Falmouth water committee broadens charge to focus on estuary water quality, public input

The Town of Falmouth Water Quality Management Committee spent the bulk of its recent meeting reworking its official charge, agreeing to shift the focus from a narrow comprehensive wastewater management plan to a broader mandate on improving estuary and coastal water quality.

Committee Chair Steve Refford opened the discussion by reading the committee’s original 2011 charge and asking members to decide whether that language still reflected the committee’s work. “The committee's primary role is to serve in an advisory capacity to the select board,” Refford said as the group began revising the opening paragraphs.

Members spent more than an hour debating wording and scope, with several arguing the committee should emphasize restoring estuaries and building public consensus rather than describing staff responsibilities. “Our purpose as a committee…is to make the estuaries healthy,” one member said, reflecting a repeated theme during the discussion. The group agreed to remove repeated references to implementing contracts and to keep implementation and procurement as the town manager and department heads’ responsibility.

The committee agreed on several substantive points for the revised charge: focus on improving water quality in coastal embayments and related waters rather than only on “wastewater” plans; preserve the committee’s role as a public forum and consensus builder; and clarify that the committee investigates, evaluates and recommends practices and strategies (including alternative technologies) to improve water quality. Members also agreed the committee should review draft watershed-management plans and provide a recommendation to the select board before those plans are filed with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.

Members discussed how the committee will work with town staff and other bodies. Amy Lowell, identified in the meeting as a department head, said she expects the committee’s review and support to precede submission: the committee “will recommend its support” to the select board before filing. Members also added language calling for coordination with other town committees and boards — notably the Board of Health and the Department of Public Works — during development and review of watershed plans.

After extensive line-by-line edits, members agreed to return a cleaned draft to the town manager’s office for comment and to bring a revised charge to the select board for formal update. Chair Refford said he would forward the committee’s revised draft to the town manager for review and advised members that the document is expected to return in future meetings for final edits before referral to the select board.

The meeting did not adopt a final, signed charge; participants described the current text as a working draft that will be refined and submitted to the town manager’s office for procedural review.