Having spent the last several days in the Canadian Rockies, a place as contrasting from Cape Cod as any place in the world, I was struck by the vastness and size of everything. The mountains are big, the streams are big, and the views are big. Also big were the large pipes draining the stormwater from downtown Banff directly into the river flowing through town.
It was hard not to be struck by the familiarity of it all. A community reliant upon the natural beauty of its surroundings, much like Cape Cod, awash with income driven by tourism, not doing the minimum necessary to preserve the quality of the resource. Perhaps the thinking is that because the area is so vast that the contaminated stormwater won’t make much of a difference, but have we not learned that the environment has a carrying capacity that cannot be exceeded without dire consequences? The grey and orange haze from wildfire smoke that descended upon and blotted out the surrounding Rockies on our last day in Banff is a reminder that, at least when it comes to mistreating the environment, what goes around indeed comes around.
Getting back to what triggered this discussion in the first place, the stormwater pipes in the river (and yes, I am no fun to travel with; as my party was admiring the sweeping views, I was pointing out and complaining about the drainage pipes), we have major stormwater drainage problems impacting both fresh and saltwater resources that need attention in all 15 towns. Here at APCC we are preparing several grant applications with towns and other partners seeking millions in federal funds to address some of the larger stormwater projects that need to be built. We are also continuing our work to mitigate stormwater runoff from several public boat ramps.
Despite our efforts, there is a lot of work remaining to be done at the local level. Even though it’s only early September, it is not too early to start to nudge your town about what plans it has for projects going to town meeting in the spring of ’24. It is not too early to push for funding of stormwater mitigation projects for next year. If you live on a pond and are frustrated that wastewater management improvements are far off in the future, tackling stormwater is something that doesn’t have to wait and can be done now to help your treasured pond. Go to town hall or call your DPW and ask if they know where the direct stormwater discharges are and what plans there are to remediate them. Take that information and push to have projects funded in the next town meeting cycle.
Because we are already living with the results of years of mistreating our water resources, we know all too well that our waters have taken enough abuse. We also know how to treat them better and had better get busy doing so while it still matters.
