Wright-Pierce is using a figure of 67% outflowing on upper Namskaket in its latest model. Is that your projection for the amount of discharge going into Namskaket via Hurley's culvert? We noticed the USGS has selected sampling stations identified as "A, B & E" on the eastern stem of the main creek--right in the middle of Hofe Conseration Trust. We see Station B as catching 100% of Hurley's drainage and some added drainage from the eastern lobe on the north side of the bike trail. Why didn't you put this collection station up at the Hurley culvert on the south side of the bike trail? Wouldn't this be the logical location to give you the best read on the level of unassimilated effluent actually outbreaking on the eastern side Hurley's Bog? Why put this key station off down creek other than for purposes of dilution? It certainly looks that way to concerned citizens now beginning to grasp the finer details of a water quality monitoring and station placement strategy.

The USGS has some 'splaining to do...

I received an email from the folks at Orleans Wasterwater (www.orleanswastewater.com) commenting on a post from the Enterprise about the Falmouth WWTP. The situation is not entirely analogous to the one in Orleans. But, issues around WWTF capacity utilization and seasonal population fluctuations should be a warning to Orleans residents as their summer/winter population swings are similarly large.

See: Wastewater Performance Anxiety

These WWTFs are specified and designed to achieve specification performance under a relatively narrow set of conditions which include flow, temperature, incoming sewage characteristics, etc. If the actual conditions differ, then the plant may not work as specified.

What I found particularly interesting is that the Falmouth treatment facility has been operating under a DEP groundwater recharge permit, which expired in 2002. The town applied for a new one, but has yet to hear from state environmental authorities.

I asked Jerry Potamis to comment on this post and he wrote:

We meet our permit limits and don't exceed tmdl load. The state is in process of reissuing our permit and concur with draft permit that was published.

Under the old permit, the facility is performing beautifully. The out-dated guidelines suggest a maximum nitrogen output of 50 mg/liter and 810,000 gallons per day discharge. Jerry did not offer details on the draft being considered by the State.

In other news, it appears that the Cape Codder is responding to complaints about uneven reporting on wastewater issues. Several weeks ago local residents stormed the offices of the Cape Codder demanding corrections to a story about their meeting with the Cape Cod Commission. In response, The Cape Codder will publish a series of pieces covering each of the principal scientific findings of the Orleans Citizens Peer Review Panel aimed at eliminating some confusion and dispelling some of the myths that still exist today. The first in this series was published this week.

See: Orleans Peer Review panel: Sewer study ‘flawed’

The Orleans Citizens Peer Review Panel concluded:

Scientific evidence that nitrogen levels are not rising in Orleans Pleasant Bay and the surrounding ponds, does not support a conclusion that it is necessary or indeed prudent to build a multimillion dollar sewer system to remove septic nitrogen in the Pleasant Bay watersheds at the present time. Furthermore, the barrier beach is steadily being eroded away and may eventually disappear, allowing increased flushing that will further reduce the need for sewering in the future.

If the technology doesn't work as specified and the discharge model is flawed, why are Orleans residents being asked to pay $250 million dollars to fix a problem which doesn't exist?

Arf. Arf.

Sewers! Sewers! We want sewers - NOT!

2011-03-17T06:45:00.010-04:00

I had to laugh at today's editorial in the Cape Cod Times. Paul Niedzwiecki described his support for an ambitious $8 billion dollar plan to sewer all of Cape Cod as a "grass-roots, watershed-based regional solution." Paul is of the opinion that "our" best and last hope for building mega-treatment plants up and down Cape Cod is now a 'Black-robe' solution.

See: 'Black-robe' solution

Grass-roots? You've got to be kidding me.

I don't think that the Business Roundtable qualifies as a grass-root organization (unless you are a Koch brother) and the only folks I know who are advocating for centralized sewer on Cape Cod are paid hacks - like Bob Ciolek, Andrew Gottlieb, and Paul Niedzwiecki. Ciolek has disappeared since his consulting contract dried up, but Andrew Gottlieb was in the news yesterday.

According to the Patriot, Gottlieb is seeking "legislative relief" from that paragon of virtue House Speaker Deleo. I tried to find out what sort of "relief" Gottlieb is seeking, but no one seems to know. As far as I can tell, the plan is to tax ten cents of every dollar you lose at the dog tracks for deposit in a sewer construction fund somewhere. John Klimm has his sewer construction fund. Why shouldn't Paul get an even bigger one? Isn't that the game we're really playing here?

See: County, Speaker DeLeo talk wastewater

The fact is that the sewer planning advanced by the Cape Cod Commission doesn't work. The environmental and financial costs are too high.

If you are looking for a better, faster,and cheaper solution, check out the work being done by a real grass-roots organization in Orleans.

See: www.orleanswastewater.com

These guys are fighting Niedzwiecki's plan to turn their town into a little Hyannis tooth and nail.

The issue out in Orleans is that the mega-treatment plant required to process millions of gallons of wastewater each day will inundate and likely destroy Namskaket Marsh. Already the little septage treatment plant on the edge of this marsh is "bubbling" un-assimilated fresh water wastewater into the salt water marsh.

A band of "muckers" went out in the rain yesterday looking for spring "bubblers"--where the groundwater actually "bubbles up" to the marsh surface. Several of these have already been identified at the head of Namskaket behind the concrete plant and Coast Engineering. When you clean out the debris and open them up, they are flowing just as plain as day. On Hurley's Bog--directly west of Tri Town's infiltration beds--these groundwater seeps or springs are outflowing into the old cranberry bed channels once cut into the bog.

Michael Faber described the hydrology of these "bubblers" in a recent email:

The treated wastewater is discharged into the settling ponds up by the plant--pumped into the "infiltration beds" there-- where it then percolates into the subsurface geologic structure, i.e., the sand, gravel and layers of clay. This process creates an effluent/groundwater plume that moves laterally by gravity downslope to the points of least resistance. When the plume movement hits clay lenses, layers or plugs, or silt spits or subsurface clay/silt bars, the groundwater/effluent mix is impeded and often splits into separate "prongs" or "tongues." These distinct flows then move in different directions within a confined subsurface area.

It's not complicated. It's like a rock in a stream. The water hits the barrier and is diverted by on either side of the rock or up and over it. Same thing when a contaminated wastewater plume hits a subsurface clay bed. It goes around it or up and over it and often times outflows on the marsh's surface. Another image to help is that of a "groundwater coffee cup" that is tilted and spills coffee--groundwater/effluent mix-- over the lower rim. When you pump 32,000 gpd of effluent into the groundwater on a confined aquifer, this effluent/groundwater flow then spills over or out at another spot down-slope. This "in"-"out" process is systematic and is referred to hydrogeoloically as reaching "steady state." If you put one million gpd "in", you get one million gpd "out" somewhere.

That somewhere is Namskaket Marsh.

Don't you think that these "muckers" are the real grass-roots?

Paul Niedzwiecki can bring in all the judges, lawyers and consultants that he can buy. It won't change the hydrology of the Cape.

Skip Simpson spills the beans

2011-03-13T13:14:00.019-04:00

Did you read Skip Simpson's letter to the editor in this Friday's Barnstable Patriot? It is a must read.

After years and years of rattling around Town Hall with a tin cup in his hand, Skip Simpson finally spilled the beans. According to the former President of the Hyannis Area Chamber of Commerce, there is NO DEMAND for a NEW BUSINESS in downtown Hyannis - especially one which has the potential of competing against his business.

Simpson wrote:

Year round Ocean Street hotel a bad idea
March 11, 2011

Entertaining column, Mr. Gauvin (“Ocean Street hotel proposal stokes fine memories, tax base,” March 4). Nice to hear of your memories, but it seems you have joined the band that is prematurely exuberant and missing the beat regarding the proposal for another Ocean Street hotel. Perhaps you should look at the Hyannis Gateway study Mr. Ford, the attorney for the applicant, refers to that says nothing about there being a need for a year round hotel on Ocean Street.

Of course there isn’t. With four hotels on Ocean Street, a youth hostel, and a hotel nearby on Old Colony Boulevard that cannot operate on a year round basis, it defies common sense to say there is a need for a year round hotel on Ocean Street, right next door to the applicants’ seasonal hotel no less.

I do not ascribe to the concept that seems to be being applied here that if you build it they will come. I do ascribe to the concept that there will be no new business but an unhealthy cannibalization of the existing finite business.

Skip Simpson
Co-owner operator
Anchor In
Hyannis

See: http://www.barnstablepatriot.com/

I have a couple of questions for Mr. Simpson.

Why have WE invested $255 million dollars in (largely) PUBLIC and (minimally) private partnerships within the Hyannis Growth Incentive Zone (GIZ)? If there is NO GROWTH to be had, why do we need a Growth Management Department? Why do we need a GIZ? I say let the Main Street Business Improvement District (BID) pay their own freight and let us - the taxpayers - off the hook.

Skippy and his crew have milked us dry promoting their NO GROWTH $400 dollar a night hospitality and leisure industry.

This may surprise you, but I support the construction of this new 4-story hotel. At the risk of boring you, let me explain why...

There is NO MORE GROWTH possible in Hyannis in Skippy's distinctive category. With few exceptions, Hyannis has NEVER been known as a high end travel destination and the market for waterfront lodging is indeed finite. There are only so many folks who can afford it. AND, if you can afford $400 a night for a hotel room in November, you're probably going to buy a room in New York or Boca Raton.

Why would you want to spend a weekend in a musty old hotel room on the oily side of the harbor?

I'm no fan of any Residence Inn by Marriott, but that is because I've spent more than my fair share of time residing in them. The Residence Inn is essentially a BUSINESS hotel. Road warriors stay there when they are hawking their wares. AND, this is exacting the sort of hotel we need, if we want to build a year round economy in Hyannis.

Like it or not, any developing economy needs a place business consultants can call home.

If you think I'm wrong about this, try selling software in Romania. When you are on the road, all you need in your hotel room is a good internet connection, one English language TV station and a little kitchenette to make coffee and boil a package of Ramon noddles. If they have a Tiki bar, all the better. This is what the Residence Inn offers.

Skip Simpson does not serve this market. But, this is exactly the market Hyannis needs to cultivate, if we want to join the 21st century. We can put Hyannis back to work, if we move away from a reliance on low-growth industries and teach ourselves and our kids how to work in growing industries.

If you want to know what jobs will be in demand ten years from now, consider this report on Massachusetts Employment by Industry, 2006 and Projected 2016. It shouldn't surprise you that the few jobs available in Hyannis today are in low growth categories.

Here is a sampling:

Retail Trade
2006: 350,500
2016: 345,000
Employment Growth: -5,500
Percent Growth: -1.6%

Self-Employed
2006: 208,440
2016: 221,570
Employment Growth: 13,130
Percent growth: 6.3%

Food Services and Drinking Places
2006: 216,300
2016: 232,750
Employment growth: 16,450
Percent Growth: 7.6%

Accommodation
2006: 33,300
2016; 36,900
Employment growth; 3,600
Percent Growth: 10.8%

Health Care
2006: 387,710
2016: 452,340
Employment Growth: 64,630
Percent growth: 16.7%

Professional and Technical Services
2006: 239,410
2016: 301,270
Employment Growth: 61,860
Percent growth: 25.8%

See: http://lmi2.detma.org/lmi/pdf/MAprojections2006_2016.pdf

Which of these job categories do you think will have the highest income growth? Hint: It is not distinctive waterfront lodging.

Simpson is a dinosaur and we would all do well to ignore his missives on the new hotel. Skip Simpson isn't concerned with job growth. All he cares about is the profitability of his motel.

The rest of us should be concerned with what is best for all of us. AND, in this economy job growth should be OUR #1 priority.

How many times do you have to call...

2011-03-06T07:57:00.009-05:00

Are you satisfied with the public response to the recent murder in "The Wedge" in Hyannis?

This week several public officials, from Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald, to Town Manager John Klimm and President of Barnstable’s Town Council Fred Chirigotis, listened as residents of Fresh Holes and nearby streets demanded solutions to the area’s drug problems.

Reportedly, in response to public questions, police cited crime statistics in the area, saying as of January 1, 2010 the department has responded to about 500 calls in Fresh Holes Road, Hiramar Road, and Bearses Way, excluding things like motor vehicle stops. Just 15 assault and battery incidents, only seven of which were with a dangerous weapon, were reported in that time. MacDonald said that, with the issues residents described, and what the police already know of the area, those numbers are too low. People aren’t reporting crime in the area to the police...

Chief MacDonald added, “Everybody has to step up to the plate and be the eyes and ears of the police department.”

See: Death in Hyannis prompts angry response

The residents of this area have called the Barnstable Police 500 times in the last 14 months and the police are of the opinion that residents aren't reporting crime in the area? That's 35 calls a month - more than one call per day.

Just how much more do the police expect local residents to do?

I think this area would benefit from better street lighting. And, if residents want cameras on the streets, then I think the town should pay to have them installed. But, the real problem is one I've mentioned before. The real problem is the high concentration of "affordable" homes in a relatively small area in Hyannis.

The whole point of affordable housing is to mix into the community - not overwhelm it.

I think the Barnstable Housing Authority should get out of the business of providing housing in this area of Hyannis. Clearly, the BHA's influence over this area far exceeds the ability to residents and police to cope with the influx of "clients" with few ties to the community. The Hyannis Civic Association wants to blame "absentee" landlords for this problem. But, the biggest absentee landlord in Hyannis is the Barnstable Housing Authority.

Let's not ask the police to clean up a mess which is being manufactured by a housing authority run amuck.

Don't ya think?

The story Susan Milton didn't tell about last night

2011-03-02T07:41:00.010-05:00

Reader note: This column was written by Vicki Reis of Orleans who attended last nights meeting. As you can see, it tells a different "tail" than that "reported" by the sewer-queen, Susan Milton.

Here is the article from this morning's CC Times by your "friend" Susan Milton.

See: Study boosts plan for bigger wastewater treatment plant in Orleans
By Susan Milton

Having attended the meeting myself, I continue to think she is one of the most biased, personal agenda promoting "journalists" I have ever seen. She is in my opinion, not professional enough to write in a manner reflecting the actual events occurring at any event involving sewering.

Funny, she didn't mention Holly's incredible presentation regarding the Hofe Trust and the OCT. Then again I think she had her usual "go big sewer" filters on.

The turnout was pretty amazing.

It was primarily in my opinion, a majority who favor our group inclination on the issue. The only pro plan speakers were Pond Coalition members and those involved in the CWMP development. Martin McDonald, selectmen from Eastham spoke in favor but I am going to find out if he spoke representing the Board or his own opinion. Pat Hughes spoke from Brewster and expressed Brewster's concerns about the marsh.

Weiskel did not exactly wimp out, but his presentation is as usual misrepresented by Sewer Milton. He still indicated they do not know the exact location of the plume and more study needs to be done. He stated that nitrogen had not affected the marsh.

I am EXTREMELY concerned however, that he stated when testing resumes on the plume it will be conducted by the same volunteers that have been doing the water quality testing in town- the Water Quality Task Force (with so many members from it, it could be known as the former Wastewater Steering Committee). That is not in my opinion, an unbiased scientific gathering of data. We all know the results will be relayed to appropriate prosewer individuals to check the possible ramifications before releasing it to the taxpayers.

Paul and Jeff were both there and were MAGNIFICENT! Jeff addressed the issue Margie has continued to misrepresent regarding the Validation Committee. Both men discussed the science (which was downplayed by Cambrieri) Woods Hole Report, MEP issues etc. Paul at the very end of the meeting made a stroke of genius by requesting copies of all the slides presented by Weiskel, Cambrieri, Wright Pierce etc be made available to him and he have the right to respond and comment on them!!!

David Dunford was probably the biggest positive shock of the night. His comments especially coming from an Orleans selectman, carried a lot of weight.

The Namskaket group was represented with powerful presentations by Nello and Holly, William Grant, Gary Clinton, Steve Ellis, David Farquar, Ed Kissel, Paul and Jeff, and I may have forgotten a few and I apologize. A gentleman by the name George Bournazian spoke and he seems to be a knowledgeable source on this issue, we may want to get in contact with. I spoke to him after the meeting and got his email address, phone number etc.

For the first time in a very long time at one of these meetings, I felt like a member of a cohesive group of intelligent, forceful individuals! It's nice to have company in the fight!

