Over the past several days CCT has consulted with members of the new coalition that is forming to demand affordable solutions to Cape Cod's problem of excess nitrogen in its coastal waters. Already, taxpayers from Falmouth, Mashpee, Orleans, Dennis and Chatham have indicated they will join the Cape Cod Clean Water Coalition for Cost Effective Alternatives.

CCT reported on last Tuesday's rejection by the Chatham Board of Selectmen the request of CCT to get directly involved in a process to evaluate low cost alternatives. CCT expressed its dismay that the selectmen could seem so uninterested in the possibility of saving tens of millions of dollars for property taxpayers. The vote was 5 to 0 against getting directly involved.

CCT did note that the Chairman of the Board Ron Bergstrom did suggest that CCT go to the Citizens Advisory Committee, which is still in existence and operating, to conduct a current evaluation of low cost options that CCT maintains have never been considered. The other selectmen seemed to agreement, though no formal vote was taken.

After lengthy discussion, the members of the Coalition urged CCT to do just that. After all, an opportunity such as that had never been provided before. Also, Robert Duncanson, who runs the nitrogen reduction project for Town Manager William Hinchey, did admit at the selectmen's meeting that the Lombardo Nitrex system did deliver effluent quality results at or near that of today's best wastewater treatment plants. At the time he refused Lombardo the opportunity to be presented to the CAC he believed there were too few samples to have it considered.

Therefore, CCT has decided to let the Board of Selectmen know that it it will accept its suggestion and will apply to the CAC for the opportunity to present the case for low cost alternatives to the proposed expensive centralized sewer system in the hope and expectation that a full, objective and open evaluation process will follow.

As CCT had made clear in the past, all taxpayers should be appreciative of the many years of work CAC members spent analyzing and quantifying the problem and coming up with a solution that works. CCT has no quarrel with any of that. CCT's question was and is a simple one: "With such staggering costs involved ($240 million in 2007 dollars, without interest and without regard to the inevitable Big Dig-type cost escalation, isn't there a less expensive way to do the job?"

That's what CCT spent studying for the past several months since May's town meeting. We discovered that there are more than a thousand low cost sewer systems operating just fine throughout the United States and Canada. Many of them are capable of dealing with septic nitrogen removal where it is needed. It was this discovery and with the urging of the leadership of Friends of Chatham Waterways that CCT sponsored the September 12th forum "Cleaning the Waters and Saving Taxpayer Money, Too."

Town officials then decided to do their own forum to present how they analyzed the nitrogen problem, how they decided on what needed to be done and the conclusion they came to that a conventional centralized big city sewer would take care of the nitrogen removal problem.

As for the discussion of alternatives, that was left to the proponent of the centralized sewer Stearns & Wheler, which never did evaluate a first class low cost sewer system such as that provided by Lombardo Associates, currently under consideration in Mashpee and involved in discussions in other Cape towns. The offer of an expert on alternative low cost systems as a speaker was rejected.

Mashpee invited Lombardo to submit an engineering estimate to deal with its nitrogen removal problem after receiving Stearns & Wheler's estimate of $550 million; Lombardo's estimate is $250 million. Mashpee is now in the process of determining how it will evaluate the two approaches. Mashpee's man in charge said it well: "I'd be a fool if I didn't look at possible savings of $300 million."

CCT has received assurances from experts in low cost alternative systems they will cooperate with the CAC and taxpayers in providing detailed information about such systems. The former top researcher for EPA in this area, Jim Kreissl, for one has agreed to participate. We are confident we will be able to line up a number of credible and well known authorities to present.

Since there are so many taxpayers who do not know about such low cost alternatives, we will ask the CAC in the first instance to hold an open hearing in one of the town's larger auditoriums as well as to broadcast it over Channel 18. The rooms used for presentations to this point have a seating capacity of only100 or less, while the largest school auditorium can seat nearly 1,000.

It is hoped that the presentations in Chatham can be coordinated with the all-day Capewide conference on low cost alternative sewer systems being plannned for November sponsored by the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Environmental Protection.

This is the most important, the most expensive undertaking in Chatham's history. Even if low cost alternatives are integrated with the town's existing sewer system, the solution will not be cheap. While as much as $100 to $120 million might be saved, that will still leave a huge cost for taxpayers. Taxpayers need to know that every effort has been made to ensure that dealing with the excess nitrogen problem will be achieved in the most cost effective way possible.