Clean water

Barnstable County has a new tool for testing the safety of drinking water, and it will make weekend and holiday testing more efficient.

The Association to Preserve Cape Cod has released its annual State of the Waters: Cape Cod report.

The Cape Cod National Seashore is no longer testing Wellfleet's kettle ponds for water quality metrics.

The majority of Cape Cod's nutrient pollution comes from urine. But what if it was diverted from the waste stream?

The report makes recommendations aimed at the region’s 890 freshwater ponds and lakes, informed by a data-driven planning process the Cape Cod Commission began in 2022.

For the second year in a row, 19 of the Cape’s 21 public drinking water supplies received an “Excellent” water quality score, and none was graded “Poor.” But the annual report also found that about 90 percent of embayments and more than a quarter of tested ponds on Cape Cod have "Unacceptable" water quality.

Construction is underway at two boat launches on Scargo Lake in Dennis as part of a project to keep pollution from stormwater runoff out of local waters. Twenty boat launches around the Cape have been identified as high priorities for reducing runoff.

The Hyannis PFAS Community Working Group has received a grant to analyze how PFAS — from the Hyannis Gateway Airport, the former Barnstable County Fire Training Academy, and elsewhere — are interacting with one another in groundwater.

The state monitors bacteria levels at ponds, beaches and lakes across the state. How often does your favorite Cape and Islands swimming spot fail state water quality testing?

Forget the era of volunteers getting water quality data every five days. Data loggers are collecting information every 10 minutes.