Is this the end of BIG SEWER on Cape Cod?

2011-02-28T06:55:00.015-05:00

The big money is gone and without it the uneconomical and unsustainable projects proposed across the Cape will die on the vine.

According to the Cape Cod Times, there is no more "free" money to complete the over-sized, one size fits all sewer expansion plans which have plagued us the past two years.

See: Wastewater: Cape faces costly cleanup

The USDA can't spare another dime. The Massachusetts Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is down to short money. And, according this article:

Paul Niedzwiecki, the executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, worries that without enough federal aid, the estimated $4 billion to $8 billion for the region to clean up wastewater will create such a drain on middle- and lower-class home-owners that they will leave the Cape, dramatically altering our demographics.

Paul should know. While he drives around Cape Cod in his over-sized Toyota courtesy of the his over-sized taxpayer funded salary, Paul's own neighborhood has been decimated by foreclosures and job losses. What once was a viable year-round neighborhood, is now a sleepy and sleepless collection of second-homes and empty streets in West Hyannis.

If Paul wants to help his neighborhood, maybe he should help find us a new drinking water source as ours has been contaminated by one of those big sewer plants he seems to favor.

Paul is still hoping to be sued. Regarding the Conservation Law Foundation which filed notice it would sue the EPA and Barnstable County for dragging their feet on nitrogen cleanup, Paul reportedly said:

I'm hoping that the lawsuit puts a spotlight on this for state and federal lawmakers, so they will bring back the kind of financial relief that (will prevent) the Cape from becoming a drastically gated community.

I seriously doubt that any lawsuit will convince anyone in Washington to give more money to the EPA. That ship has sailed.

Paul Niedzwiecki will be in for a little surprise on March 1st when he meets with Orleans residences to advance a plan to destroy Namskaket Marsh by constructing a mega-sized and totally unnecessary wastewater treatment plant.

Paul Niedzwiecki will be greeted by an open flood gate of discontent.

The residents surrounding the proposed dump site in the Town of Orleans know that Niedzwiecki's empty threat of a CLF lawsuit is nothing more than a nuisance. They are aware of lower cost wastewater technologies which are more attuned to the needs of their largely rural community. And, these residents won't sacrifice their marsh on the alter of big sewer.

With any luck, Paul will take that job in Delaware, and we'll be rid of him and his empty suit.

Please excuse me while I do a little doggie dance.

What are Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices?

2011-02-26T06:14:00.020-05:00

For whom the bell tolls: Residents from five communities joined forces today to beat back big sewer from Namskaket Marsh. The Cape Cod Commission will be in for a little surprise on March 1st. They will face a united and very articulate opposition.

Read Fran Meaney's take on the Cape Cod Times article today on the loss the federal stimulus funds for cape-wide sewer. See: CHATHAM'S SEWER FOLLY, TAXPAYERS HOLDING THE BAG

Fran wrote in part: Saving $100 million or more of property taxpayer dollars with alternatives to centralized sewering makes sense. It’s not too late to do that. It will take courage for town officials to adjust to these new financial realities and change course. This they should do.

It's been an interesting few weeks...

The Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund is up and running and going great guns. We will be holding our first legal strategy session this Sunday, February 27th, at 9:30am, in the conference room at the Stop & Shop off Route 6 near the Orleans/Eastham rotary.

Our mission or "purview" is Groundwater Protection, Wastewater Overloading, Plume Tracking, and Salt Marsh Restoration with Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices as an umbrella philosophy upon which our legal and environmental positions will ultimately stand or fall.

The concept of Adaptive Water Management is pretty easy to understand. The idea is that we want to move away from the command and control paradigm that has dominated the water management community and move toward a social process which minimizes risk, improves the likelihood of positive outcomes and teaches us to manage uncertainties.

Adaptive management can be defined as a systematic process for improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of management strategies that have already been implemented. Adaptive water management aims to increase the adaptive capacity of the water system by putting in place both learning processes and the conditions needed for learning processes to take place.

Basically, Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices is learning to manage by managing to learn.

See: Managing Change toward Adaptive Water Management through Social Learning

What does this mean?

For starters, it means that you don't put all your eggs in one basket and you don't go out and buy a really big basket, if you don't know how many eggs you need.

The sewer plant expansions in Orleans and Chatham are very good examples of buying very big and very expensive baskets. The outcome is uncertain, yet from day one we've committed ourselves to filling these baskets damn the consequences. The folly of these efforts and possible actions to prevent or otherwise mitigate them will be the topic of our discussion on Sunday.

If you are interested in joining us on Sunday, please email Michael Farber.

Gussie sticks the knife

2011-02-20T17:38:00.032-05:00

Update: Did someone say progress?

In a recent email, Ken McKusick, husband of Gussie, has graciously suggested that taxpayers launch a reevaluation of July 2004 proposal to place a sewer cluster system on Arey's Pond. The Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund applauds his apparent interest in reconsideration of the use of cluster systems in town and possible adoption of Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices as a working protocol for undertaking the review process.

This is real progress, finally.

See: Enhancing Wastewater Management on CC July 2004.pdf

Go to Page 6-10. See "Facilitating Cluster Systems and Accommodating Effluent Disposal on Land to be set Aside for Open Space."

See if you can find Gussie's backyard? Mary wonders who bought the Ford property!

The Battle of the NIMBYs has been engaged on Arey's Pond! Keep in mind that Pleasant Bay is doing great in terms of water quality and a new culvert at Muddy Creek will only enhance those improvements. Fixing Arey's with a cluster, and new moorings, and Muddy with a culvert is Adaptive Wastewater Management Practices.

There will be a public hearing about the Comprehensive Wastewater Plan for Orleans by the Cape Cod Commission on March 1 at the Orleans Town Hall. Your attendance at the meeting is CRITICAL. Hopefully, Mr. McKusick will attend and share his thoughts on how to move forward.

I hesitate to write about the lower Cape because it is a world away from my little neighborhood in West Hyannis. But, since agreeing to support the Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund (CCGPF), I've been inundated with emails documenting the stupidity of our wastewater planning process cape-wide.

I really don't understand why anyone would support the development of a large centralized wasterwater treatment plant in their community. I don't think they work.

The plants we have operating on the Cape now don't seem to do much of anything and they produce vast effluent plumes in our groundwater. We simple do not have the open spaces required to absorb industrial sized waste streams and it does not make any sense to sacrifice one resource to save another. We all have to learn to live on this tiny spit of sand.

In Hyannis, the influence of our treatment plant on our water supply is well documented - going back to 1988. Yet, against all reason, the Mass DEP approved the doubling of our treatment plant's capacity in 2007. Thankfully, the MA DOH has agreed to look at the mess our town fathers have made of the Hyannis water supply and I'm hopeful that they will recommend a well replacement program for Hyannis in March when the DOH releases the first of two reports which have have promised to author.

In Chatham, the CCGPF broke the story about the effluent outbreak which has ruined the beach by Cockle Cove Creek. The parking lot beach by this creek is now the 4th most polluted beach in the United States.

Doreen Leggett picked up the story in the Cape Codder:

See: Orleans fund started to stop sewer plant

And, thanks to the generosity of residents in Chatham and Orleans, the CCGPF now has enough money to fund a comprehensive set of water tests on the outbreak. David DeLorenzo, a Deputy Director of MassDEP, has been notified of the CCGPF's intent to test the waste streaming into Cockle Cove Creek. If the tests prove what we already suspect, the lawsuits will start flying.

In Orleans, there will be a public hearing about the Comprehensive Wastewater Plan for Orleans by the Cape Cod Commission on March 1 at the Orleans Town Hall. Your attendance at the meeting is CRITICAL.

See: Hearing Notice

The Town of Orleans is planning to increase their wastewater "dumping" into marshes along Cape Cod Bay from 35,000 GPD to an astonishing 1.14 MGD (million gallons per day). 67% of the semi-treated effluent will discharge into Namskaket Marsh with an additional 9% into Little Namskaket.

If this plan is allowed to go forward, you can say goodbye to these marshes. They will be lost.

Gussie Mckusick and her "Pond Coalition" are the driving force behind the planned ruin of Namskaket Marsh. You may think that Gussie is a sweet little Coddha grandma, but the email posted below tells a different tale. Read how skillfully Gussie manipulates newly elected selectman Sue Christie into withdrawing support for a National Academy of Sciences review of the town's wastewater treatment plan.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Gussie knows where to stick the knife.

Michael Faber responded to the release of Gussie's email with this alert:

Gussie's email ranks up there with the most arrogant written admissions I've ever witnessed in either correspondence or by email. How can you all stand to have her representing you on the Cape Cod Collaborative. It's extremely rare that you see the "fix" being put in as clearly as she has expressed herself here. I'm dumbfounded as to the apparent lack of any backbone in town to counter her twisted blather. Is this the town's public policy on wasterwater management set to cost taxpayers $150 million. She obviously doesn't have the slightest interest in groundwater protection on Namskaket Creek marsh.

It took Sue Christie a few months to maneuver herself away from an effort to bring the National Academy of Sciences to the Cape, but Orlean's support for this review is now questionable at best. More likely than not, the town's favoring a review will fail to secure funding and a half-baked $100,000 review sponsored by the Cape Cod Commission and the big sewer friendly Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative will validate plans to sewer the tri-town area.

As Kurt Vonnegut once said from his home in West Barnstable, "So, it goes."

Reader note: It is NOT too late to save Namskaket Marsh, but you have to show up on March 1st. There are good folks down this way that need your help. Tell Gussie that Bugsy sent ya.

What about Hyannis (Part 2)

2011-02-19T07:56:00.000-05:00

It should be very interesting to see what Hyannis looks like 10 years from today. I wonder how many of us will be around to enjoy it.

Last year when Dave Columbo bought the Black Cat, I assumed that we'd hearing some big news in the harbor area. And, sure enough, just one week after reading of Columbo's plans to expand seasonal take-out services, the rest of us learned that the harbor will be getting a new hotel. Funny how that works.

I'm glad we're finally getting our long sought year round hotel. Every grand city needs a signature location. New York has the Waldorf Astoria. Dallas has the Adolphus. Now, we'll have a Residence Inn by Marriott.

Felicia Penn seemed quite excited by the news of this proposed new development. She reportedly said, “You’ll have a heck of a view of the fireworks from the fourth floor on the Fourth of July.”

I'm hoping they add a FIFTH floor and build a revolving Tiki bar on top floor. Now, that would be fun!

All kidding aside, I think we're over investing on our hospitality trade. There's nothing wrong with building a new hotel and I congratulate all those who helped make this development possible. But, there is only so much money that the rest of us can making changing bed sheets.

We need to start thinking about what it will take to get our tradesmen back on the job. They are the backbone of our local economy and they are largely unrepresented in the 10% plus unemployment rate Barnstable is sporting this winter.

See: Unemployment rate Barnstable County

Last winter, seasonal unemployment peaked at 13.6% in January. Last month might have been a little better than last year, but not much.

So, how do we get folks back to work?

It is really quite simple. We have to change the zero-growth zoning which has stifled investment on our residential neighborhoods for too long. Barnstable's housing stock is in desperate need of renewal - especially in Hyannis.

A change in neighborhood zoning to allow the addition of extra bedrooms and/or affordable apartments attached to garages will put folks back to work and give folks a place to live. I'm not talking about building McMansions. I'm talking about zoning changes which will allow a family to grow into a house and build a little equity.

The Planning Board has the authority to grant sizable zoning variances in the downtown GIZ-mo to stimulate economic development.

Why can't they share some of their largess with rest of us?

What about Hyannis?

2011-02-13T07:48:00.010-05:00

The Cape Cod Times ran another editorial about Hyannis this morning. Apparently, the week long good will programming on Barnstable Today hasn't convinced anyone that Hyannis is a safe place to shop.

See: Village vagaries

We are most assuredly the most misunderstood of all villages in Barnstable. So, what is the problem?

It is really very simple to explain. We're unrepresented, over-taxed, and burdened by just about every expense that every other village in Barnstable doesn't want.

Here's a short list:

Representation: If we have 16,000 residents (as the Cape Cod Times states) we should have 5 seats on Town Council. We don't, because pieces of north Hyannis are controlled by Barnstable Village and another piece of Hyannis is controlled by Centerville. The last thing we need is more bad representation, but the fact remains that we are under represented.

Property Taxes: We pay the same taxes on our 1/4 acre lots in Hyannis as Hank Farnham pays on his 2-acre lot abutting acres of Town Conservation Land in West Barnstable. 2-acre zoning shifts the burden of taxes to small lots most of which are in Hyannis. We pay a disproportionately higher tax per square foot on our land.

Private Roads: The idea of private roads works well in rural communities. It doesn't work in cities were traffic isn't local. When Pitchers Way and Straightway were resurfaced, the residents of these roads were charged 100% betterments. Why are these roads private? They are major traffic corridors.

Affordable Housing: Hyannis is buried alive in affordable housing. We have almost nine hundred units of affordable housing. Barnstable village has three - 3 units in the whole friggin' village. Ann Canady should be ashamed of herself.

Fire Districts: Hyannis Fire has more calls than any other village. They protect the hospital, the ferries, the new HYCC, and most of our municipal buildings. Why are Hyannis residents alone burdened by these costs? When an Osterville ambulance delivers a village resident to the hospital, who gets the fee? It isn't Hyannis.

Hyannis Water and Sewer: We pay more for water and sewer than any other village - oh, well, most other villages don't have sewer and our water is so bad that we have to pay $4 millions dollars to build new treatment facilitates. We could just move our wells to land we own in Barnstable Village or draw our water from COMM, but our village leaders never learned to share in kindergarten.

I can go on, but you get the point.

Hyannis has been nickled and dimed for so long that we're broke. We need affordable housing, because families can't run their households without government assistance. We have drug dealers, because the work is steady. And, we have crime, because the cost of a drug habit ain't what it used to be. We even have a local reporter (who worked without benefits) who took to dealing.

If you want to solve the drug problem in Hyannis BEFORE it spreads to your village, tell your elected representatives to stop sucking on us like an egg.

Is Namskaket Marsh next to be sacrificed?

2011-02-08T20:56:00.023-05:00

Update: Here's the MEPA Approval Letter for the Town of Orleans sewer expansion. Looks like we won't be needing outfall pipes on the Cape. Now, we can just dump our wastewater in a marsh.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B0oL9jWiUMxaY2UyMWMwYjMtMjc3ZC00ZjQ1LWI1NzAtNzkwZjg4NmE4NTk0&hl=en

Last Fall Gussie McKusick was featured in a New York Times article promoting the inevitability of big sewer on Cape Cod.

All the big dogs lined up to buttress Gussie's concerns about nitrogen loading in her pond including Lindsey B. Counsell, executive director of Three Bays Preservation, a pro-sewer "preservation" group in Barnstable, Maggie Geist of the pro-business Association to Preserve Cape Cod, Paul Niedzwiecki, the executive director of the pro-growth Cape Cod Commission, Christopher Kilian of the Conservation "the problem is your septic system" Law Foundation, Peter Boyer, a member of the pro-sewer Falmouth wastewater commission and even Falmouth's assistant harbor master, Robert Griffin Jr., chimed in.

“It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when,” Ms. McKusick reportdly said of fixing the wastewater problem. “And how much blood is on the walls when we’re finished.”

Well, the blood is flowing.

Gussie's "whole hog" commitment to the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative's agenda to sewer Cape Cod - all of it - raised hackles in polite circles in Orleans. As a public official, she was asked to produce the documentation she relied on to explain why she supported a centralized mega wastewater plant on Namskaket Creek while opposing an innovative "sewer cluster system" in her backyard on Arey's Pond.

Dr. Kenneth McKusick rose to Gussie's defense with this broadcast email:

THE TRUTH

• Gussie has been actively involved with wastewater management issues as a BoH member since back in the 1990's, and then as chair of the Orleans WWMSCmt starting in 2000.

• She was one of the main organizers in 2005 of the Friends of Areys Pond sponsored bus tour of functioning decentralized wastewater plants on Cape Cod. Fifty-five people participated, including the Board of Selectmen and other interested Orleans and Cape Cod citizens and press. This was to demonstrate that smaller plants were practical, effective, unobtrusive, and by implication suitable for sites such as in our neighborhood around Areys Pond.

