For the second year in a row, 19 of the Cape’s 21 public drinking water supplies received an “Excellent” water quality score, and none received a “Poor” score.
But the annual State of the Waters report also found that about 90 percent of embayments and more than a quarter of tested ponds on Cape Cod have "Unacceptable" water quality.
The newly released report from the Association to Preserve Cape Cod compiles thousands of data points from towns, organizations, and more.
“I think we, six years into this report, have a really clear-eyed sense of where we are,” said APCC executive director Andrew Gottlieb, “which is: our surface waters are degraded to some degree as a result of septic waste load, stormwater, and excess fertilization. And we need to seriously reduce those inputs to see improvements.”
Drinking Water
Two public water supplies, the Buzzards Bay Water District and the Bourne Water District, were graded as having only “Good” water quality after detecting — and then treating for — bacteria.
But, Gottlieb said, there continue to be issues in drinking water with PFAS chemicals.
“Almost half of all the water supplies on Cape have PFAS in their source water. It is below the regulated amount,” he said. “But a lot more needs to be learned about how to manage that issue.”
Exposure to PFAS chemicals has been linked to a number of health issues including cancer, fertility problems, and thyroid disease.
Ponds and Embayments
According to the report, there’s been a decrease in the number of ponds graded as “Unacceptable,” from 37 percent to 28 percent, compared to last year, but Gottlieb said the improvement is not enough.
“Ponds have been the ignored stepchild of the surface waters of Cape Cod,” Gottlieb said. “And quite frankly, we're several years away from feeling like towns are on a trajectory that is going to allow us to feel good about where ponds are headed.”
In addition, just 16 percent of all the Cape’s ponds had enough available data for evaluation. APCC is urging towns and homeowner groups to pursue more coverage.
Meanwhile, marine environments were not scored in 2024, due to very little observed change. This year, just 10 percent of embayments were deemed “Acceptable.” In 2019, the number was about 32 percent.
Still, sewer expansion plans, fertilizer bans, and other water-protection efforts make the APCC team somewhat optimistic about the future of marine water quality. It’ll just take time, Gottlieb said, to see improvements.
“A problem that took decades to create,” Gottlieb concluded, “is not going to be resolved in just a couple of years.”
