"EPA bans sewage discharge all along Mass. coast" by David Abel | Globe Staff June 27, 2014
For decades, the large ferries that plied the cobalt waters south of Cape Cod dumped tons of specially treated sewage as they made their runs back and forth to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
Environmentalists blamed the waste from those and other vessels for releasing toxic bacteria into the ocean and helping seed coastal waters with nitrogen, which has spawned vast tracts of algae that deplete oxygen and kill everything from eelgrass to shellfish. Over the past decade, state and federal officials have been steadily banning the release of sewage from Long Island Sound in New York to the waters off Mount Desert Island in Maine.
On Friday, Massachusetts officials announced that the US Environmental Protection Agency had approved extending the no-discharge zone to areas off all the state’s coast — the last of New England’s waters to come under the ban.
The new rules prohibit commercial and recreational vessels from dumping sewage in the most highly trafficked areas, extending the ban from Cape Ann to Scituate, between Woods Hole and Vineyard Haven, and south of Hyannis.
“Clean and healthy coastal waters are essential for the well-being of the Commonwealth’s economy and environment,” Governor Deval Patrick said in a statement. “The designation of the Commonwealth’s coastal waters as a no-discharge area means that we are protecting one of our most precious natural resources for generations to come.”
Administration officials said the delay in extending the ban to all waters off Massachusetts was the result of years of working with coastal towns, harbor masters, and the shipping and boating community to provide easy access to onshore sewage systems.
They said the ban had little opposition because the state subsidized the costs....
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