• Gussie played a major role in the Town acquisition of a deed restriction (at no cost to the Town) on 1/4 acre on Sparrow Lane for wastewater purposes. This is off Route 28, on the west side of Areys pond. This was in anticipation of a local wastewater facility.

• It is ludicrous that anyone would suggest that Gussie, who has been active for over a decade in her concern for the health of Orleans waters, has tried to prevent a facility near to our home. (though I must add that we were both bemused by the power implied) Rather than fighting a decentralized wastewater facility in South Orleans, of which one potential site is on Namequoit Rd., we both would welcome such a development now for personal reasons and for earlier attention to the health of Areys Pond. I believe that decentralized plants are to be considered in Phase II of the CWMP. Whether that would be in our lifetimes is yet to be determined!

Waiting a lifetime for the Town of Orleans to develop a cluster-system will do nothing for those of you who live along Namskaket Marsh.

Namskaket Marsh has been "targeted" for wastewater disposal since 1988. The 2006 restoration project which opened two culverts in the creek was intended to prepare this waterway for increased wastewater flows.

Make no mistake about this, Namskaket Marsh will be sacrificed, because it has "unused" capacity to absorb nitrogen.

If you don't believe me, ask our friends at the USGS who state in this published report (circa 1996/7):

Since 1988, the USGS, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) and the Cape Cod Commission, has been tracking the movement of ground water that contains high concentrations of nitrogen from a sewage-treatment facility toward Namskaket Marsh, which is a major salt marsh on Cape Cod (fig. 1). The Namskaket Marsh project will directly benefit the State and regional authorities responsible for the siting and approval of new sewage-treatment facilities in the rapidly developing coastal zone of Massachusetts. Nutrient loading from point and nonpoint sources is a major concern in the coastal zone because such nutrients can ultimately enter coastal waters and cause algal blooms, depletion of dissolved oxygen, fish kills, and general habitat degradation. In baseline studies of the hydrology and chemistry of Namskaket Marsh, the USGS has quantified the distribution and rates of ground-water discharge. Namskaket Creek sediments have been shown to be particularly active zones of ground-water discharge and nitrogen uptake. Moreover, the uptake capacity of these sediments is not fully utilized at present and could increase in response to increased nitrogen loading associated with the adjacent sewage-treatment facility.

Source: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/FS-021-96/

Gussie McKusick is running with fast company.

Paul Niedzwiecki, Andrew Gottlieb and Lindsey B. Counsell are Barnstable boys well known to us in Hyannis. They are bought and paid for by big sewer. And, big sewer has a big problem. They need lots of space to dump their unwanted water. Namskaket Creek is a prime target for disposal.

Despite the fact that the MassDEP recently released a memorandum of understanding "unequivocally stating that small treatment systems, known as 'cluster' systems can be used" in our waste water planning, these boys continue to promote large, largely unaffordable, one size fits all centralized collection and processing systems in every town on Cape Cod.

If you want to save Namskaket Marsh, you need to talk some sense into Gussie McKusick.

Why is Cockle Cove Creek the most polluted beach in Massachusetts

2011-02-08T06:35:00.007-05:00

Please excuse my naivety, but I was shocked to learn that Chatham, Massachusetts is the proud sponsor of THE most polluted beach in Massachusetts and the fourth most polluted beach in the Unites States according to Forbes Magazine.

What is even more astounding is that no one seems to care all that much - until now.

Why hasn't anyone done anything about the effluent which his streaming unassimilated down an embankment not 1500 feet from the sewer plant's infiltration beds?

Have town planners made a conscious decision to sacrifice Cockle Cove Creek "for the good of the town."

I was sent this schematic and an explanation for why project engineers can't find the effluent outbreak on Cockle Cove Creek:

The problem appears to be that project engineers - which includes Nate Weeks of Stearns and Wheler - are testing water from the lower groundwater aquifer and not the upper plume that is flowing directly into the marsh.

Note how the clay structure pinches off the groundwater table at "MV-2." See the mark "V" indicating the groundwater table. See how the well core depth extends below the clay bed? This lower groundwater below the clay is probably drinkable, but a 100 feet away the upper aquifer is likely lethal flowing directly into the head of Cockle Cove Creek at the breakout spot.

Thus, test samples have been traditionally taken from the "lower aquifer"--below the clay--not the "upper aquifer" perched above the clay. The "upper aquifer" is the actual "plume conduit via the groundwater" to the marsh outbreak point. The lower aquifer is essentially clean.

The Town of Chatham and it's project engineer appear to have intentionally blinded themselves to the hydrogeology at the site by using a monitoring well to test the lower groundwater aquifer and not the upper plume that is flowing directly into the marsh.

This is why I support the Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund's effort to obtain an actual sample from the "plume aquifer"-- and not the substructure aquifer below the clay bed. Poor sampling technique and a blind eye to site hydrogeology appears to be the engineering "fix" which has been running for a generation.

The Fund has been set up to collect donations to pay the costs for water quality testing on Cape Cod watersheds--100%--no overhead costs. Although the Fund is targeting Cockle Cove Creek in Chatham and Namskaket Creek in Orleans as "lead risk" creeks on the lower Cape, this groundwater protection initiative will consider all proposals to advance the cause of salt marsh restoration--Cape-wide.

Please lend your support to:

Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund
P.O. Box 2464
Orleans, MA 02653

Contact Mary Hartley at 1-508-255-6808 or email Michael Faber for more information.

Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund

2011-02-06T17:49:00.009-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that the Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund has just been established as an unincorporated community association based in Orleans, Massachusetts effective today. Thanks to Mary Hartley, Vickie Reis, David Farquhar, Barbara O'Connor, Steve Ellis and Gary Clinton, a joint bank account has now been set up at the Cape Cod 5 in Orleans to accept donations for the sole purpose of protecting the groundwater resources of Cape Cod.

The development of centralized wastewater treatment plans across the Cape--town--by--town-- has resulted in a patchwork or segmentation of regional planning to the lasting degradation of the groundwater resources of Cape Cod. The formation of the Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund is intended to provide financial support for citizen initiatives across the Cape to promote the recognition of hydrogeology as the science most relevant to the protection of these resources.

We believe the development of a mega wastewater treatment facility at the head of Cockle Cove Creek is a potential threat to regional groundwater aquifers. The CCGPF is convinced that the Cockle Cove Creek plant site should be targetted for recognition and treatment as a "point source" under the federal Clean Water Act and its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System program. Known as the EPA's NPDES permitting, citizens across the Cape are calling for federal intervention in state enforcement of national water quality standards. We believe the Massachusetts Estuary Project and the Commonwealth's Department of Environmental Protection have made a mockery of complying with these federal standards to the degradation of the navigable waters of Cape Cod.

Sewer effluent outbreak in Chatham

The following videos are of the wastewater and leachate outbreaks now occurring in the marsh at the head of Cockle Cove Creek, less than 1500 feet downslope from Chatham's wastewater plant and capped landfill presently causing the largest contaminated groundwater "plume" on the lower Cape. Cockle Cove Creek and its beach was recently ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 4th most polluted creek in the United States. It's No. 1 in Massachusetts. It flows south off the glacial outwash moraine into Nantucket Sound-- navigable waters of the United States. The wastewater plant and the capped landfill "plumes"--combined--are conveyed via the groundwater migration flow directly to the marsh, creek and sound--unassilimated. The system of discharge and drainage constitutes a "point source" under the federal Clean Water Act and its NPDES permitting program. The new mega plant under construction at Cockle Cove Creek has not obtained an NPDES permit. The new plant is scheduled to increase its wastewater discharge by tenfold--turning Cockle Cove Creek into an open sewer drainage ditch under the Clean Water Act.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oosTPl4GyHk

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmxXE8OyDYM

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AaWzE7FfcY

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwgOVWEyFwg

Essentially, our groundwater initiative seeks to target Cockle Cove Creek to determine why Forbes has ranked this estuary as the 4th most polluted creek in the United States and the most polluted swimming beach in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We are mindful of a report published by the Town of Chatham and its wastewater project engineer, Stearns & Wheler, that "[b]ased on several sampling events, it was concluded that the [Wastewater Treatment Facility on Cockle Cove Creek] does not significantly contribute to the elevated enterococci levels." Numerous inquiries have been made to the Town of Chatham via the state's public records disclosure law for production of the test samples upon which the Town has relied to reach this conclusion. We have been informed that the Town of Chatham was has not taken samples for water quality testing from a specific effluent outbreak location at the head of Cockle Cove Creek. The CCGPF intends to retained Mr. Goodrich to collect samples at this outbreak site as a "pilot initiative" to educate citizens Cape-wide on the groundwater resources and hydrogeology of Cape Cod.

Your financial support would be appreciated in helping to cover costs.

Cape Cod Groundwater Protection Fund
P.O. Box 2464
Orleans, MA 02653

For more information, please contact Mary Hartley at 1-508-255-6808 or if you must email Michael Faber

Question: What do Cockle Cove Creek, Namskaket Creek, and Stewart's Creek have in common?

2011-02-06T16:00:00.002-05:00

Answer: They are presently or soon will be "open effluent drainage ditches."

Update: Have you ever wondered what an effluent outbreak looks like? I was sent this video from Cockle Cove Creek. Folks out that way are organizing to stop the expansion of the town's centralized sewer treatment plant.

It's not much to look at until you recognize that this is an open sewer ditch running into Nantucket Sound. The beach at the head of Cockle Cove Creek is the 4th most polluted in the United States according to Forbes magazine and the Town of Chatham is planning a ten-fold increase the wastewater streams processed by this planet.

You may have noticed that I took a little break last month. But, before I skipped town, I tossed a few letters into the mail regarding the Stewart’s Creek Habitat Restoration Project. You'll recall that the Conservation Committee is leading an effort to widen the culvert at Keyes Beach to reestablish tidal flows to 1960 levels.

See: Stewart’s Creek gets flow back

In general, I support the notion of reestablishing tidal exchanges with marine waters to restore salt marshes. However, in this particular case, I am concerned that Stewart's Creek is being prepared to accept semi-processed wastewater "effluent" from the Barnstable Pollution Control Facility (BPCF).

I do not believe that The Town of Barnstable Conservation Division and/or the MassDEP have the regulatory framework in place to assure the residents of Barnstable that discharges from the BPCF will be adequately monitored and/or mitigated should increased tidal flows from Stewart's Creek adversely impact Keyes Beach, Hyannis Port, and Nantucket Sound.

And, I am concerned that this culvert expansion has little or nothing to do with salt marsh restoration and everything to do with increasing the capacity of this marsh to accept effluent discharges. The Town of Barnstable acquired 725 Main Street in Hyannis with the expressed purpose of "dehydrating" Stewart's Creek with 1 million gallons a day of effluent.

To protect the integrity of Stewart's Creek and ensure a proper use of state and federal resources for salt marsh restoration, I asked the MassDEP and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management to require the Town of Barnstable to relinquish its right of way for a sewer line and pump station at 725 Main Street, Hyannis.

The MassDEP passed the buck to the Barnstable Conservation Committee who received a copy of my letter. But, the folks at the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management seemed very interested in addressing my concerns and I forwarded them additional information about Namskaket Creek today.

See: http://www.mass.gov/dep/water/resources/maps/mor/mor_brewster_orleans_mor_1.htm

Namskaket Creek is an interesting case because it was "restored" in 2006 and is now the focus of an effort by the Town of Orleans to discharge effluent from their planned sewer system. You may recall that Billy Bob Mills cheered a Cape Cod Commission subcommittee vote to recommend that this project's environmental impact report qualifies for approval by the state secretary of Energy and the Environment.

See: Cheers & Jeers

What Billy Bob doesn't know is that this Cape Cod Commission subcommittee vote mobilized a group of folks cape-wide to purse a Clean Water Act Citizen Lawsuit on Namskaket Creek (and, possibly cape-wide).

I received this email (slightly edited) and an invitation to attend a meeting this week on the effort.

To Interested Parties,

The following is my effort to provide a short overview of the Clean Water Act as it pertains today to Namskaket; written as one who has also practiced environmental law in the Appalachian coalfields for 22 years. The Clean Water Act was the mainstay for challenging state and federal permitting of coal mines and timber clear-cutting. Some may know that the issue has recently surfaced in national news as regional environmental groups have won significant victories enforcing the Act by the use of so-called "citizen suits." The movement to stop "mountaintop removal" as a mining technique is based on enforcement of the Act and its "point source rule."

I see no difference between Massey Coal Co. and the two engineering firms now planning big sewering on the lower Cape. In fact the sewer majors involved on the Cape dwarf the coal majors in company size. Permitting mega wastewater treatment plants at the heads of Namskaket Creek and Cockle Cove Creek is really no different than permitting a coal mine at the head of the holler on Blair Mountain. These activities are both controlled by the requirements of the Clean Water Act. Citizens need to be attuned to this law in considering that mega wastewater plants give rise to "point sources" on watersheds, thus under the purview of the CWA.

After studying the Namskaket watershed for 3 years, may I be so bold to suggest to local residents that the men and women in the mountains of West Virginia are light years ahead of the "newcomers" here in applying the statutory requirements of the Clean Water Act to regional groundwater protection.

The wastewater treatment plant being proposed at Tri Town at the head of Namskaket Creek will use "infiltration beds" to "discharge" "treated wastewater effluent" into the protected "groundwater." It should be that simple at the start of discussion. Don't get bogged down and lost in all the water chemistry, at this stage. Addressing that issue comes later in the legal process. What is vital upfront is a recognition of the "hydrogeology" at the wastewater plant "siting"--not the amount of eventual nitrogen overload. There is a priority order here of utmost importance in structuring a lawsuit.

The gaping hole in the present planning process for Tri Town is that there's been no competent hydrogeologic engineering work ever conducted on Namskaket Creek. It is my view, that this situation is not a close call or even a matter of dispute. There's almost a total lack of geo-engineering to the extent that it constitutes "professional negligence." The Town of Orleans has spent over $1 million in engineering fees and residents on Namskaket are clueless as to the present day location of the "effluent plume" now spreading under these marshes.

This absence of sound hydrogeology is inexcusable in "siting" a "wastewater treatment plant." It's fraudulent to base groundwater projections entirely on "modeling" without having actual monitoring wells in place. Where's the empirical evidence? "Citizens"--acting under the Clean Water Act--have an absolute right to know the precise location of this "plume" on the marsh--today and tomorrow-- and the likely "effluent outbreak points." Instead, the community is being blinded by engineering incompetence playing Orleans and Brewster for a "con" on this watershed. A sewer major gets away with shoddy hydrogeologic engineering until "citizens" call their card. That is the purpose of the Clean Water Act--to safeguard local residents and towns from heavy-handed majors.

The Clean Water Act provides the legal means to address this outrage in court. Read the link below carefully. Understand the workings of the law and how "citizen suits" function to fix flawed engineering covered up by vested and political interests. Note the operative role of "prevailing party rule." It recognizes a presumption in favor of groundwater protection. If citizen plaintiffs survive summary judgment they are likely awarded legal fees and costs. This is not a matter of damages but of injunctive relief and declaratory judgment. Identify whether you come within the "class of citizens" who are or may be deemed "adversely affected" by "private or agency permitting action"--or in this instance--"inaction."

There is absolutely no excuse for not conducting an extensive hydrogeological study of the groundwater under the Namskaket marshes as a first step in the permitting process--not making that program a dead last consideration. It's been an engineering fraud to date based on flawed modeling. It's been a waste of taxpayer dollars. Isn't it startling that this basic hydrogeological review has never been performed? Isn't it strange that funding for the United States Geological Survey study on the hydrogeology on Namskaket was "abandoned" 5 years ago? Why was Dr. Peter Weiskel of the USGS forced to leave town as a result of lack of funding support? What were the well monitoring locations he was suggesting? You need to know it's in your backyard before you can be a NIMBY!

Namskaket faces great environmental risks under current centralized planning. This is not speculation. Dr. Weiskel has already offered his professional opinion that the Tri Town "plume" is now likely breaking out at the head of Namskaket just feet north of the plant site. This effluent discharge is not being "assimilated" into the marsh wetlands as earlier supposed--it's outflowing into the creek bed right there and flowing directly down to Cape Cod Bay. This overview is based on the best hydro geological science I've studied and reviewed to date. There's no real threat of retaliatory lawsuit because the sewer firm knows it's likely to be found negligent and at fault in court for this outrageous situation. This sewer firm knows for a fact that the USGS should have conducted its extensive hydrogeological study first before "siting" a mega wastewater treatment plant there.

