by MEC | Jan 8, 2020 | Initiatives, Scholarship
PRESS RELEASE November 2019
The Mashpee Environmental Coalition is pleased to announce a new scholarship starting Spring 2020 in support of future environmental leaders. All Mashpee seniors are eligible to apply who attend the Mashpee Middle-High School and who plan to continue their studies full-time at an institution of higher education immediately after high school.
Preference will be given to candidates who are active members of the Mashpee Middle-High School Environmental Club; demonstrated leaders in environmental issues; or students who plan to continue their education with a focus on the environment.
To apply, seniors must complete the Mashpee High School Scholarship Application by the deadline listed on the Mashpee Middle-High School scholarship webpage under “Local Scholarships”. Additional scholarship requirements and details may be found on that site. Scholarship donations may be sent to Mashpee Environmental Coalition, PO Box 274, Mashpee, MA 02649.
by MEC | Jan 8, 2020 | Current Topics
An Article by Barbara Adner, Past Director and Member at Large of MEC – Published August 2017
I first became aware of the importance of bees when our son, Adam, agreed to house two beehives for a beekeeper. He lives behind a flower nursery where the bees had an abundant choice of flower pollen.
Very interesting, I thought. It got even more interesting when one day I opened the trash can and found bees in it. There were hoards of them and they were on the move over and under and inside the trash bags. It happened while Adam, the bee lover, was visiting, and he found a beekeeper who would relocate the bees for $150. My choices were to spend $150 and have the bees taken to another location, leave the lid open and hope they would fly away (they did, but returned) or leave them to their fate in the never-never land where trash is dumped. I would like to say I did the former but, truth be told, I did the latter and have worried about those bees ever since.
Much has been written about the loss of bees to pollinate plants. Butterflies, birds, bats, flies, and moths are also pollinators. As their habitats are destroyed by converting wild lands to domestic use, and as the pesticides poison the pollinators, the human food chain is diminished. Some of our agriculture is now pollinated through the aid of beekeepers who transport their beehives from crop to crop, since there are no longer enough bees and other creatures to pollinate the plants.
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by Virginia Scharfenberg | Mar 31, 2015 | Ecological Lawn Care, Waste Water
After overwhelming approval at Town Meeting, unanimous approval by the Cape Cod Commission and approval by the Attorney General, the Town of Mashpee has now added lawn fertilizer regulations to the Town Code. These regulations strongly recommend that only one to two pounds of nitrogen be applied per 1,000 square feet of lawn area. Phosphorus in lawn fertilizers should only be applied on new lawns or lawns where a soil test indicates a real need.
This Nitrogen Control Bylaw, Chapter 107 of the Town Code, as initially passed, includes the following performance standards that anyone who fertilizes their lawn areas must abide by: (more…)
by MEC | Jul 29, 2014 | Current Topics, Enviromental Data
In 2003 the Mashpee Environmental Coalition introduced the “Pond Health Program” with volunteer water samplers measuring and recording water column parameters in each of Mashpee’s six major ponds with public access. Collected data was made available to the scientific and local communities. Below are data collected between 2000 and 2013.
Mashpee’s Department of Natural Resources has since taken over the collection of water samples from Mashpee’s waterways.
by MEC | Jun 6, 2014 | Current Topics, Right-of-Way Herbicides
While our County Agencies talk to establishing individual town negotiations with transmission line owners on this threat to our potable water supply, they are fostering a divide and conquer approach threatening progress on this important health threat.
Visit for additional information.
The statement below is NStar’s March 2011,not very encouraging, position
NSTAR is the largest Massachusetts-based electric and gas utility with almost a million and a half customers in Eastern and Central Massachusetts . It has released this statement about suspending the use of herbicides for much of this year.
NStar is extending its voluntary moratorium on herbicide use through 2011, demonstrating once again the company’s commitment to working cooperatively with the Cape Cod Commission and other local officials. This latest extension will allow sufficient time for the completion of a comprehensive study to quantify and ultimately reduce herbicide and pesticide use by all users on Cape Cod.
In addition to improved mapping of private wells in 2010, progress has also been made in identifying the primary sources of herbicide and pesticide use on Cape Cod. Results to date confirm NSTAR’s IVM program represents a very small portion of the total Cape-wide herbicide use, though there’s more work to be done in documenting and sharing all of the facts. Therefore, NSTAR supports the commissioning of a comprehensive year-long study that further investigates the sources and effects of herbicide and pesticide use on the Cape and establishes guidelines toward its reduction. To lessen the appearance of undue influence on the study, NSTAR will not provide funding and will have only limited involvement in it.
With this latest extension of its voluntary herbicide moratorium comes the need for NSTAR to resume clear-cut mowing on Cape Cod rights-of-way in 2011. Federal regulations require utilities to demonstrate their compliance with strict standards set forth after the Northeast blackout of 2003. Though integrated vegetation management programs are recognized nationwide as the best practice for right-of-way maintenance to meet ecological and reliability standards, clear-cut mowing will be NSTAR’s only viable option on Cape Cod this year. Work is underway to finalize the company’s plans to resume mowing and details will be shared with the affected towns as soon as they are available.
by MEC | Jun 6, 2014 | Current Topics, Storm Water
Storm water, from its inception as rain or snow and via its travel as runoff across our lawns, roads and parking lots, adds to itself many forms of unwanted constituents from diverse sources. As it falls from the sky it adds an airborne contaminants to its makeup and then proceeds to include a variety of substances related to human activities.
Lawn fertilizer over-spills onto roads and driveways, the byproducts of automotive utilization such as exhaust, fluid leakage and brake pad wear combined with animal waste products plus many other items, when transported by storm water runoff, create a source of damage to our ground and surface waters that is a substantial threat. The impacts from this pollution source can be mitigated to varying degrees by the application of devices commonly identified as storm water best management practices. These devices are typically selected based upon site-specific conditions and available space.
The typical storm drains found in area roadways and parking lots do nothing to reduce contamination levels and, in fact, are worse than allowing storm flow to discharge across a vegetative surfaces. Many storm water best management practices (BMP’s) rely upon root systems and microbes for contamination controls. In Mashpee several scientific studies have established links between storm water runoff and pollution of both fresh and estuarine surface waters.
Typical BMP’S include wet or dry detention ponds and stone or vegetated swales. With the acceptance of “Low Impact Development” (LID) techniques, the catalog of devices has added, among others, surface sand filters, tree filters and constructed gravel wetlands. Recent evaluations by the University of New Hampshire have highly rated the constructed gravel wetland.
