All Cape Towns Take Responsibility for Cleaning Up Nitrogen Sensitive Areas

With the two-year deadline by the Massachusetts Department of Environment Protection (MassDEP) for Cape Cod towns to file watershed permits for Nitrogen Sensitive Areas (NSAs) in their communities was fast approaching, the Town of Bourne filed a Notice of Intent (NOI) for two watershed permits within a week of the July 7, 2025 cutoff point. At this point, all towns have filed a NOI to for watershed permits.

In 2023, MassDEP released final regulations in an effort to motivate towns to take action to reduce nitrogen pollution in their watersheds. Nitrogen reduction is necessary to meet specific water quality and habitat restoration goals identified by the agency from its watershed analysis along the South Shore and Cape Cod.

By filing NOIs, Cape towns will now have twenty years to design and implement comprehensive wastewater management plans that will include the 30 impaired watersheds. There is a range of tools towns can use, such as sewer systems, alternative septic systems and aquaculture to reach MassDEP’s regulatory goals.

Without these NOI filings, the regulatory burden to clean up the 30 compromised watersheds would have fallen on individual homeowners across the Cape. Homeowners would have been required to upgrade septic systems to an enhanced nitrogen reduction treatment system within five years. At an average cost of $50,000 for an Alternative/Innovative septic system, the financial burden would have been overwhelming.