Finally, once the issue of "groundwater protection" is recognized and prioritized at the top of the CWA list-- the discussion should then turn naturally into water quality analysis and application of the federal standards. The point is that this subsequent evaluation has to be based on the known hydrogeology first, or otherwise all the water quality issues based on "pseudo modeling" are rendered meaningless. If the effluent is out-breaking into the upper marsh--as now projected by Weiskel and the USGS--we need to quit accepting the fallacy that it's being dispersed generally over a broad area ultimately Cape Cod Bay. In fact the "unassimilated effluent" may be flowing out onto the exposed coastal flats next to a prime swimming beach. Go take a look at the mouth of Namskaket? Go walk down the bike trail to view Weiskel's well monitoring grid abandoned years ago. It's a fact of nature that the effluent may be breaking out at the head of the creek as relatively unassimilated effluent> This is not speculation but "hot" as they say--with high concentrations of chemical suds from "washing the wastewater" at the plant. Get it clear in community thinking. The Tri Town plant is nothing less than a huge "washing machine" in the neighborhood discharging "washwater" directly downslope to the marsh by means of the hydrogeology-- the effluent being transported there "via" the groundwater. It's happening today at this very moment.

Please understand this basic point: The groundwater flow pattern under Namskatet is now being treated as if it's an "outfall pipe" into Cape Cod Bay. If the effluent is in fact outbreaking at the marsh head, then flowing down creek, it creates an "open effluent drainage ditch." This means your creek is now a sewer ditch in your front and backyards. It's truly disgusting that regional planning has reached this level of sham science where citizens must be fooled into disbelief to see this engineering ploy.

Get it?

See: Website for Clean Water Act Citizen Suits

What to you think Milton Berglund will do when he figures out that he was duped into supporting a sewer expansion project which will turn his backyard into a wasterwater disposal ditch?

Hyannis Growth Incentive Zone: Enough already with the affordable housing

2011-02-01T07:25:00.011-05:00

Did you see the public flogging Wayne Kurker took at the hands of the Planning Board?

It was remarkable to watch one of the most respected businessmen in Hyannis AND his lawyer cower before the Planning Board. I often find myself agreeing with Raymond Lang. I share his passion for sidewalks. But, Kurker's inquisition was a bit much. We live in a harbor town. Is it really such a burden on the community to store a few boats outside during the winter months?

The fall-out from this heavy handed treatment was almost immediate.

If you get a chance, watch 1/25 meeting of the Barnstable Economic Development Commission. There was no quorum at this meeting and it produced a remarkably frank discussion on the limits of the Hyannis GIZ, the role of the Planning Board, and the need for more flexibility in the planning process to attract more new businesses to downtown Hyannis.

Lang agreed to a review of the GIZ and openly questioned his own role in this process. Lang took himself out of consideration by stating, "This review should be done by the Planning Board, but not by me. I'm too old to change."

It was a gutsy statement from a man who was a driving force behind the formation of the GIZ.

I'd like to see the GIZ reviewed. I'm certain that the developers active in the area will have some insight into the "recommended" uses for the downtown area many of which are considered unnecessary restrictive and uniform.

I'd also like to see us reconsider the notion that downtown Hyannis should host a majority of the town's affordable housing units. I know Osterville doesn't want poor folk in their neighborhood, but does that mean Hyannis should continue to bear the brunt of the affordable housing development in Barnstable?

Village-wide (or should I say city-wide), there are almost 900 affordable units in Hyannis and almost none in the other villages.

And, of these 900 units, 487 of them are in the GIZ. Listed below are the affordable rental units in the GIZ:

500 Old Colony Road (rental) – 68 units
Stevens Street (rental) – 64 units
Sea Street Extension (rental) – 69 units
370 South Street / 30 Pine Street (rental) – 20 units
78 Pleasant Street (rental) – 12 units
118 High School Road (rental) – 20 units
47 Cedar Street (rental) – 6 units
168 Barnstable Road (rental) – 124 units
South Street “Homestead” (rental) – 10 units
98 Pleasant Street (rental) – 12 units
63 Pine Street (rental) – 4 units
Old Colony Road (ownership) - 3 units
93 Pleasant Street (rental) – 12 units
Pleasant Street “Oldest House” (rental) – 1 unit
71 Pleasant Street (rental) – 8 units
77 Winter Street (rental) – 6 units
78 Winter Street - 9 units
Pine Street (ownership) – 1 unit
75 Pearl Street (amnesty) – 5 units
87 Pine Street (amnesty) – 1 unit
63 Pleasant Street (amnesty) – 7 units
52 Stevens Street (rental) – 9 units
63 Louis Street (amnesty) – 1 unit
26 Yarmouth Road (amnesty) – 14 unit

Downtown Hyannis hosts 38% of the affordable housing stock in the Town of Barnstable. That can't be good for business.

I think Hyannis has done more than it's fair share and we should consider limits on the development of more affordable housing in Hyannis for the time being. If we are to have an affordable housing program in the Town of Barnstable, let other villages share the burden. If not, well...that's okay too. We have more than enough low rent housing in Hyannis.

A GIZ review is a good opportunity to inform town planners that enough is enough.

Whither the rule of law?

2011-01-28T16:51:00.021-05:00

Chas Orr of Centerville wrote an interesting letter to the editor in the Barnstable Patriot this week entitled Are we up for the challenge?

Orr ponders the apparent incongruities in Ann Canedy's position with regard to the Craigville Beach Area DCPC and opines:

We are being demanded upon to think of ourselves as part of the greater whole. One way this future demand for clean water, renewable energy and environmental safeguards will be met is if we identify the crucial issues that affect us as a whole, get government and citizens working in a coordinated, transparent way and treat each other with respect and dignity as the process moves forward.

I agree with Mr. Orr, but wonder if our issues do not run deeper than he suggests. Certainly, we could join hands and sing Kum ba yah, but - unless or until - we elect representatives who respect the rule of law, there is no hope for Barnstable.

Our public institutions and the chaotic, inconsistent decisions they produce resemble Somalia more than Sweden.

Consider the drubbing corporate newcomers like Retrix, Blanchard's, Botsini-Prime and even our own Stu Bornstein received at the hands of various and sundry committees. Consider how Hyannis water ratepayers and Stewart's Creek homeowners were mauled by an uncaring administration. And, yes, consider how homeowners along Craigville Beach were manhandled by a fractured Council and shunted off to the Cape Cod Commission when proponents of the Craigville Beach DCPC didn't have the necessary votes to enforce their will at Council.

There is a vagary of process which defines all of our public interactions.

I once asked Town Manager John Klimm who he worked for. I said, "You clearly aren't working for the best interests of the homeowners in Hyannis. So, would you mind explaining to me, who it is you work for, so that I can speak with them?"

Klimm looked at me in disbelief. He couldn't answer.

John Klimm is so immersed in the "game" that he doesn't recognize the chaos his constant maneuvering creates for the rest of us. For all of his efforts to unify and focus the town on his development agenda, Klimm has become a destructive and decisive force in our body politic. His constant presence stymies the dialogue we so desperately need to articulate a common goal for like all of us.

I don't need to single out Town Manager John Klimm, because he is no different than others who fail to lead and behave like little more than neighborhood bullies advancing their own private agendas at the expense of the greater good - whatever that may be.

Klimm clearly misses Bob Smith's steady hand. Our late Town Attorney steadfastly articulated a notion of Home Rule which superseded all laws of the Commonwealth and finds itself written - as if in stone - in the preamble of our Town Charter. While Smith was capable of articulating the meaning of this nonsensical notion that we know better than the accumulated knowledge of our forefathers, explaining the unexplainable has reduced others to public babble. Consider how Jimmy Crocker tries to explain why Hyannis is not allowed elected water commissioners or how Dr. Miller is at a lost to explain why Stewart's Creek should be sewered. These were not initiatives which reinforced the notion of good governance in our community. They can only be explained by the arrogance of little men.

Then again - we have only ourselves to blame for allowing our town council to bumble along for so many years without apparent direction. Yes, we were able to limit Hank Farnham's single-minded presidency to one term. Yes, we were able to rip the gavel from Janet Joakim's clawed fist. And, we blunted the notion of 100% sewer betterments with something just short of a community uprising. But, we failed to articulate a new charter for ourselves. We stood by helplessly as jobs were lost and our neighbors suffered the indignity of losing their home to foreclosure. And, we're still scratching our heads wondering why our population voted with their feet and left for greener shores.

"Why bother?" they said, as they loaded their U-Haul trucks and departed across the bridge.

Better days ahead - BUY Barnstable

2011-01-10T19:06:00.025-05:00

For some time now I've tried to think of a way to help Barnstable pull out of the economic tailspin we've endured for almost three years now. Folks are hurting and our Town Council has done precious little to respond to the concerns of citizens who need a break from the relentless march of higher taxes, higher fees, and uncaring and ill-prepared administrators.

The revelation by Finance Director Mark Milne at a recent CFAC meeting that the Town of Barnstable has an "extra" $5.5 million dollars in the town savings account creates an excellent opportunity for us to address these concerns by developing a program to put Barnstable back to work in a meaningful way.

And, I'm not talking about asphalt.

We've repaired more than enough roads over the last three years. What we need to do now is get our small business community back on track with a targeted stimulus program designed specifically to help promote job growth in Barnstable. We don't need another 12 temporary road jobs. We need real jobs.

I think we're in a good position to help ourselves. But first, let's look at what worked and didn't work over the last few years.

The two programs I think helped small business the most over the last few years were:

1) Cash for Clunkers
2) Cash For Appliances Rebate Program

These programs generated meaningful sales for local businesses by incentivizing buyers to get off the couch and spend some money. Cash for Clunkers helped dealers sell over 700,000 vehicles. Cash for Appliances created so much buying interest that that it ran out of $600 million dollars of rebate money within two hours in Massachusetts. These very successful programs offered buyer incentives or rebates of 5-10% on specific purchases.

If you know anything about small business, you know that Sales = Jobs.

In contrast, it cost the American taxpayer up to $500,000 in economic stimulus funds to create a single temporary highway construction job, largely because of the cost of building materials is so high. No kidding. A 1/2 million per job. Public infrastructure investments do enhance productivity and there is a long-term benefit, but right now - at this time - we need to focus on a program which will help small businesses sell goods and services to stimulate job growth.

Research on the Cash for Appliances program offers some clues on how to design a successful program to get Barnstable back to work. Rebates are the way to go, because they:

1. Create demand through scarcity by requiring pre-reservation for new rebate programs.

2. Bundle “shiny stuff” (basic appliances) and “boring stuff” (HVAC systems) together to increase the uptake.

3. Catch the “already upgrading” crowd by offering rebates on a wide set of categories.

See: http://www.greenmadesimple.com/newsflash/did-cash-for-appliances-work/

To make a long story short, I'd like to propose that we spend the "extra" $5 million dollars of excess reserves for a BUY Barnstable program to help our small business community and stimulate job growth in Barnstable for Barnstable.

To be eligible, all you need to do is complete your annual census form with the Town Clerk and make a purchase of up to $5,000 from a licensed business in Barnstable.

You must pre-qualify your purchase with the growth management department. Let them do something useful for a change.

And, if you and your purchase qualify, you will be eligible for a 10% rebate up to $500 per household.

That's it. No whistles. No bells. No fine print.

If you live in Barnstable and buy something - anything - from a store, restaurant or a tradesmen from Barnstable, you will be eligible for up to $500 cash in rebates.

You can buy a car, an appliance, take your wife out to dinner or get a new couch. You can hire a trademan, or just buy a can of paint. You don't need to spend $5,000. There is no minimum. You can spend $100 and get back $10.

The Town will pledge $5 million dollars on a first come first served basis to finance our Buy Barnstable rebate program. The offer will be available from April 1st to June 30th, 2011. You'll have the month of March month to plan your purchases and get them pre-qualified. Then, you'll have three months to complete your transactions and submit proof of payment. The rebate offer ends no later than June 30th, 2011.

Put Barnstable back to work with a BUY Barnstable rebate program

A program such as this will generate up to $25 million dollars in direct sales and more than $50 million in total economic activity in a relatively short time. It will get folks out of the winter doldrums and into the stores. It will put Barnstable back to work in a meaningful way.

This may sound like a gimmick, but $50 million in total economic activity in the three months leading up to the summer season will have a noticeable impact on our economy. Business owners and consumers will benefit directly and we'll all be better off.

Sure, we'll have to wait another year for this or that road to be re-surfaced, but this program will generate sales tax revenue to fund the town's new sewer trust fund and it will increase excise taxes collections which will benefit the General Fund. Plus, we'll get the added benefit of stimulating interest in completing the town's census form. For every resident the Town of Barnstable can document, we stand to gain $2,100 in Federal tax revenue every year for ten years. If we find half the residents who went missing over the last ten years, this program will pay for itself five times over...

Enough with the roads already. Let's put Barnstable back to work with a BUY Barnstable rebate program!

If you have a better idea, as always, I'm open to suggestions.

The road to WIMPY finance

2011-01-08T07:18:00.017-05:00

"I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth," declares the LORD. - Zephaniah 1:3

There is a lot of talk about the Aflockalypse these days. Dead birds are falling from the sky. Dead fish are washing up from the sea. And, here in Barnstable, we are spending money like there is no tomorrow.

The latest "savings plan" from Town Hall proposes that we spend two years of capital funds in one felled swoop. Both the Barnstable Patriot and the Barnstable Enterprise are reporting on a plan forwarded by Mark Milne to spend $11 million dollars of capital funds today before the price of oil increases. This plan will be financed short-term with notes to be refinanced next year with longer maturities.

See: Two-year capital plan considered and, Town Officials Mull Accelerating Capital Projects To Save Money

This is a reckless plan.

The Klimm-boobs already spent too much money last year digging up damn near every road in town hoping to get a head start on the $3 million dollar a year road override. Now that the road override and the sewer override crashed and burned with the local economy, the Klimm-boobs are in damage control mode. They are short the cash they need to fix the roads they already dug up.

Hence, the plan to spend more money we don't have.

The Boobs claim that spending $6.4 million on roads today will save $500,000. This is hog wash, because if Mark Milne knew the price of oil 18 months from now, he'd be working for a Wall Street hedge fund. Unfortunately for us, Milne is stuck here in Barnstable, because of his miserable record at timing the market.

Milne facilitated the purchase of hundreds of acres of land at top of the market prices by annuitizing our Land Bank/CPA monies. We spent 20 years of preservation funds in just 5 years. We are now paying mostly interest on our over-priced purchases. Milne also had $6 million of our hard earned savings invested in action-rate preferred stock the day the markets froze. If it were not for Martha Coakley's intervention, this money would have been lost forever. And now, Milne wants to buy miles of asphalt BEFORE the price of oil goes DOWN with borrowed money he hopes to secure AFTER rates go UP.

The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when our credit is cut off.

The suggestion that asphalt prices will increase in two years is tenuous at best. Nationwide, municipalities are facing serve budgetary shortfalls. The prospect of massive layoffs of municipal workers is very real and there is growing talk about municipal defaults. Given this backdrop, one can reasonably argue that asphalt prices will decline as demand for new roads drops off over the next two years.

Prudence dictates that we not engage in the sort of market speculation Mark Milne is suggesting.

It can be reasonably argued that we can save $500,000 by delaying any and all road repairs for the next two years by saving the money we don't spend for a rainy day.

A wiser man than I once said, one should never pay Tuesday for the hamburgers we eat today.

Barnstable business owners should support well replacement for Hyannis

2011-01-05T22:49:00.014-05:00

Do you think Skip Simpson has figured out that we're not going anywhere?

For the past five years, Barnstable business leaders have ignored the looting of the ol'Barnstable Water Company. Wadsworth was bought out for almost twelve million dollars with "other people's money" to clear the field for unrestrained growth at the airport. Barnstable Village pocketed the BARLACO land for their watershed and Hyannis water ratepayers picked up the tab for the "good of the town." John Klimm emptied the water company's pension reserves to buy new pipes for Main Street. And, ol'Skippy took a bite of an extra 3.7% rate increase for pipe replacement to run a brand spanking new distribution pipe down South Street to his motel.

