Association to Preserve Cape Cod

Festive Fungus. Photo by Sue Machie

What I'm Thinking...

Showing Up Matters

by Andrew Gottlieb, APCC Executive Director

If you want your opinion to matter, show up, participate in civic life and vote. The last year has taught me a lot, but has mostly reaffirmed the importance of involvement in achieving good outcomes that serve the needs of the people. No time has commanded the need for an engaged populace more than now. That is true at the local, state and federal levels. Big decisions are being made at all levels of government and good outcomes require the best and most all of us have to offer.

Look no further than the overwhelming response to APCC’s call for emails to Congress and Governor Healey opposing the multipurpose machine gun range. Those emails mattered and influenced and shaped the outcome of that long debate. Consider the overwhelming support for wastewater management projects seen in town votes everywhere on the Cape. These large and expensive projects reflect the collective voices of the people of Cape Cod who have taken the time and made the effort to ensure that decision makers understood the expectations of the voters.

A lot of forces and the big money behind them are making a major push to convince you that the system is broken, and your voice does not matter. If you can be sidelined, certain that what you say and think won’t change anything, then it is that much easier for someone else to replace your interests with theirs. All the lies, misinformation, and social media commentary are more directed at making you question everything rather than believe something. A disconnected populace is easier to control than one that is engaged and holds its institutions accountable.

Our challenge is to push forward. Get educated about real issues using real information. Don’t rely on the stuff fed to us by algorithms and single view media echo chambers. You have a brain for a reason; use it. Everyone will be better off if you are actively involved regardless of which “side” you support.

Another step forward

Kudos go to the elected leadership, professional staff, and voters of the town of Dennis for securing funding authorization to implement the Dennis wastewater management plan.

The Dennis plan is big, $248 million, and is further proof that voters have a hunger for projects that improve water quality. The Dennis vote is also the latest validation that the finance tools available to Cape towns, mostly the Cape and Islands Water Protection Fund, are effective in lowering taxpayer costs to the point that the odds favor approval of water quality projects.

Towns all across the Cape should take notice of the resounding support for big ticket projects in Dennis and Yarmouth in the recent past. Cape residents want, and will pay for, clean water projects. Let’s keep ‘em coming!

A Sad Note

APCC mourns the passing of Peter Shelley, senior counsel and president emeritus of the Conservation Law Foundation. Peter’s advocacy had a profound impact on New England’s land, waters, and living resources. Peter was a rare breed, as decent as he was brilliant. He will be missed.

APCC Ecosystem Restoration Program

Above: Photo of the Oyster Pond culvert upstream during an outgoing tide and APCC intern, Rory Edwards, deploys dissolved oxygen logger in Oyster Pond.

Tidal Restorations Provide a Big Breath of Relief!

In the realm of restoration ecology, success is often measured in terms of restored “habitat units,” or the acreage of potentially restored land. While this metric provides a straightforward assessment for projects like salt marsh or cranberry bog restoration, it can be less definitive for things like fish and shellfish habitats where metrics like water quality are important.

Undersized culverts, like the one under the Shining Sea Bikeway at Oyster Pond in West Falmouth Harbor (see Figure 1), restrict tidal flow and lead to overall declines in water quality. Data from the Buzzards Bay Coalition indicates a 50 percent decline in the health of the harbor over the past 30 years. To address the issue, the town of Falmouth and the Cape Cod Conservation District, supported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, funded the initial design work needed to replace the culvert. This project will not only improve the stability of the upstream marsh, but also enhance fish and shellfish habitat through improved water quality.

As part of the project, APCC collected dissolved oxygen data upstream and downstream of the culvert to document the pre-restoration conditions. Fish and shellfish generally find dissolved oxygen levels below 5 mg/L stressful and potentially lethal. The data revealed that aquatic creatures in Oyster Pond suffer from low dissolved oxygen levels, particularly at night when plants cease photosynthesis (see Figure 2 below). By replacing the undersized culvert, the project aims to improve water circulation and increase dissolved oxygen levels in Oyster Pond. This will be achieved by allowing oxygen-saturated water from Buzzards Bay to flow into the pond on incoming tides and flushing out low-oxygen water on outgoing tides.

APCC has recently been awarded a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Transformational Habitat Grant to support the permitting and final design of this project. Once completed, the project will help restore fish habitat in Oyster Pond and serve as a model for future restoration efforts in the region.

For more information on habitat restoration projects in your area, please visit the Cape Cod Water Resources Restoration Project interactive map.

Above: Figure 2. Graph of dissolved oxygen concentration upstream (Oyster Pond) and downstream (Harbor Head) of the Shining Sea Bikeway culvert located in West Falmouth Harbor Estuary. These data were collected every 15 minutes using an In-Situ Vulink and RDO Blue instrument.

Last week, APCC held the 2nd Annual Volunteer Appreciation celebration at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in Yarmouth. APCC’s volunteers, staff, and board members took a break to gather and acknowledge what we have accomplished together so far this year.

