I am not widely considered Mr. Sunshine, but I am happy to report some good news. Readers of this space may recall a discussion about the projected shortfall in funds from the Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund that reduces town borrowing costs by 25 percent. An unprecedented increase in the numbers of wastewater management projects proposed by Cape towns, a very welcome development, put pressure of the Fund’s ability to continue to prove the level of support that towns relied upon to make clean water projects more affordable.
Several months of hard work, in which APCC was a key contributor in the development and evaluation of a variety of options, produced a great outcome. Just this past Friday, the board of the Fund adopted a new method to sustain the Fund’s ability to provide the expected subsidy to town clean water projects indefinitely. By switching to allocating Fund resources on a debt service basis instead of an up-front reserve model (anyone who wants the detail can contact me, but I’ll spare most of you the popsicle headache explanation), the Fund became sustainable without requiring revenue enhancement. Given the fiscal headwinds facing the Commonwealth this year, securing additional resources would have been challenging. Solving our own problem by optimizing the resources that have been made available to us was by far the best option.
Right after the vote to change the allocation methodology was a vote to commit an additional $65 million from the Fund to support 14 clean water projects in nine towns from one end of the Cape to the other. The Fund has now provided roughly $204 million in funds to Cape towns to lower the cost of clean water projects, directly relieving pressure on local property taxes. It is now up to the voters in Dennis, Falmouth, Harwich, Mashpee, Provincetown, Sandwich, Wellfleet and Yarmouth and the town council of Barnstable to vote to move these projects forward this spring to maintain access to these generous cost savings.
It is often said, by me anyway, that nothing good happens by accident. The creation of financing options for wastewater management that are unique to Cape Cod are the result of hard work and vision by local officials, state officials at DEP and the Clean Water Trust, our legislative delegation (with special thanks to Senator Cyr and Representative Peake), Cape Cod Commission leadership, numerous hard working private citizens, and humbly and proudly, APCC. Cleaning the waters of Cape Cod is integral to who we are and why we exist.
In the world of advocacy, especially on behalf of the environment, progress is often a series of small steps. It is rare to get a big and unmistakable win. This is one such victory and, yes, we are taking a breather to enjoy it before moving on the rest of the agenda. Thanks to all our members and supporters for enabling APPC to have the means to make the difference that we do.
