Projects

Public Education

FACES has funded the development of signs and posters to be displayed by neighborhood owner associations for the purpose of educating visitors to our coastal pond resources. Individuals and associations are welcome to download these files and distribute and/or post them where appropriate.

Bournes Pond
Eel Pond
Great Pond
Green Pond
Little Pond
Oyster Pond

Falmouth Friendly Lawns Project

FACES Board of Directors approved the formation of a Fertilizer Committee to educate the homeowners of Falmouth on proper lawn care and use of fertilizers. Hila Lyman was appointed Chairperson and committee members are Wendi Buesseler, Bruce Dobberteen, Nancy McDonald, Dot Sherrerd and Joan Muller, Dave Palmer, Jim Lloyd, Win Munro & Brad Stumcke.

The Committee worked very closely with the Ashumet Plume Citizens Committee as they pursued the Fertilizer Program for the Town. In March 2006, Jack Barnes, Chairman of the Fertilizer Committee presented to the Selectmen a review of the previous years’ accomplishments and a request for support for the future. To date (3/07), there has been no direction from the Town! See Strategies and Accomplishments Falmouth Friendly Lawns 2002-2005.

Falmouth Friendly Lawns Honor Roll

Falmouth Friendly Lawn brochure

Dissolved Oxygen (DO) Monitoring

In May 2006 FACES began a volunteer-staffed program of routinely collecting and reporting water quality data to the public about our coastal ponds. These reports have since been published as the Falmouth Coastal Pond Water Quality Report every week, and can be found on page five of the Friday edition of the Falmouth Enterprise. The principle objective of the reports has been to provide the town's people with a frequent source of useful information about their coastal waters as well as to be a regular reminder of the degraded state of the town's estuaries. While other important monitoring programs and scientific assessments are taking place in some of these same ponds, the fact that measurements are made every week year round (weather permitting) at the town's 15 tidal ponds, provides a level of detail that may become both interesting and useful to scientists over time.

Since we have experience with just one summer, fall and winter, it is difficult to draw any conclusions. However, from the summer data, when waters were warmest and biological activity was greatest, we can state a few things: Dissolved Oxygen (DO), which is a key indicator of estuarine health and necessary to sustain most aquatic life, had a number of "bad" days in Falmouth's ponds last summer. There were 29 records of DO measurements below 50% saturation, and seven of those times DO was below 25% saturation, which is considered potentially lethal for organisms. All of these low DO values were recorded in the ponds along Vineyard Sound side between June and October, while the conditions of the harbors on the Buzzards Bay side were generally much better (one fact is the tides on the Buzzards Bay side are larger which aids in flushing the ponds). Waquoit Bay, Childs & Eel Rivers, Bourne's, Green, Great, Perch and Little Ponds and Falmouth Harbor each recorded at least one instance of stressful (below 50% saturation) DO conditions. The worst conditions were recorded in Childs River, which tallied 10 of the 29 records and 4 of the 7 "lethal" level records. Two of the other "lethal" level records were measured at Bourne's Pond. The low figure happened just before people started smelling sewer odors as reported in the Enterprise. It was determined that the odors were coming from the Childs and Eel Rivers, the two most eutrophic of our estuaries.

If one looks at the weekly reports, one can see that the periods of extremely low dissolved oxygen occur only a few times year, and other scientific information suggests that such conditions may not last more than a few hours or at most a few days. This might give the casual observer the sense that it's not such a big deal. But, let's illustrate this in human terms. Suppose that sometime during the day 90 % of the breathable oxygen in let's say, downtown Falmouth disappeared for just one day. What do you suppose would happen? Well, most likely, everyone would have a very difficult time breathing, and try to get away if they could. Which way to go? Whichever way you would go there would be traffic jams and people dying, and time would be running out for everyone unless higher oxygen levels returned quickly. Even, if this was to happen, just every once in a while, no one, including other animals, would live there. The place would literally become a dead zone. That's why it's so important that oxygen levels not drop below what is necessary to sustain aquatic life for even a short period of time, and that it not happen again and again. But that is what's happening in many of Falmouth's ponds. And it is why we all need to do something about NOW.

If you, or someone you know would like to be a part of the FACES Pond Watch Team please email Joe Apicella at joeap540@msn.com. Collecting the data is fun, requires only about one to two hours per month, and provides important information to scientists and residents.