The rest of us have drunk chemical soup for five years.

Now, as the airport is pressured to clean up their mess, two Barnstable businesses were immediately threatened. One was shuttered. The other is on a very short leash for a very long time. The new weapon of choice is Licensing.

Tom Geiler was quoted in the Patriot as saying,

“Nobody wants to put anybody out of business, but nobody wants to poison our drinking water. We can’t get that back… If there ever was a time to take some severe action, this is it.”

Nobody wants to poison our drinking water unless you're the airport, that is. What Tom is really saying is that he'll use any and all scapegoats available to finalize the airport expansion.

Barnstable businesses have the most to lose here.

As we are more and more successful in defending the right of Hyannis water ratepayers to drink clean water, Geiler will threaten more and more Barnstable businesses with enforcement actions. The cost of doing business in Hyannis can only increase as land use restrictions are put in place to "cover-up" the unmitigated pollutants streaming out of the airport into our drinking water.

The simplest and cheapest way out of this mess is for Barnstable businesses to support a well replacement program for Hyannis. Move the wells out of harms way and Barnstable's business community will enjoy unfettered growth. Ignore this one issue much longer and every business in close proximity to the airport will see their operations curtailed over the next two years.

Do you want growth and clean water for Hyannis? Or, do you want more of this charade that Hyannis water is "good enough" to drink?

You make the call.

2011: Here we go...

2011-01-03T20:06:00.006-05:00

It is a shame that life isn't more like a Bud Light commercial...

We were promised an open and honest discussion of Hyannis water at the January 6th, 2011 Town Council Meeting. What we got was $162,000 of CYA from the Town Manager.

The following items were posted as New Business on the Town Council agenda:

ITEM NO: 2011-042
INTRO: 01/6/2011

ORDERED:
That the sum of Seventy Thousand Dollars and no cents ($70,000.00) be appropriated for the purposes of funding a Stage II Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) for the Upper Gate Pond and Lewis Pond as required by the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP), 310 CMR 40.0000; and that to meet this appropriation, $70,000 be transferred from available funds within the Airport Reserve Fund, and that the Town Manager is authorized to contract for and expend the Appropriation made available for this purpose, and be authorized to accept any grants or gifts in relation thereto.

Sponsor: Town Manager

ITEM NO: 2011-043
INTRO: 01/6/2011

ORDERED:
That the sum of Ninety-Two Thousand Dollars and no cents ($92,000.00) be appropriated for the purposes of funding the development of a Draft and Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) as required by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) for the Town Council and Cape Cod Commission mandated Master Plan and for the Development Agreement with the Cape Cod Commission both of which will establish future development and redevelopment parameters for the Barnstable Municipal Airport; and that to meet this
appropriation, $92,000 be transferred from available funds within the Airport Reserve Fund, and that the Town Manager is authorized to contract for and expend the Appropriation made available for this purpose, and be authorized to accept any grants or gifts in relation thereto.

Sponsor: Town Manager

See: http://town.barnstable.ma.us/TownCouncil/agendas_local/2011/Jan%20%206%20Agenda.pdf

I'm told that these two agenda items were intentionally split to avoid a requirement that contracts over $100,000 be put out to bid. You know, sort of like the now bankrupt Silva hangers which were split in two to avoid a Cape Cod Commission review.

Everything that is done at this airport appears designed to avoid public scrutiny - especially when it comes to protecting our drinking water supply.

Here we go...

Top 10 Doggie Tails for 2010

2010-12-25T06:44:00.017-05:00

Dirty water, dirty politics, and a great summer which wouldn't quite dominated the headlines this year. If you missed a story or two, give us a read.

Drum roll, please:

Sunday, July 11, 2010
Barnstable Sewer Financing - The Second Greatest Story Ever Told

Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Can you say, Senator Crocker?

Sunday, February 07, 2010
What rot?

Sunday, January 17, 2010
Barnstable Sewers - Stewart's Creek held hostage

Sunday, January 24, 2010
Mr. Brown goes to Washington

Sunday, February 14, 2010
Waiting for GOOD DOUGH

Wednesday, July 28, 2010
This great weather just won't quit

Saturday, January 09, 2010
Barnstable Citizen's Advisory Committee: It's a SET UP

Sunday, June 06, 2010
Bob Ciolek's pipe dream

Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Dr. Laurel A. Schaider (Silent Spring Institute) argues that the Barnstable Municipal Airport is to blame for Hyannis Water Supply contamination

I hope you enjoyed the show. I'm not planning to write any more this year, but I would greatly appreciate your comments.

What do you think of this blog? I'm certainly not making friends in high places writing what I do. Do you want more or less of the same? Or, would you prefer something else? I'm not sure how much more of this any of us need. So, we're going to try something different next year.

Happy New Year!!!

How pugs suffer

2010-12-24T10:47:00.000-05:00

It's Christmas and I'll spare you all the usual Pug pictures.

Well, except for this one.

Thanks for stopping by and giving us a read.

In just a few day we'll be wrapping up our fifth season of Cape Cod Living (much to the annoyance of all the usual suspects). It's sort of funny when you think about it. How can you not love a pug?

We sincerely wish all of you a joyous holiday season. May the ice thaw. May the roads clear. May we have a Mayor, please.

Merry Christmas to all.

And, to all a big sloppy pug kiss.

Ten Wishes for the New Year (from 2006)

2010-12-24T09:06:00.006-05:00

I thought you might enjoy a re-reading a Christmas message from 2006. We've been arguing about the same things for four years (or longer) - no kidding. So little has changed for such a long time. Who knows, maybe we'll make some progress next year.

We spent most the day yesterday trying to get a Christmas picture of Bugsy, but we couldn't get the shot. You'll just have to imagine a grumpy pug with a bent plastic bow tie sitting in front of a Christmas tree.

We did have one notable accomplishment yesterday. We have welcomed our 30,000th reader and have now served more than 100,000 pages on Cape Cod Living. More importantly, we've received more the 2,500 comments from YOU, gentle readers. Not bad for a pug who didn't know the difference between Jesse Otis and James Otis a couple of years ago.

We hope to continue writing for you next year and ask only that more of you considering taking up blogs of your own - the more the merrier. (Yes, Hank that includes you.)

We all have wishes for the new year.

Here are some of ours:

1) Clean Water for Hyannis: The residences of Hyannis are served daily with substandard water from aging asbestos pipes and partially contaminated wells. We wish for the long promised capital plan for the Hyannis Water System.

2) A Square Deal for the BARLACO Land: If the long promised capital plan surfaces, we'll need to find a way to pay for it. Returning the BARLACO land to the Hyannis Water System ratepayers would be a good place to start.

3) Water Consolidation: For 100 years, we've been arguing about Fire District Consolidation when we should be focused on Water Consolidation. Many of our most productive wells are threatened by development. We need an honest appraisal of our drinking water supply and the infrastructure necessary to deliver clean water to our residents.

4) Waste Water Disposal: It is obvious to everyone that a good portion of our Land Bank monies were hijacked to finance land acquisitions for waste water disposal. Let's put an end to the sub-terrain policy planning and get a town wide plan on the table for consideration.

5) Balanced Growth for Hyannis: We hear a lot of talk about Smart Growth in Hyannis. But, there isn't anything smart about current plans to displace long time residents in favor of luxury condo developments along Main Street.

6) Invest in Our Neighborhoods: Too much of the Town's investment is focused on Main Street. Do we really need a $100,000 dollars worth on street lights on Main Street when neighborhoods like Fresh Holes and Sea Street are on the brink on collapse?

7) Restricted Airspace for Airport: The single greatest impediment of alternative energy development in Hyannis is the airport. Let's not expand the airport and focus resources on securing our energy future. The $45 million that the airport commissioners want for their new terminal can be better spent.

8) Honest Representation: Last year residents resoundingly approved a split tax. Our Town Council still hasn't figured that one out.

9) More accountability: The Town "administration" still hasn't figured out who they work for - you or their pension benefits.

10) Charter Reform: Elections will be held in February. We can fix all of the above with a strong slate of candidates and good turnout. Nominations anyone?

Remember, sometimes wishes do come true.

Happy New Year!

Soul survivor on Greenwood Avenue

2010-12-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

The Barnstable Board of Health - by their own admission - is completely unprepared to manage any aspect of the sewer connection waiver process.

See this recent Board of Health hearing for Map/Parcel 288-178, 0.33 acre lot regarding a septic system installed in 2005. The homeowner is requesting additional time to connect to town sewer line.

This is your town. Is this how you want your neighbors treated by an unprepared and unsympathetic Board of Health?

Stewarts Creek sewer is an unmitigated disaster.

MassDEP to evaluate Barnstable Airport water contamination

2010-12-21T06:24:00.011-05:00

Thanks in large part to your calls to the state's Environmental Toxicology Program, the state's deputy director of environmental protection David DeLorenzo responded to my concerns regarding the recent Silent Spring well test results which included "samples collected from two wells and a distribution system known to be contaminated by a plume of petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds from the Barnstable Municipal Airport."

See: We need new wells in Hyannis and, an Open Letter to David DeLorenzo Deputy Director of Environmental Protection (MassDEP)

David DeLorenzo sent this email yesterday afternoon:

Mr. Schwaab,

Thank you for providing your concerns regarding the water quality being supplied to the Hyannis Water system from the Public Supply Wells proximate to the Barnstable Municipal Airport. With this email, I am forwarding your communication to Jon Hobill, Deputy Regional Director for BRP in our Southeast Regional Office (SERO) for review and response. Jon, and our SERO staff are knowledgeable regarding the operations of the Hyannis water system(s) as well as with the Silent Spring Report and the site contamination issues that you reference and will provide a response to you shortly. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

David DeLorenzo

Don't hold your breath. The Southeast Regional Office (SERO) has "close" ties to Barnstable.

SERO is the same group who folded on me a few years ago when I pressed them for an opinion on the need for elected water commissioners. An agent with this office advised me that she had recommended to Mark Ells that we elect water commissioners. When I communicated this to Mark and gave him the name of the agent, he went ballistic. In less than a week the agent recanted and denied we had ever spoken.

Sounds a little like Dr. Verónica Vieira's swan song - doesn't it?

I specifically wrote the MassDEP:

I ask that you have a toxicologist evaluate the results of the Maher well, the Hyannisport well, and the Hyannis Water Supply distribution system. From your own records, I ask that you also evaluate the Straightway and Mary Dunn wells. I would like you to model these results to reflect anticipated long-term increases in discharges from both the airport and wastewater treatment plant to determine if our wells will be adversely impacted by these operations.

I won't accept another airport water quality whitewash from these folks. I want an analysis on the combined impacts of expanded operations at the airport AND the wastewater treatment plant on our drinking water supply.

Help me help you

We have to keep the pressure on these folks to do the right thing. If you have not done so already, please call the state's Environmental Toxicology Program to express your concerns about our water quality at:

Environmental Toxicology Program
250 Washington Street, 7th Floor
Boston, MA 02108
Tel. (617) 624-5757

A long time reader, flipper, wrote the other day:

I called the Environmental Toxicology Program I talked with one of their repersentatives. They did not know that the town of Barnstable owned the Barnstable Airport. I explained to them the airport is an enterprise account fund of the town. They also did not know, barnstables board of health are not allowed to test some of the wells on the airport property. I hope everyone calls the Enviromental Toxicology Program, we deserve to have our water tested to make sure our water is safe for all residents to drink, cook, & bath in.

The Department of Public Health (DPU) has a "shared" responsibility for our water quality. The MassDEP oversees the dumping of toxic sludge into our drinking water supply. The DPU has the responsibility of ensuring that this wastewater disposal into our watershed doesn't kill us - too quickly. The DPU and MassDEP are playing a little game called - who blinked first.

Pick up the phone.

We need new wells in Hyannis

2010-12-17T07:34:00.006-05:00

I'd like to thank the Barnstable Patriot and the Cape Cod Times for publishing this letter today:

Help state investigate our water supply

Why is it that Daniel Santos’ claims of environmental stewardship ring hollow? (Cape Cod Times, “Airport isn't contaminating Barnstable's water supply,” Dec. 10). The Barnstable Municipal Airport is the single largest polluter on the Cape and the Hyannis water supply is the most at risk of any in the state. Blanket denials will not help us address ongoing concerns about the impact of water contaminates on our health. We must move toward a well replacement program for Hyannis Water.

Public acknowledgment of water quality issues is the first step in a constructive review of the options available to us. Toward this goal, I've arranged for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to accept your comments about our water quality. They have agreed to review the recently published well tests by Silent Spring, which included "samples collected from two wells and a distribution system known to be contaminated by a plume of petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds from the Barnstable Municipal Airport."

See: http://silentspring.org/pdf/our_research/DrinkingWaterStudyReport.pdf

This will be a Cape-wide review and I encourage all of you to contact the state's Environmental Toxicology Program to express your concerns about our water quality at:

Environmental Toxicology Program
250 Washington Street, 7th Floor
Boston, MA 02108
Tel. (617) 624-5757
Fax (617) 624-5777
TTY (617) 624-5286

The DPH performs preliminary analyses of reports of suspected elevations in disease occurrence. Tell them you have comments on the Silent Spring well tests and your concerns will be included in a report expected the first week on January.

This is your opportunity to make our concerns about our water quality known to state regulators. Please help me help your neighbors by picking up the phone and calling the state today.

Eric Schwaab
Hyannis

Has Chatham Gone Mad?

2010-12-16T07:46:00.003-05:00

The following appeared in the Cape Cod Chronicle. I'm told there is open revolt in Chatham.

Friday afternoon, December 10th, I was escorting an out-of town speaker and his colleague into the Community Center to address the 100 or so members of the Chatham Retired Men’s Association.

We encountered Frank Messina, and what appeared to be other close friends of the Town Manager, who had commandeered the lobby. Messina was shouting at people entering the building, urging them to go over to the reception desk (where the Town employee usually sit) to sign petitions to throw Florence Seldin, Sean Summers and Tim Roper out of office. What public official authorized this?

It is an outrage that this group was using Town property to bully people into signing recall petitions aimed at Florence Seldin and the others. It was a huge embarrassment for the Town in front of our out-of-town guests. Town employees like Harbormaster Stuart Smith, and spouses of Town employees like John Geiger, and close friends of the Town Manager such as Frank Messina and Andrew Sifflard, all have a right to protest the decision of the Board of Selectmen not to renew the Town Manager’s contract. But spreading false information, such as that the Town Manager was fired, and displaying ugly behavior such as this, reflect badly on the Town Manager and coarsen public debate.

It was also sickening to watch Chairman Len Sussman publicly insult Florence Seldin’s integrity by attempting to intimidate her to change her vote on November 19th. Florence Seldin has spent many years in volunteer service to the Town of Chatham. She is intelligent, honest, diligent and works hard to get the facts straight. Though I have differed with her from time to time on various issues, Jackie and I respect her enormously for her integrity and unwavering dedication to the best interests of the town.

The Selectmen know this Town Manager. The Board’s last performance evaluation, as reported in the February 4, 2010 Cape Cod Chronicle, gave him a declining rating of just 72%. Only the Town Manager’s ever-reliable Mr. Whitcomb even raised the idea of a five-year reappointment, and that was rejected 4-1. For all his demagogic public posturing and show of indignation, not even Chairman Sussman supported a new 5-year contract.

We do not doubt for a second that Florence Seldin and the other Selectmen believed they were acting in the best interests of the Town in seeking someone new in whom they can place their trust and confidence to guide the Town through the next very difficult years. After extensive discussions in executive session, the Town Manager and all five selectmen reached a satisfactory agreement with respect to his present contract ending June 30, 2011. The Town Manager and all five Selectmen signed the addendum to his contract reflecting that agreement, and all five Selectmen voted 5-0 in a public meeting to ratify their action.

Recall is a drastic measure, like impeachment at the federal level. A recall should be reserved only in cases of high crimes or improprieties. It is not a political weapon deployed to remove Selectmen for merely casting a vote that a few disagree with. Selectmen Seldin, Summers and Roper do not deserve this shabby treatment. The recall proponents should be ashamed.

