The Association to Preserve Cape Cod has released its annual State of the Waters: Cape Cod report. The report gives a pass/fail grade to coastal embayments and ponds, and rates drinking water supplies on the Cape.
The environmental nonprofit rated most public drinking water supplies “excellent” while two, Wellfleet and Buzzards Bay, were listed as "good." About half the Cape’s public drinking water sources contain PFAS, although below the level the state considers a problem.
APCC Executive Director Andrew Gottlieb said surface water conditions are not as good.
"Drinking water has got the benefit of protective zoning and protective land acquisition," Gottlieb said, "and as a result, continue to be relatively high quality. We didn't do that, in fact we did the opposite by intensifying our development around our surface water resources. And the result is that we have degraded water resources."
The report calls nearly all monitored coastal embayments “unacceptable.” Gottlieb says those scores have gone down over the seven years the report has been issued.
“The first report, as I recall, about 68% of the estuaries failed to meet standards," he said. "Now it’s over 90%. There’s really nothing good left.”
Gottlieb said he expects to see those scores slowly improve as new municipal sewers come online.
APCC will be focusing its efforts on improving freshwater ponds in 2026. This year, more than a quarter of those monitored were deemed “unacceptable.” Gottlieb said, consistently, over the past seven years, about a third of the freshwater ponds monitored receive a failing grade.
