The movement to get an authoritative peer review by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the methodology created by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Massachusetts Estuaries Project (MEP) has gained a lot of traction in the past few weeks.

First, the Town of Dennis signed on to the petition initiated by the Orleans Board of Selectmen, bringing the number of towns in support to nine (of 14, Provincetown doesn't have a nitrogen problem like the others).

A representative of the National Academy of Science met in Barnstable this past week with county leaders to discuss how this might work. The word is that the National Academy of Science is eager to do the peer review. It understands that some eight to ten billion dollars of Cape taxpayer dollars are riding on what the DEP/MEP methodology says should be done and no one wants to see money of that magnitude wasted.

As a consequence, county officials, who originally had decided not to support the Orleans initiative, reversed themselves and came out in support of the NAS peer review. The executive director of the CCC Paul Niedzwiecki told NAS representative Susan Roberts this:

"I would welcome the National Academy of Sciences to look at the science and some (treatment) implementations. I would love to have that sort of objectivity to be completely confident that we are headed in the right direction, and if we are not, I'd like to know that too."

So would all Cape taxpayers, including those in Chatham.

Also, State Representative Sarah Peake (whose district Chatham is in) pledged her support. She and the other three Cape state representatives are preparing a joint letter of support to be sent to the Cape's Congressman Bill Delahunt.

Six billion dollars have been poured into Chesapeake Bay to solve its nitrogen problem, but after years of effort the federal EPA has said it all has been a failure. No noticeable improvement has resulted. Cape taxpayers cannot afford a mistake like that. No doubt the NAS hopes what it learns in the Cape Cod review will be helpful for the Chesapeake Bay as well.

Before each Cape town commits to spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, it wants to know that the science, methodology and models are sound and that the proposed expenditures will in fact deliver the desired results in bay water improvements.

Chatham is the only town that has rushed ahead without questioning what the DEP/MEP has said it should do. The DEP/MEP program is untesed, unproven and has never been subjected to an independent third-party review. Chatham, in effect, is the DEP's guinea pig.

The Town Manager pushed the town into the implementation phase within weeks after the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan was finalized with no opportunity for taxpayers and other citizens to learn all the details of the plan, such as what it would do, what it would cost them, why the centralized sewer system proposed by the Town Manager was chosen and why lesser cost alternatives that EPA considers preferable were not chosen or at least to some extent integrated into the plan to save money.

Also, it was discovered later that the Town Manager's plan involved immediately building the wastewater treatment plant to its 20-year capacity to service, as CCT calculates it, some 55,000 people. CCT questioned why the plant was being overbuilt like that.

Engineers have told us that if the plant right now is built to that capacity, the town must go on and build out sewering to get that much wastewater or the plant won't function cost-effectively, efficiently or even do the job of removing contaminants such as nitrogen as required.

Taxpayers didn't know with their vote for some small expansion of the existing sewer system piping and an upgrade of the treatment plant they were being in effect forced to go forward with 20 more years of funding for sewering, whether they wanted to or not. Because of the way it was explained in the Warrant they had every reason to believe that the treatment plant would be concurrently upgraded as voters voted (if they did so) to add more sewering every two years for the next 20 years.

It's not too late to scale back the treatment plant right now to just service what's being added in sewering pursunat to the May 11, 2009 town meeting vote in addition to the existing small downtown area, so taxpayers will retain their choices and flexibility.

We might even, after the NAS peer review, get a fully informed town meeting to vote on a full plan that adequately takes into account the results of the NAS peer review and all options, including alternatives such as cluster systems and permeable reactive groundwater barriers that can reduce costs dramatically. We all want to make sure the money invested will do the job.

CCT asked the Chatham selectmen on July 6th to sign on to the peer review request, but they said no (3-2, Summers and Roper in favor), principally because at that time the Cape Cod Commission wasn't supporting it.

But that has now changed and the CCT has renewed its request that Chatham join with the other towns and the county in supporting the NAS peer review. Taxpayers in Chatham are no more interested in wasting money than other Cape towns. Read our letter to the selectmen sent August 23rd.

CCT- BOS Peer Review 8 23 10.pdf

CCT in the letter also pointed out there is no urgency involved. The entire project ought to be put on hold till the answers come in from the National Academy of Sciences. (Under the Stearns & Wheler plan adopted by the Town Manager the town was warned by the DEP that it would take several years after the 20 years of construction before any water improvement might be seen, if then.)

A halt is urgently needed right now with respect to the sewering along Route 28 which caused substantial losses for businesses in the spring. The town should skip the fall sewering work on Route 28. Businesses were hit badly in the spring, but will suffer even more in September and October, which are normally much better months for revenues than the spring months Under its contracts the town has flexibility to terminate, suspend or reschedule work.

It is not too late for the town to do the right thing in protecting taxpayers. As the executive director of the Lewis Bay project said after meeting with the NAS, paraphrasing, "We know we have a problem. We need to forge a consensus about what has to be done. The NAS review will help attain that consensus." Chatham, as an environmental leader, should be part of forging that consensus.

Every Chatham citizen and taxpayer should tell the selectmen they want to know their money isn't being wasted on this centralized sewer project. Support the National Academy of Sciences review.