Dee Marsh, APCC assistant education & outreach coordinator, kicked off the event and shared some amazing statistics. This past spring and summer over 300 APCC volunteers contributed over six hundred hours of work toward helping APCC make a difference toward achieving our mission. Volunteer hours helped support APCC’s freshwater science and ecosystem restoration programs, as well as our outreach and education efforts. Volunteer activities spanned from distributing outreach materials, to producing our annual native plant sale, and staffing tables at outreach events throughout the year. We also recognized our unsung heroes behind the scenes, volunteers who take photos and draft articles, meticulously review spreadsheets, stuff fundraising envelopes, and research important scientific data.

We had a bit of fun too, as we held the first APCC Trivia Game. APCC pond program staff, JT Percy and Emma Hazel, served as game hosts and provided some humor while we learned about the accomplishments from this past year. Some highlights included:

APCC’s annual native plant sale sold over 1,300 plants.
Over 300 Cape-wide volunteers helped with herring monitoring.
APCC's cyanobacteria monitoring program tests 133 ponds Cape-wide with the assistance of pond group volunteers.
The Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program collected 2,488 monitoring sample bottles in their 319 sampling events, and logged an incredible 558 APCC volunteer hours! Led by APCC’s Dr. Julie Hambrook Berkman, the success of our 2024 freshwater pond monitoring program would simply not be possible without the help of this volunteer group.

APCC’s executive director, Andrew Gottlieb closed the meeting with a heartfelt thank you to all our APCC volunteers, staff, and board members for taking a moment to acknowledge the work and to celebrate our dedicated volunteers.

APCC Volunteers help APCC make a difference!

Aurora Borealis Show Comes to Cape Cod!

Woods Hole last week. Photo by Jordan Mora.

Video Share! Learn more about the aurora borealis in this four minute video.

APCC's Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program

APCC's Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program wraps up November 7, 2024. Results are displayed on the interactive map. For a list of ponds being monitored through October, click here. For any information on Brewster ponds, email info@brewsterponds.org. You can sign up for cyanobacteria bloom alerts here—and receive a notice when a bloom is detected, except for any occurrences in Brewster.

A Cape-wide Conservation Event Calendar

The first-of-its-kind calendar highlights regional nature programs

The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts (“the Compact”) and its nonprofit members are excited to launch a new regional calendar of events. The Conservation Calendar includes programs across Cape Cod hosted by these groups. The goal of the calendar is to encourage visitors and residents to take part in nature and environmental events.

Powered by the “Communications Cohort,” an informal group of dedicated community outreach volunteers and professional staff co-led by the Barnstable Land Trust and APCC, this initiative illustrates the powerful impact of nonprofit collaborations. Events can be sorted by date, town, organization, and type and is constantly being updated.

Events Hosted by Others

A Cape Cod Native Plant-selector

~ to help you choose the perfect native plants for your garden.

Email membership@apcc.org and we'll send you a CapeCodNativePlants.org decal.

Mountain Mint

Pycnanthemum muticum

Guidelines for Cape-friendly Landscapes - an APCC publication

The Guidelines gives homeowners steps they can take in the design and maintenance of their properties that will support pollinators and birds, manage stormwater, conserve water, and protect the Cape's water quality. This 40-page booklet is beautifully illustrated by Marcy Ford with content that is easily digestible and supported by numerous resources for additional learning.

Thank you for this important book! Hopefully everyone of us with a yard will read it and put it to use! - Vicky Titcomb of Titcomb Bookshop

We've enjoyed creating it and hope it will help you with ideas to help you steward your piece of Cape Cod and maybe foster an environmental ethic in the decisions we all make in our own managed landscapes. Get your copy here—and maybe one for a friend?

We are grateful for the several retail shops that are partnering with us to make this publication more widely available: Brewster Book Store, Birdwatchers General Store, Crocker Nurseries, Wellfleet Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary, Cape Abilities Farm, Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, the Cape Cod Lavender Farm, Heritage Museums and Gardens, Titcomb's Bookshop, Sea Howl Bookshop, Soares Flower Garden Nursery, and Eight Cousins Bookshop.

If you are a retailer and would like to sell this publication at your store, contact Kristin at kandres@apcc.org.

You can also view the book's content as a pdf on our website.

The Pollinator Pathway Cape Cod is a group of organizations promoting native plants and pollinator-friendly land care practices to create a boat load of safe oases for our native bees, butterflies and a whole host of other pollinators that are crucial to the health of our ecosystems.

Join us! It's easy. There are no fees. You just need to pledge to ADD native plants, SUBTRACT a little lawn, AVOID yard chemicals, especially pesticides, and LEAVE the leaves. And, help us spread the word. Please get on the map to show your support of pollinators on Cape Cod!

You can purchase the 9-inch aluminum Pollinator Pathway Cape Cod sign at Hyannis Country Garden, Crocker Nurseries, Brewster Book Store, Orleans Conservation Trust, and

Cape Abilities Farm.

If you are a retailer, and you would like to sell the signs, you can order online here, or email pollinators@apcc.org.

APCC Merch