APCC to Celebrate 50 Years with Several Events

DENNIS – The Association to Preserve Cape Cod is celebrating 50 years of working to help protect the environment in the region.

The organization, which has a mission to preserve, protect and enhance the Cape’s natural resources, started in the late 60s in response to a federal proposal to dredge the Nauset Marsh to make it a deep water harbor.

Other major issues tackled by the organization include fighting offshore oil leases, land use reform and water quality issues.

“Our focus is on preserving Cape Cod, the beautiful nature of Cape Cod, the water quality and the availability of open space that are things that draw people to Cape Cod that are the basis of our economy,” said Andrew Gottlieb, the association’s executive director.

More than a dozen events are planned for the year to commemorate the work done by the APCC.

An exhibit, Preserving the Very Nature of Cape Cod, at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis is running an exhibit through May 20th with artwork inspired by the APCC. An opening reception for the exhibit is Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

A complete schedule of events can be found at apcc.org.

Gottlieb says the Cape is a uniquely regionalized community.

“APCC’s niche in this world is really to look out across the 15 towns and look for common themes and issues which potentially impact the environment in a positive or negative way and work to try to pursue the best possible outcome, both for the host community as well as the region as a whole,” Gottlieb said.

Moving into the future, Gottlieb said water quality and climate change are the two biggest threats facing the Cape’s environment.

“We’re really focused right now on the improvement of our water quality and our estuarine environment,” he said.

Gottlieb said water quality affects the daily life of every resident on the Cape.

“We feel as an organization that an enormous amount of good work has been done over the last decade largely through the Cape Cod Commission’s work and the municipalities work around looking at watershed solutions to bring down the cost of managing our wastewater more appropriately so that we get improvement in our near shore waters and embayments which are essential economic drivers for the region,” Gottlieb said.

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