Francis X. Meaney
Jaquelyn S. Meaney
North Chatham, Massachusetts
December 13, 2010

Mr. Meaney is a co-founder of Chatham Concerned Taxpayers and a former bond counsel of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mrs. Meaney is a former aide in Washington to a U.S. Congressman.

Here is the official statement from the Chatham Board of Selectman regarding their decision not to renew the Town Manager's contract.

All this because of a sewer system?

Opps...if there is no problem, why did we ask for $3,494,137.00 to fix it?

2010-12-15T06:52:00.013-05:00

A perchlorate plume emanating from the Barnstable County Fire Training Academy detected in drinking supply wells for the Hyannis water system is manageable and correctable, according to county officials...

That was 2007. This was last week...

Perchlorate has very unfortunate effects on unborn fetuses and pregnant women. The Hyannis Water Board got this "update" at yesterday's meeting. Mary Dunn #2 won't reopen any time soon.

It is a good thing Mark Ells already asked for the money to replace Hyannis' most productive well. The following request slipped it's way into the throng of requests for stimulus money earlier this year:

BARNSTABLE - DWSRF-3222 Hyannis Water Supply System Improvements DWS-09-02

The project is for repairs and system improvements to two water treatment facilities, 12 well pump stations, two storage tanks, and 102 miles of distribution water pipes. The Town of Barnstable has recently purchased these systems. The project is a multi year project and includes three contracts. The improvement and repair program includes the followings: construction of a new 1.25 MG elevated storage tank, replacement & repair of 30,000 linear feet of water pipes, upgrades to the two water treatment plants and pump stations, and replacement of one supply well. The completed project will improve drinking water quality by eliminating total coliform exceedances, reduce perchlorate concentrations and VOC levels in the drinking water, and eliminating dead ends and leaks in the distribution system.

Total: $3,494,137.00
Total Principal Forgiveness Amount: $705,226.00

See: http://www.mass.gov/dep/water/wastewater/arra_dwsrf.pdf

Two water treatment plants and replacement of one supply well to reduce perchlorate concentrations and VOC levels in the drinking water?

But, I thought that there were no problems with our water.

Didn't Fred Chirigotis, James Crocker, Jr., the good Dr. Veronica Vieira, MA-DEP authority David DeLorenzo, pigeon Joe Longo, and airport manager Bud Breault just finish assuring us that Hyannis water is as clear as a mountain stream at successive Town Council meetings?

Don't worry. Go shopping.

Here's a question for you (sorry, I'm just a dumb pug): Why are Hyannis Water ratepayers PAYING to replace a well and install two treatment plants to reduce perchlorate concentrations and VOC levels?

Shouldn't the folks who contaminated the water pay to clean it up?

Hyannis Well Replacement Program 35 years Past Due

2010-12-12T13:45:00.019-05:00

West Barnstable Town Councilor Hank Farnham stopped by yesterday to share his thoughts on Hyannis Water. Posing as the anonymous Jim, Hank Farnham wrote:

You ARE the issue. Didn't you learn anything from your failed race for Council? Your personality is so toxic that you will not succeed.

Farnham longs for a time when he and his cronies controlled all the businesses and all the media in Barnstable. Life was simpler then. You could dump all the toxins you wanted in the water.

Video circa 1983 courtesy of the Harwich Historical Society.
See: http://www.harwichhistoricalsociety.org/

I know that there are some folks out there who think that I'm being too aggressive. Too cute. Others think of me as just another fool. I think you can't open an oyster without some effort or pay a 35 year old "past due" bill with sweet nothings.

As I mentioned, I had a very interesting conversation with Dan santos yesterday. Once we got past all the required posturing it didn't us more than 5 minutes to agree that the Hyannis Water Supply System needs new wells.

George Wadsworth was Daniel Santos' very first client as a young hydrologist. Santos did the well tests on the BARLACO land and very likely had more than one conversation with Wadsworth on the unsustainablity of drawing drinking water from the outer edges of an airport.

I don't think Wadsworth ever wanted to sell the ol'Barnstable Water Company, but there comes a time when any good businessman knows when to fold a losing hand. Unfortunately for us, John Klimm didn't fold. He anted up and doubled down at the same time leaving Hyannis water ratepayers to pick up the tab for 35 years of neglect.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Santos knows were the bones are buried at the Barnstable Municipal Airport. And that, now is the time to get us some new wells. If we don't move our wells, Hyannis is screwed. Our home values will go the way of the Love Canal, if the airport and wastewater treatment plant are expanded without regard for our water supply.

I'll email the Klimm-boobs on Monday and let you know were we stand on Santos' offer to host a well replacement forum at the airport.

An Open Letter to David DeLorenzo Deputy Director of Environmental Protection (MassDEP)

2010-12-11T12:17:00.016-05:00

Breaking News! - Daniel W. Santos, Chairman of the Barnstable Municipal Airport Commission called to discuss our letter exchange. We had a pleasant talk and he agreed to set up a "forum" at the airport to discuss a well replacement program for Hyannis. No promises, but we both felt that by starting a conversation we might be able to work this out. It turns out that his very first client was the ol'Barnstable Water Company and he did the well tests on the BARLACO land for Wadsworth years ago. He's going to pull the results from his files. Maybe - just maybe - we'll get us some new wells.

As I mentioned, I spoke with David DeLorenzo on Friday. It was a real eye opener. I had no idea how well protected this airport really is. They are in bed with everyone. This situation is starting to make me think that I made a big mistake NOT supporting Richard Clark's charter reform effort. Clark's proposed charter included a provision which placed the airport under the Town Manager. Currently, this airport commission is free to do just about anything they please without any regard for the health and safety of the town's residents.

My letter to Mr. DeLorenzo follows:

Thank you for your time yesterday. As promised, I am detailing my concerns in writing, but I must tell you up front that your statement that you and Daniel Santos "go way back" does not give me confidence that I am speaking with a person who will provide me with an unbiased appraisal of my concerns.

As I mentioned to you, Mr. Santos, Chairman of the Barnstable Airport Commission cited you in a Letter to the Editor in the Cape Cod Times this Friday. Mr. Santos wrote:

“Regular professional monitoring by the Hyannis Water District and the airport shows no groundwater contamination of public water supply wells from the airport. The state's deputy director of environmental protection has just confirmed this. David DeLorenzo told the town council that Barnstable has high-quality drinking water. "There is no indication that contaminants have migrated at all," he said.”

See: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101210/OPINION/12100337

In fact, the Hyannis Water Supply Board recently funded an independent appraisal of our water resources by the Silent Spring Institute which directly contradicts your public statements.

Specifically, page one of the Silent Spring report reads:

A recent article by scientists at Boston University reported elevated breast cancer risk for women in the 1980s and early 1990s in Hyannis compared with other Upper Cape areas and associated this increase with contaminants in the Hyannis Water System supply.(1) These contaminants could include wastewater-related chemicals from the wastewater treatment plant in Barnstable, septic system discharges upgradient of the wells, and/or groundwater contaminants from the airport that are known to affect the Maher wells.

And, again on pages 5 and 6:

While septic systems are likely the primary source of these chemicals, some other types of sources also may be important. In particular, the Barnstable Municipal Airport may be a source of two perfluorinated chemicals. The highest concentrations of two perfluorinated chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, were found in samples collected from two wells and a distribution system known to be contaminated by a plume of petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds from the Barnstable Municipal Airport. Treatment of water from these two wells effectively reduces the levels of regulated contaminants, but is not effective for chemicals with low volatility, such as PFOS and PFOA. Studies in other locations have shown that groundwater downgradient of airports can be contaminated by PFOS and PFOA, which are found in some fire-fighting foams.(2) Discharges from the wastewater treatment plant in Barnstable contribute water to the Hyannisport well, as do a large number of septic systems.(3) Construction activities may also be a source of certain organophosphate flame retardants.(4)

See: http://silentspring.org/pdf/our_research/DrinkingWaterStudyReport.pdf

I refer you to the well tests in the appendix of this report and ask that you have a toxicologist evaluate the results of the Maher well, the Hyannisport well, and the Hyannis Water Supply distribution system. From your own records, I ask that you also evaluate the Straightway and Mary Dunn wells. I would like you to model these results to reflect anticipated long-term increases in discharges from both the airport and wastewater treatment plant to determine if our wells will be adversely impacted by these operations.

I not believe that the levels of toxins found in our water at present are safe for long term consumption and I am concerned that expanded operations at the airport and the wastewater treatment plant will seriously impact the public health in my neighborhood.

The DPU Community Assessment Program (CAP) has already agreed to review the Silent Spring well tests and with this email I formally request that your organization do the same.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully yours,
Eric Schwaab

Footnotes:

(1) Gallagher LG, TF Webster, A Aschengrau, and VM Vieira. 2010. Using residential history and groundwater modeling to examine drinking water exposure and breast cancer. Environ Health Perspect, online 17 Feb 2010.

(2) Barber LB, SH Keefe, DR Leblanc, PM Bradley, FH Chapelle, et al. 2009. Fate of sulfamethoxazole, 4-nonylphenol, and 17 beta-estradiol in groundwater contaminated by wastewater treatment plant effluent. Environ Sci Technol, 43: 4843.

(3) Barlow PM. 1994. Particle-tracking analysis of contributing areas of public- supply wells in simple and complex flow systems, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 93-159. ed. a.T.C.C.C. Massachusetts Departments of Environmental Management and Environmental Protections. U. S. Geological Survey, Marlborough, Massachusetts.

(4) Andresen JA, A Grundmann, and K Bester. 2004. Organophosphorus flame retardants and plasticisers in surface waters. Sci Tot Env, 332: 155.

CC: Commissioner Laurie Burt
One Winter Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
Main Phone: 617-292-5500
Main Fax: 617-556-1049

Tell it to the judge: Airport Commission Chairman Daniel W. Santos answers allegations of drinking water pollution by Barnstable Municipal Airport.

2010-12-10T07:28:00.035-05:00

Apparently, Daniel W. Santos knows how to talk out of both sides of this mouth. Santos claims that "the airport shows no groundwater contamination of public water supply wells from the airport." He cites the state's deputy director of environmental protection David DeLorenzo as his authority.

I doubt DeLorenzo's claim that "there is no indication that contaminants have migrated at all."

A few days ago, the Cape Cod Times published a letter for me expressing concerns about the planned expansion of operations at the airport. I thought it was a pretty reasonable letter. I re-wrote it a couple of times to tone it down.

Airport has already tainted Barnstable water supply
December 01, 2010

Daniel Santos misstates community support for the airport expansion when he writes that "it's hard to understand why anyone would oppose a completely transparent and worthwhile project that has been thoroughly vetted and financed" ("Airport project will improve region," My View, Nov. 23).

Considerable questions remain regarding the long-term impact of the airport's master plan on our groundwater and drinking water supply. The Silent Spring Institute published well tests (May 2010) documenting the presence of two perfluorinated chemicals used in firefighting foams and aviation hydraulic fluids at relatively high levels in Hyannis wells down-gradient of the airport. These same compounds were found in well water in Hyannisport and Centerville.

Responding to citizen concerns, state environment chief Ian Bowles expressed specific concerns for the water quality in and around Upper Gate and Lewis Ponds, which are known to contain lead, arsenic, and chromium. The recent disclosure of another plume of untreated above-standard contamination directly under the Cape Air hangars did not help bolster community support.

We respect Daniel Santos' enthusiasm for the airport expansion, but it is not enough to pledge support for groundwater protection and monitor known plumes. It is reasonable to expect Mr. Santos to actively remediate known contaminants to protect our drinking water.

Eric Schwaab
Hyannis

Santos responded in today's paper with this letter.

Airport isn't contaminating Barnstable's water supply
December 10, 2010

Let's set the record straight regarding Barnstable Municipal Airport's excellent environmental record in light of allegations made in Eric Schwaab's Dec. 1 letter.

Regular professional monitoring by the Hyannis Water District and the airport shows no groundwater contamination of public water supply wells from the airport. The state's deputy director of environmental protection has just confirmed this. David DeLorenzo told the town council that Barnstable has high-quality drinking water. "There is no indication that contaminants have migrated at all," he said.

While the airport does lie within zones of contribution to public drinking water supplies and includes Upper Gate and Lewis Ponds (which collect a portion of stormwater runoff), significant proactive steps over the past 20 years have helped eliminate known sources of groundwater contamination.

Our initiatives include a pollution prevention plan in compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a spill prevention control and countermeasures plan required by federal law, and our own zero-discharge policy for all airport and tenant facilities. That rule prohibits washing vehicles, aircraft or heavy equipment unless the washwater is captured and discharged into a town sewer.

Also, the airport has procedures for capturing aircraft deicing fluid, and hazardous materials are significantly capped and subject to semi-annual audit and reporting.

The bottom line is: the airport commission and staff have been and continue to be responsible stewards of the environment.

Daniel W. Santos
Chairman
Barnstable Municipal Airport Commission

The following are references which contradict the assertions made by the state's deputy director of environmental protection David DeLorenzo.

A recent article by scientists at Boston University reported elevated breast cancer risk for women in the 1980s and early 1990s in Hyannis compared with other Upper Cape areas and associated this increase with contaminants in the Hyannis Water System supply.(1) These contaminants could include wastewater-related chemicals from the wastewater treatment plant in Barnstable, septic system discharges upgradient of the wells, and/or groundwater contaminants from the airport that are known to affect the Maher wells.

http://silentspring.org/pdf/our_research/DrinkingWaterStudyReport.pdf See: Page 1

While septic systems are likely the primary source of these chemicals, some other types of sources also may be important. In particular, the Barnstable Municipal Airport may be a source of two perfluorinated chemicals. The highest concentrations of two perfluorinated chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, were found in samples collected from two wells and a distribution system known to be contaminated by a plume of petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds from the Barnstable Municipal Airport. Treatment of water from these two wells effectively reduces the levels of regulated contaminants, but is not effective for chemicals with low volatility, such as PFOS and PFOA. Studies in other locations have shown that groundwater downgradient of airports can be contaminated by PFOS and PFOA, which are found in some fire-fighting foams.(2) Discharges from the wastewater treatment plant in Barnstable contribute water to the Hyannisport well, as do a large number of septic systems.(3) Construction activities may also be a source of certain organophosphate flame retardants.(4)

http://silentspring.org/pdf/our_research/DrinkingWaterStudyReport.pdf Page 5-6 (bold)

Footnotes:

(1) Gallagher LG, TF Webster, A Aschengrau, and VM Vieira. 2010. Using residential history and groundwater modeling to examine drinking water exposure and breast cancer. Environ Health Perspect, online 17 Feb 2010.

(2) Barber LB, SH Keefe, DR Leblanc, PM Bradley, FH Chapelle, et al. 2009. Fate of sulfamethoxazole, 4-nonylphenol, and 17 beta-estradiol in groundwater contaminated by wastewater treatment plant effluent. Environ Sci Technol, 43: 4843.

(3) Barlow PM. 1994. Particle-tracking analysis of contributing areas of public- supply wells in simple and complex flow systems, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 93-159. ed. a.T.C.C.C. Massachusetts Departments of Environmental Management and Environmental Protections. U. S. Geological Survey, Marlborough, Massachusetts.

(4) Andresen JA, A Grundmann, and K Bester. 2004. Organophosphorus flame retardants and plasticisers in surface waters. Sci Tot Env, 332: 155.

Is there anyone besides me reading this stuff?

What did they used to say on Laugh In. Tell it to the judge!

What is John Klimm's problem

2010-12-08T07:01:00.014-05:00

I've always found that the simplest of ideas are usually the best possible. This is why I like blogger Gary Lopez's suggestion that we swap the BARLACO land for the McManus property.

Gary Lopez wrote:

I propose the former BARLACO property be used as Hyannis’ new water supply,according to the 1988 contract between Wadsworth and the Massachusetts DPU.

And if it is determined that the BARLACO property cannot deliver the 4 million gallons per day of water needed, the town council ask Secretary of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, to swap the 37 acre McManus property acquired with Land Bank funds, for the 109-acre BARLACO property acquired independent of the Land Bank.

We all know the McManus property has a plentiful supply of pristine water, as evidenced by the Barnstable Fire District’s primary well within a few feet of the McManus Property. The McManus property is an extension of the Sagamore Lens Ridge District, and the highest elevation on Cape Cod.

