Grant Money Gives Yarmouth New Denitrifying System

Bass_River_Smugglers_Beach_003YARMOUTH – About $65,000 will go to Yarmouth in order to assess and build a gravel bioretention system.

The underground technology is designed to mitigate pollution in storm water by flooding it with carbon, trapping the water, and eventually retaining the nitrogen when the water is released.

Department of Public Works Director Jeff Colby said that the funds must be completely used by June 30 of 2017.

“It’s a treatment component, taking care of the first third of an inch of rainfall which is generally where most of the pollutants are,” Colby said.

Similar systems have already been installed in Barnstable and Chatham.

Colby said the system would have to be placed in a narrow area such as beneath a roadway.

Potential sites for the system would need to be within one of the town’s affected areas, which include Lewis Bay, Parker’s River and Bass River.

He said the town will need to come to a decision on where to install it within the next few months in order to meet the expenditure deadline.

The grants only cover a portion of the costs, however, and much of that cost will be sunk into the necessary assessments and narrowing down of options for placement.

Colby said that this technology is more typically used in wastewater applications, but could be valuable to the more recent concern with storm water.

Once installed, the system will be monitored closely for at least one year, which is the amount of time Colby said he expects for accurate analytical data to determine if the project is a success.

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