Cleaning Up Cape Cod: Nitrogen pollution is choking once-vibrant waters throughout Cape Cod.

• Date: 22 June 2020
• Author: O'Reilly, Laurie
• Published date: 22 June 2020
• Author: O'Reilly, Laurie

PAULA PETERS POINTS TO A PHOTOGRAPH HANGING ON AWALLOFHER HOME IN MASHPEE, MASSACHUSETTS. "This is Punkhorn Point," she says. The photo shows an expanse of deeply blue water where the Mashpee River empties into Popponesset Bay. When she was a child, Peters' father took her family shellfishing there. "My brothers would go out into the water to dig up the quahogs and clams, and I would be relegated to the shoreline, where I would grab the mussels."

Her father carried on the family tradition with Peters' son, but now, just a generation later, "we can't do that anymore. The nitrogen loading is so severe that the shellfish are contaminated." Today at Punkhorn Point, a "No Shellfishing" sign serves as both a warning and a stark reminder of what has been lost to Peters' family and her tribe as a whole.

A member of the Mashpee Wampanoag, Peters says tribal members gathered shellfish at Punkhorn Point for generations. "This is our ancestral homeland, and fishing and hunting on these lands were how we sustained ourselves. Our tribal fishermen and hunters are really paying a price, and it's becoming more and more difficult for them to sustain their families."

Mashpee isn't the only Cape Cod town with waters made sick from nitrogen pollution. It's a problem regionwide. The Cape's septic systems, which serve 85% of households...