Enabling Hyannis water rate payers to use land they’ve been paying for since 1988 (and continue to pay for as the initial land-acquisition water rate increase was never taken off the books), is fair, just, and humane, and the land will continue to remain as conservation land.

Since the airport’s master plan is under review by MEPA through an environmental impact report that scoped the airport commission to mitigate impacts of water pollution, the agency could actually demand this deal be made as a condition of approval of the final environmental impact report because the airport is also town-owned.

See: www.capecog.com

Commenting on this suggestion, Scott Turner wrote:

It is a great idea. I just hope the fact that it came from Gary doesn't handicap it's chances. I can't see the council being big enough to accept help from a "crazy blogger".

And, this is John Klimm's problem. Klimm wouldn't know a good idea, if it bit him on the ass.

There were some wells drilled on the BARLACO land some time ago and there was some discussion of this when Wadsworth tried to sell this land to satisfy the demands of his shareholders. Wadworth claimed that this land didn't prove out and should be sold.

Regardless, the villagers of Cummiquid think the BARLACO land is theirs (even though Hyannis Water ratepayers bought and paid for it). So, I think it is best to skip any discussion of developing the BARLACO land and request the swap.

Trading the BARLACO property for the McManus property is a good deal for Hyannis, Barnstable, and West Barnstable. When you consider the recent refusal of COMM to share their water with Hyannis, it would be a very good idea for both Barntable and West Barnstable to re-evaluate their long-term water needs and cast their lot with Hyannis. Both villages could find themselves in the same situation as Hyannis in 20 years when their watersheds are ruined by poor management.

The only fly in the ointment is that the Klimm-boobs will have to find another property to dump Centerville's wastewater. The town is planning to dump Centerville's wastewater into the West Barntable watershed on 7 acres of land that the DPW peeled off from the McManus property in a complex deal to acquire this property with Land Bank funds.

Perhaps Fred Chirigotis should propose a new location within his watershed to dump his wastewater.

NO PARKING talks back on water quality

2010-12-06T05:53:00.006-05:00

A Cape Cod Living reader comments on the "perception" that the Barnstable Town Council is evading reports that our water is tainted by airport operations.

NO PARKING wrote:

The Town Of Barnstable just doesn't get it. People have for years approached the podium and asked questions of their beloved leaders. Week after week question after question and minimal response from the Town Council in fact just lip service during council response. Never an in depth detailed answer/response to anything. For years this has been the operational style of Town Council. All of a sudden Thursday December 2nd at the Town Council meeting, a committee of people is invited to the meeting to speak. This group along with their power point presentation are not on the agenda and no one from the public knew anything about it. We the people are told it was on short notice. I seriously question that.

The Town Council should have scheduled this presentation and had it published on it's agenda. This was not an Emergency Situation and it could have and should have waited until scheduled. I believe it was not scheduled for the following. Water Quality is an issue of great concern by many. If this presentation had been scheduled the public would have shown up to express it's concerns regarding the issue. Questions of these experts would have been posed from the public through public comment or through questions sent to councilors from constituents. This did not happen and again the Town created a one sided dialog, (their side) on another issue. A critical issue to everyone in Barnstable. The Town Council by conducting the PEOPLES business in this fashion again has failed to Include We The People.

If the Town Council wonders at all why more and more people in Barnstable are losing confidence in them and are perking up and taking notice as to their conduct and are questioning their motives then they should look no further than the back door presentation Thursday night. GO PATRIOTS!

And, this follow-up post:

The point is the community at large was unaware that questions regarding water quality, wells, plumes and remediation were being discussed. If the Town Council feels they served the community well because a small group of people some how got word and showed up so be it. That again gets to the crux of my concern and that's the point. This absolutely should have been placed on the Agenda of a future meeting. It is clearly a topic worthy of being on the Agenda. The shotgun presentation has the appearance of another fast one pulled by the council. If the council doesn't get that it doesn't surprise me at all. Water quality is a huge concern and discussions regarding it should always be fully on the table. This time it wasn't. Learn from it and do what's right the next time. (Look up perception)

Centervillian troll, FYI, responded:

The only people who were surprised Thursday night were those who watched at home. Anyone who was at or in Town Hall prior to the start of the meeting knew what was going on. Joe Longo, the MA DEP guy, and Bud Birualt were together chatting with Mark Ells before the meeting started. Your blogging efforts were definitely the reason for the presentation but only to discredit you.

You can kick the dog, but that does not change the facts.

The Hyannisport well has come under the influence of the wastewater plume. And, trace elements of chemicals found in the Hyannis water supply which are commonly associated with airport operations are now found in two Centerville wells.

Hyannis' water problem has become our water problem.

Cape Cod Sewer: Whose bill is it?

2010-12-05T07:47:00.017-05:00

The Cape Cod Times wrote a funny story this morning.

Did you know that "by a vote of more than 2-to-1", we rejected a measure that would have partially funded sewer expansion in Stewart's Creek in Hyannis and Centerville. And that, "one of the main arguments against the effort was that the town as a whole was being asked to pay for sewers in a few villages."

See: The bill is due

First of all, the margin of defeat was 4-1.

80% of voters rejected an incomplete and hastily prepared request for an extra "$750,000" a year to fund a not-so-comprehensive waterwater plan that has been kicking around town hall for the better part of twenty years. People aren't stupid. They know that $750,000 a year won't cover even a small fraction of the $265 million this plan will cost.

Secondly, we have yet to establish the benefit of sewering any residential neighborhood on Cape Cod.

Centralized sewage processing has caused more harm than good in Hyannis and Chatham is just now discovering the damage that their sewage treatment plant is causing. The Cockle Cove Creek plant is a disaster. There is semi-processed goop oozing out from under the marsh grass.

If we're going to have an open and honest discussion about protecting our water, let's start with the basics. Forget the eel grass. Ask yourself, can I drink this water? If you can't drink it, ask yourself why! What's in it and where did it come from.

In Barnstable, substantially all of the contaminates in our drinking water are coming from the airport, the wastewater treatment plant, the business park north of the Maher wells, and the County Fire Academy. The few households on septic systems who have not figured out that they have a shared responsibility to limit the crap they are flushing down their drains are not the problem.

The real problem is that we're being terrorized by the laziest bunch of burnt-out and semi-retired wastewater professionals ever assembled in one place at one time.

Seriously, have you ever heard of David DeLorenzo, a deputy director of the State Department of Environmental Protection? This is the guy who claimed the other night that he "cut his teeth" on the airport plumes fouling our water supply. These plumes have never been adequately remediated. Yet, DeLorenzo has the unmitigated gall to point the finger at us for our inaction.

DeLorenzo was one of four panelists at a recent League of Women Voters Wastewater forum where he reportedly said,

"Thirty-four years ago, the Cape could have obtained the financing necessary to clean up your waters for nearly zero," said David DeLorenzo, a deputy director of the State Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP). "But no one acted. You were all complacent."

Yea, right. We were complacent. What's DeLorenzo been doing for the last 30 or 40 years besides collecting his state salary and racking up benefits for his retirement on our dime.

Let's consider what we can do right now...

The Cape Cod Mall is NOT on town sewer? Why is that?

The business park directly up-gradient of the Maher wells is not on town sewer. Why is that?

The fire academy operated by the county is directly above our water supply? Why are they there?

We own two golf courses which are dumping 100's of pounds of fertilizer and crab grass killer on their greens every year. We own these golf courses. Why do we allow these practices?

Do we really need to have the Federal government subsidize air travel to Nantucket every hour on the hour? If you want to land a plane on Cape Cod, pay the market rate. Don't ask us to subsidize your adventure.

Finally, Town Manager John Klimm chose to sewer Stewart's Creek BEFORE he addressed any of these considerations. Why was that?

If you want to have an open, honest discussion about protecting our water, let's put all the cards on the table BEFORE you ask us to plunk down our share of $8 billion dollars to sewer Cape Cod.

What would Ed Norton say?

2010-12-03T06:41:00.015-05:00

That was quite a show last night at town council, don't ya think?

Do you think Ann Canedy will get her expedited supplemental appropriation to protect her wells? I didn't hear her mentions ours. Did you?

I'd like to thank the Barnstable Patriot for printing my letter today:

Not convinced

Town Council Vice President Jim Crocker did not serve the best interests of the community when he stated at our last Town Council meeting that water from the Hyannis system receives “the same exact testing” as the town’s other systems.

Granted, the testing requirements for COMM Water and Hyannis Water are identical, but the quality of the "finished water product" served by the Hyannis Water Supply is (or, should be) considered sub-standard. Hyannis water is a chemical soup which in light of recently published reports is arguably unfit for long-term human consumption.

Our town leaders need to recognize that no amount of engineering will protect the Hyannis drinking water supply from the combined impacts of expanded airport and the wastewater treatment plant operations. There are simply too many unknowns to reasonably assure the public that our water will remain safe to drink.

If Mr. Crocker is unprepared to lead a committee on well replacement for Hyannis, perhaps John Norman will consider taking on this challenge. Norman's comments in support of a well replacement program indicated to me that he is one of the few Barnstable town councilors in possession of an ounce of common sense.

Eric Schwaab
Hyannis

I'm very impressed with John Norman and I hope that he has it in him to take on a "town" issue. He is - after all - a town councilor. If the Republican Party has a future in Barnstable, it is John Norman.

We got another look into Dr. Veronica Viera's rat lab yesterday.

See; Research team explains cancer study
By VERÓNICA M. VIEIRA
December 02, 2010

The good doctor seems to have forgotten that it is her job to look into the past. And, it is our job to remember it.

If some nutjob dumped a slew of chemicals into the town's sewer system and 10% of the town's population got cancer 15 - 20 years later, why would you want to draw water from wells which are influenced by an effluent plume? If it happened once, it can happen again - and likely will.

I know all this talk of wastewater plumes isn't the most exciting available topic. But hey, you get what you pay for. If you want to buy your news, you know where to go.

What would Ed Norton have to say about all this?

"As we say in the sewer, if you're not prepared to go all the way, don't put your boots on in the first place."

-Ed Norton

Use the comment section below to report signs of intelligent life.

Have a great weekend!

Horsley Witten Group points finger at Willow Street

2010-11-30T07:42:00.017-05:00

UPDATE: The following letter was published in the Cape Cod Times this morning:

Airport has already tainted Barnstable water supply
December 01, 2010

Daniel Santos misstates community support for the airport expansion when he writes that "it's hard to understand why anyone would oppose a completely transparent and worthwhile project that has been thoroughly vetted and financed" ("Airport project will improve region," My View, Nov. 23).

Considerable questions remain regarding the long-term impact of the airport's master plan on our groundwater and drinking water supply. The Silent Spring Institute published well tests (May 2010) documenting the presence of two perfluorinated chemicals used in firefighting foams and aviation hydraulic fluids at relatively high levels in Hyannis wells down-gradient of the airport. These same compounds were found in well water in Hyannisport and Centerville.

Responding to citizen concerns, state environment chief Ian Bowles expressed specific concerns for the water quality in and around Upper Gate and Lewis Ponds, which are known to contain lead, arsenic, and chromium. The recent disclosure of another plume of untreated above-standard contamination directly under the Cape Air hangars did not help bolster community support.

We respect Daniel Santos' enthusiasm for the airport expansion, but it is not enough to pledge support for groundwater protection and monitor known plumes. It is reasonable to expect Mr. Santos to actively remediate known contaminants to protect our drinking water.

Eric Schwaab
Hyannis

I'm not making too many friends in high places chasing my tail here. If you have a suggestion on how we can get a well replacement program underway, your comments are greatly appreciated. Arf. Arf.

The beauty of Hyannis water is that no one can be blamed for the contaminants, because just about every business around the Maher wells has been dumping toxic pollutants into our ground water for the better part of 50 years.

I called Horsley Witten the other day to speak with Mark Nelson. I wanted to ask him a few questions about the status a plume of "above standard" pollutants under the Cape Air hanger which he mentioned at the Airport Commission meeting last week. I was referred to Joe Longo and after leaving several messages managed to get him on the phone.

Here is a picture of Joe Longo by the outfall pipe into Upper Gate Pond at Barnstable Municipal Airport with Holly Johnson, an environmental analyst for the state Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) unit courtesy of Ed Maroney.

There is no doubt that Joe Longo talks a good game. He rattled off an impressive list of precautions recommended by Horsley Witten to protect our groundwater at the airport. He dismissed any talk of a plume as "old news" and was quick to assure me that the airport was locked down tight.

When I asked him how he accounted for the presence of "aviation hydraulic fluids" in the town wells, Joe passed the buck Barntable-style and pointed the finger at "Willow Street."

Click on map to enlarge.

Any casual observer will be quick to notice that this is not an ideal location for a drinking water well. Joe wouldn't tell me what he thought was in this area, but it is a virtual wild west of private, unregulated businesses.

To make matters worse, Scott Turner mentioned:

One of the Cape Cod rumors that's been around since I was a kid was that the old Cotton Pickin T building, it's KAM now, is built over an old toxic waste dump.

This shouldn't surprise anyone given the history of this area.

I doubt the town has made any effort to secure discharges from the floor drains and septic systems of the various repair shops directly to the north of our wells. This "Area of Concern" is targeted for sewers under the town's comprehensive wastewater plan for good reason, but for some reason Stewart's Creek was prioritized over an industrial park which influences the groundwater for 60% of our drinking water.

If the town's comprehensive wastewater plan is designed to protect our water quality, don't you think we should start by protecting our drinking water first?

Dr. Laurel A. Schaider (Silent Spring Institute) argues that the Barnstable Municipal Airport is to blame for Hyannis Water Supply contamination

2010-11-24T15:45:00.008-05:00

The Silent Spring Institute and the Boston University School of Public Health face-off online on the source of contaminants in the Hyannis Water Supply

Bloggers aren't the only folks who argue. Scientists are known to do this as well. So, I often read the comment section of controversial papers to gauge the validity of the research. What I never expected to find was a public face-off between Dr. Laurel A. Schaider and Dr. Lisa G. Gallagher over the source of contaminants in the Hyannis Public Water Supply. While Gallagher et al. concede the influence of airport contaminates, Dr. Schaider is quite firm in her position that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the airport had a greater influence on our water quality than the wastewater treatment plant.

When you consider the aviation hydraulic fluids which were found in the Mahar wells as recently as this year, it is reasonable to assume that the Hyannis Water Supply continues to be negatively impacted by discharges from both the Barnstable Municipal Airport (BAM) AND the Barnstable Water Pollution Control Facility (BWPCF).

The following comments where posted on September 1, 2010 to Environmental Health Perspectives on the now infamous article, Residential History and Groundwater Modeling: Gallagher et al. The correspondence section is a public forum and, as such, is not peer-reviewed. EHP is not responsible for the accuracy, currency, or reliability of personal opinion expressed herein: it is the sole responsibility of the authors. EHP neither endorses nor disputes their published commentary.

Comment from: Dr. Laurel A. Schaider, Silent Spring Institute

In a case-control study, Gallagher et al. (2010) reported elevated breast cancer risk among women residing on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, who consumed water from wells classified as impacted by wastewater treatment plant effluent from the Barnstable Water Pollution Control Facility (BWPCF). Exposure classification was based on a U.S. Geological Survey model of groundwater flow, historical public water supply data, and the women's residential histories. Recent detection of hormones and other wastewater-associated endocrinedisrupting compounds (EDCs) in drinking water supplies nationwide has raised concerns about health effects, so we applaud the authors for an inventive examination of this issue, which is difficult to study because historical exposure measurements are lacking.

However, drinking water data for Cape Cod suggest additional exposures that are relevant to this analysis. An alternative, or possibly additional, explanation for the elevated breast cancer risk may be drinking water exposures to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), some of which are mammary gland carcinogens (Rudel et al. 2007). Although the Barnstable Water Company (BWC) - which provided water to exposed participants - included three wells impacted by the BWPCF, it also included three wells contaminated by VOCs from a nearby airport. Treatment was installed in 1991 (Keijser H, personal communication), so for 25 of the 27 years of the study's exposure period (1966-1993), there was no treatment to remove VOCs. Contributions of these VOC-contaminated wells to the BWC system were similar to, and in some cases exceeded, the contributions from BWPCF-impacted wells. In 1975, the wells impacted by the airport (Maher wells 1, 2, and 3) supplied 43% of BWC water, compared with 41% from the wastewater-affected wells (Hyannisport, Simmons Pond, and Straightway) (LeBlanc et al. 1986); in 1986, the proportions were 33% and 37%, respectively (Bratton 1991). In addition, at least one BWPCF-impacted well also contained VOCs, as Gallagher et al. (2010) mentioned.

