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The Cape Cod Freshwater Initiative is moving forward, with much being accomplished over the past few months. Stakeholder groups, organized by groundwater lens, met three times over the past three months to learn about and share thoughts on the region’s freshwater resources, discuss pond management strategies and priorities, and share ideas for advancing and implementing actions to support pond health.  Stakeholder feedback will inform recommendations and resources that result from the Freshwater Initiative. The final round of stakeholder meetings took place in early June, with groups meeting in Sandwich, Harwich, and Wellfleet. 

Stakeholder engagement is a critical component of planning processes, helping to build consensus on impactful recommendations and create actionable plans. Stakeholder engagement to inform the Cape Cod Freshwater Initiative continued in March, with the launch of a process to engage diverse perspectives in working groups organized by groundwater lenses.

Spring is here, and along with all the other typical signs of spring, Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) staff and volunteers have resumed the Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program.

The Cape Cod Freshwater Initiative is a science-based, information-driven planning process that engages stakeholders and enables action to protect and restore Cape Cod’s freshwater resources. It began in 2021 with an update to the Cape Cod Ponds Atlas. Since then, the team has been working to collect the data needed to make informed management decisions in our ponds and to better understand how they are changing from season to season and year to year.

We know that Cape Cod’s 890 ponds and lakes add to the region’s natural beauty, but how much do they impact our region’s economy?

Last year we launched the Cape Cod Freshwater Initiative to enable action to protect and restore our freshwater ponds and lakes.

To understand the dynamics at work affecting water quality in ponds, Commission staff sought a specialist familiar with the biogeochemical interactions in freshwater bodies, the monitoring metrics needed to track these interactions, and potential strategies to address water quality problems. A limnologist helps us ask the right questions, delve deeply into the potential sources of the issues, and consider solutions to water quality decline.

The first season of the Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program has come to a close, with final samples collected from the region’s ponds in early November.

The Cape Cod Commission will lead an effort to expand satellite-derived water quality data collection and analysis and enhance existing pond monitoring efforts, funded by a $298,527 Southeast New England Program (SNEP) Priority Research Grant.

The first year of the new Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program concludes this month.