An unspecified number of BWPCF-exposed participants relied on private wells, which were probably not affected by the airport. However, from 1970 to 1990, only around 10% of homes near the BWPCF relied on private wells (Silent Spring Institute 1997), so most of the BWPCF exposures occurred through the public supply that was impacted by airport-related VOCs.

A further complication is that Gallagher et al. (2010) stated that they "determined that the BWPCF was the only source of wastewater effluent with the potential to impact the drinking water of this study population"; however, we doubt that. Drinking water supplies of participants in both the exposed and nonexposed groups likely contained wastewater contaminants originating from septic systems. Among the exposed group, discharges from septic systems contributed substantially to the volume of water pumped from two of the BWPCF-impacted wells (Barlow 1994). Wells serving nonexposed participants also were impacted by septic systems. From 1972 to 1985, over half of the public wells in die entire study area contained elevated nitrate concentrations (Silent Spring Institute 2002). In addition, the largest source of groundwater nitrate on Cape Cod is wastewater from septic systems (Brody et al. 2006 and references cited therein).

Despite uncertainty about the composition of drinking water exposures, Gallagher et al. (2010) did provide evidence that drinking water in this area may have been associated with breast cancer. Their study highlights the value of routine tracking of drinking water quality and supports further epidemiologic breast cancer research on EDCs and VOCs in drinking water.

The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Laurel A. Schaider
Ruthann A. Rudel
Janet M. Ackerman
Julia G. Brody
Silent Spring Institute
Newton, Massachusetts
E-mail: schaider@silentspring.org

Residential History and Groundwater Modeling: Gallagher et al. Respond:

We thank Schaider et al. for their interest in our research on possible environmental causes of breast cancer in upper Cape Cod, Massachusetts (Gallagher et al. 2010). Our study was prompted by an earlier spatial analysis that revealed a geographic overlap between groundwater plumes in upper Cape Cod and an area of increased breast cancer risk. These plumes indicated areas of concern around landfills and wastewater facilities, large point sources of contaminants to groundwater, as shown in Figure 1 of our article (Gallagher et al. 2010). We determined that among these plumes, the plume associated with the Barnstable Wastewater Pollution Control Facility (BWPCF) was the only point source with the porential to impacr the drinking water of our study population. The BWPCF treats both residential and commercial waste from a broad geographic area.

In our study (Gallagher et al. 2010), we applied an extensive groundwater model to evaluate historic conditions and determined that effluent from the BWPCF could have reached public drinking water wells as early as 1966. Taking into account residential histories and drinking water source (public, private, and bottled water) among cases and controls, we found an association between Barnstable Water Company (BWC) drinking water impacted by the BWPCF plume and breast cancer that increased with longer latency and greater exposure duration. As Schaider et al. point out, drinking water contamination by private septic systems is ubiquitous in this area. However, because this source of pollution likely affects cases and controls across the entire study area in a similar manner and because the results of a prior study on this topic did not find an association (Brody et al. 2006), this unmeasured source of pollution should not confound the results of our analysis. Nevertheless, we do acknowledge in our article that there may be residual confounding by other unmeasured sources of environmental contamination, including the Barnstable Airport. We agree with Schaider et al. that these exposures may also contribute to the risk of breast cancer, although the earliest data we are aware of show no appreciable levels of volatile halogenated compounds in 1984 BWC water samples (Janik 1987). With only limited historical data available, we cannot be sure of the exact timing and geographic distribution of these other exposures. However, a very tight correlation would be necessary' for these confounders to account for the observed associations with the BWPCF plume, and other exposures would have to date back to 1966.

Fortunately, groundwater sources of drinking water in this area are subject to more protections today, and we agree that ongoing monitoring of known and emerging contaminants is important to maintain water quality.

The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Lisa G. Gallagher
Thomas F. Webster
Ann Aschengrau
Veronica M. Vieira
Boston University School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts
E-mail: vmv@bu.edu

References from Silent Spring:

Barlow PM. 1994. Particle-Tracking Analysis of Contributing Areas of Public-Supply Wells in Simple and Complex Flow Systems, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 2434. Marlborough. MA:U.S Geological Survey. Available: http://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/wsp2434/ [accessed 5 August 2010].

Bratton L 1991. Public Water-Supply in Massachusetts. 198B. Open-File Report 91-86. Boston, MA:U.S. Geological Survey.

Brody JG, Aschengrau A, McKelvey W, Swartz CH, Kennedy T. Rude RA. 2006. Breast cancer risk and drinking water contaminated by wastewater: a case control study. Environ Health 5:28; doi:1 0 1 1 86/1 476-069X-5-28 16 October 2006].

Gallagher LG, Webster TF, Aschengrau A, Vieira VM. 2010. Using residential history and groundwater modeling to examine drinking water exposure and breast cancer. Environ Health Perspect 118:749-755; doi:10.1289/ehp.0901547 (Online 17 February 20101.

LeBlanc DR, Guswa JH, Frimpter MH, Londquist CJ. 1986. Ground-Water Resources of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Hydrologic Investigations Atlas HA-692. Reston. VA:U.S. Geological Survey.

Rudel RA, Attfield KR, Schifano J, Brody JG. 2007. Chemicals causing mammary gland tumors in animals signal new directions foi epidemiology, chemicals testing, and risk assessment for breast cancer prevention Cancer 109:2635-2666.

Silent Spring Institute. 1997. Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study: Final Report, December 8, 1997. Newton, MA:Silent Spring Institute.

Silent Spring Institute. 2002. Cape Cod Water Data. Available: http://www.silentspring.org/our-research/health-andenvironmental-mapping/cape-cod-water-data [accessed 5 August 2010].

References from BU:

Brody JG, Aschengrau A, McKelvey W, Swartz CH, Kennedy T, Rudel RA 2006. Breast cancer risk and drinking water contaminated by wastewater: a case control study. Environ Health 5: 28.; doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-5-28; [6 October 2006].

Gallagher LG, Webster TF, Aschengrau A, Vieira VM. 2010. Using Residential History and Groundwater Modeling to Examine Drinking Water Exposure and Breast Cancer. Environ Health Perspect 118:749-755; doi:0.1289/ehp.0901547 [Online 17 February 2010).

Janik D. 1987. State of the Aquifer Report: Cape Cod Basin. Barnstable, MA:Cape Cod Planning and Economic Development Commission.
Importance of Particle Size-Fraction Analysis in Suspensions doi:10.1289/ehp.1002354

Source: http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201009/2150863841.html

Barnstable Municipal Airport expansion plans at risk

2010-11-21T07:10:00.013-05:00

We got some GOOD NEWS on Friday when the Barnstable Enterprise published this report:

The state’s top environmental official is requiring the Barnstable Municipal Airport to prepare an environmental impact report on the possible effects of its master plan.

In a letter dated October 8 and received October 14 by the airport, Ian A. Bowles, state secretary of energy and environmental affairs, notified the airport of his decision...

Mr. Bowles ruled that the master plan still will require an environmental impact report because the work included in the plan will require state agency action—a sewer extension permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection—and also because the proposed work would create 10 or more acres of impervious area.

The October 8 letter from the state secretary calls on the airport to prepare a report that discusses how alteration of land can be kept to a minimum; how proposed projects at the airport will comply with stormwater management rules; how to measure and limit greenhouse gas emissions associated with master plan projects; how to protect town wells from impacts from master plan construction; how to protect Upper Gates and Lewis ponds from pollution.

See: State Requires Airport To Prepare Environmental Report On Master Plan

The proverbial fly has been found in the ointment.

I have maintained for some time that the Barnstable Municipal Airport CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT be expanded until our wells are moved out of harms way.

The Airport Master Plan prepared by Horsley Witten Group, Inc. in February tells a "tail" of improving water quality. The Master Plan states:

Water quality of stormwater runoff has improved in recent years due to the Airports implementation of a Stormwater Pollution and Prevention Plan SWPPP) and infrastructure improvements. This is borne out by 2005 water quality data, which were non-detect for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and lead.

The Master Plan continues:

Contaminants found in the stormwater runoff have been detected in surface water and sediments found in the ponds. However, there has been no indication that these contaminants have migrated into the groundwater. Groundwater sampling data of nearby wells indicates that there is no known groundwater contamination. It appears that contaminants entering the Ponds become immobilized by adhering to the bottom sediments.

Well, maybe...

Airport management has long maintained that Lewis Pond and Upper Gate Pond do not influence our groundwater. For whatever reason, it is believed that pond sediment acts as a filter to protect our groundwater from contamination.

This "belief" was expressed in a 2006 email from Doc Mosby:

There have been environmental studies done by Baystate Environmental Company, one of the leading firms in the Commonwealth, and follow-on studies done by Horsley Witten, located in Sandwich. Their reports have both indicated recordings of the debris (in and around the ponds). However, as it relates to Well #1, which supplies most of the drinking water for the Town of Barnstable, tests have been done, and other tests are done quarterly to monitor the storm water runoff from the airport to insure no airport runoff contaminate the ponds or stir contaminants which exceed state drinking water levels. To date, the reports have continuously shown that NONE of the specified contaminants are above state drinking water standards.

Lewis Pond, which is located nearest to Well #1, is actually a vernal pool; meaning that it does not have standing water all the time. All of the storm water runoff from the airport is carried by large outfalls (concrete pipes) to Upper Gate Pond. This one has about 3 - 5 feet of standing water all the time. However, it was documented by both Baystate and Horsley & Witten, that the sediment in both of these ponds, which are located up gradient of Well #1, is actually acting as a filter and is protecting Well #1 from any contamination threat. That's why it was recommended in the FEIR and the continuing studies by Horsley & Witten not to disturb the bottom of these ponds, but rather remove the debris along the edges. If you get in there and start dredging the bottoms of the ponds, you disrupt the "nature-made filter" and then put the town's drinking water at risk. This is not my conclusion, but rather environmental specialists who are experts in this area and are paid quite handsomely to make such determinations.

I didn't know that vernal ponds possessed these magical properties. If this is the case, you won't need an outfall pipe into Nantucket Sound. We should dump all our wasterwater into Lewis Pond.

Tom Sullivan, formerly the Yarmouth liaison to the airport, responded in another 2006 email:

Doc mentions studies by Horsley & Witten recommending not disturbing the bottom of these ponds. Why? He states, ”dredging the bottoms of the ponds, you disrupt the 'nature-made filter' and then put the town’s drinking water at risk."

There are many ways of extracting the contaminates from the bottom of these ponds other than dredging and putting the towns drinking water at risk. The Air Force at Otis is using water-extracting system to remove the contamination and preventing any more drinking water wells from being contaminated. How deep do the contaminates go? How large of an area do they cover? Again more studies are needed. A Community Action Committee should be formed to monitor and to see what is the best way of extracting these contaminates.

After all these years, it seems that we've come full circle.

The Horsley & Witten recommendation that we not "disturb" the ponds needs to be re-evaluated in light of recent reports by The Silent Spring Institute that "two perfluorinated chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, used in fire-fighting foams and aviation hydraulic fluids were found at relatively high levels in Hyannis Water System wells downgradient of the Barnstable Municipal Airport."

Clearly, the ponds leak. They are influencing our groundwater and jeopardizing our wells. I'm reasonably certain that Ian Bowles will reach the same conclusion.

Another town manager bites the dust

2010-11-20T07:53:00.014-05:00

A reader from down Cape sent this story with a note:

The wall is collapsing in Chatham!! You should report this to scare the shit out of Klimm.

The Cape Cod Chronicle and the Cape Cod Times are reporting that William Hinchey’s 12 years as Chatham town manager will end June 30, following a vote by the board of selectmen not to renew his contract. The Chronicle reported:

Before a standing room only crowd at the town offices meeting room, the three board members who voted against renewing Hinchey’s contract gave differing reasons for their position. Selectman Sean Summers cited Hinchey’s failure to carry out requests by members of the board, particularly as related to unidentified departments heads. Selectman Tim Roper said he ran for office on a platform of smaller government, less spending and lower taxes, and he saw a new town manager as a way to realize those goals. Selectman Florence Seldin said it was time for fresh ideas and a new perspective.

What the newspapers are not reporting is that on-going concerns about groundwater pollution from Chatham's wastewater plant lead to Hinchey's removal.

Here's what they are saying in Chatham:

- The whole situation on Cockle Cove Creek is outrageous. It's an open drainage ditch under the Clean Water Act. It won't be long before folks catch on to this groundwater disaster now occurring in fair Chatham. Hyannis is going bonkers with bloggers slamming pollution of groundwater. And here Chatham's situation is far more offensive and tragic with the presence of the clay bed and the known hydrogeology at the plant site. It's disgusting that Chatham is moving forward on sewering.

And, this email broadcast to town leaders:

- There's still time to come around if you have any real interest in protecting the cape's groundwater and salt marsh restoration and not continuing to be lackeys for the sewer majors. Why don't you all show some sign of professional courage instead of this wimpish servitude to the 20th century's means of sewering. Cockle Cove Creek is the 4th most polluted creek in the United States. Why has this fact been hidden from the public? The question is when did know about this environmental travesty and what did you do to counter it? How can health officials in Chatham allow kids to swim in Cockle Cove Creek? Why are the two warning signs hidden from public view? Why aren't they posted in plain view upfront? Why is the effluent discharge from the "twin plumes" streaming up out of the surface of the marsh? How can the town collect parking fees from tourists allowing them to swim in the polluted waters of Cockle Cove Creek? It's disgusting that children are exposed to this known health risk for raising town revenue. I counted 12 dead mature blue crabs floating at the mouth of Cockle in August as kids splashed in the water there. I watched for only 30 minutes.

The old cape and its salts are rising again. The future does not bode well for Mr. Duncanson for slavishly helping Mr. Hinchey get us into this boondoggle in Chatham. What is the town going to do with this plant now that the tenets of adaptive wastewater management have been so grossly defiled by ignorance and corrupted science? Who's going to accept the blame? My reading is that Mr. Duncanson is the next fall guy.

It's all been happening on your watch--all of you. We now know the instigators and responsible parties. $50 million wasted on a mega treatment plant that has no useful purpose for environmental protection. It's the source of the problem on Cockle Cove Creek- not the solution.

Saving Cockle Cove Creek has become a flash point in Chatham much the same why that Stewart's Creek galvanized opposition to Barnstable's planned sewer expansion.

So, where in the heck is Cockle Cove Creek?

For more information on how you can help save Cockle Cove Creek email Michael C. Farber.

Jim Crocker disproves the Theory of Evolution

2010-11-19T07:05:00.009-05:00

I have this peculiar notion that humans - like dogs and other furry creatures - have the capacity to learn and adapt to changing circumstances. Jim Crocker proved last night that not all humans have cognitive abilities and that there exists among us idiots who congregate in villages that have no more common sense than reptiles.

Our esteemed "village" Councilor, Mr. James Crocker, Jr. stated last night at the inappropriately named "Town" Council that Hyannis water is "as good as" or even somehow the "same as" any other village. Ergo (that's a fancy word for therefore or consequently) Mr. Crocker sees no reason what-so-ever to discuss a well replacement strategy for Hyannis.

Jimmy Crocker doesn't want to share "his" water with Hyannis.

I'll remind Mr. Crocker that there is a well complex on Old Town Road in West Hyannisport which has a sign on the fence that reads "PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY." It does not say, "Jimmy Crocker's shit doesn't stink." Nor does it read, "This water is reserved for the fabulously wealthy of Osterville."

The sign says, "PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY."

If Mr. Crocker wishes to maintain the fiction that "his' airport and "his" sewer plant are not impacting "our" water supply, this proves that human evolution stopped in Osterville some 14 generations ago.

Perhaps, Mr. Crocker's ancestors lifted one too many pints at the old tavern. His ability to add 2 plus 2 is clearly impaired.

Arf. Arf.