Please submit your comments by December 1

For those wishing to submit comments regarding the town’s MEPA request to reroute 1.75 Million Gallons per Day (MGD) of waste water currently flowing through the harbor outfall to the waste water facility located in Camelot Park (a 300% increase of the current ground discharge from 0.75 MGD to 3.0 MGD):

• Please click here
• Select “Projects Under Review”
• Find EEA No. 16758
• Click on “Comment” (see image below)
• NOTE: you may have to allow ‘pop-ups’ in your browser to see the comment input form

A comment idea/template

Feel free to use this for ideas, or simply cut and paste into the MEPA comment request:

“As a resident of the village of Chiltonville located within the Eel River Watershed in the Town of Plymouth, I am concerned with the proposed 300% increase of ground discharge at town’s Camelot Drive Wastewater Treatment Facility.

While I realize the town has conducted a public meeting of the EENF filing on October 4th, 2023, I do not believe the community has had a chance to fully absorb all of this information, ask questions, and feel comfortable with proceeding with this expansion.

This was a highly contentious issue for the town when the wastewater facility was sited at the Eel River headwaters back in the 1990s. It would seem imprudent to proceed as fast as this has without full buy-in from the community.”

Two issues come to mind with such an increase:

Nutrient Enrichment: Groundwater discharge can significantly impact nitrogen levels in streams and rivers through a process known as groundwater-surface water interaction. Elevated nitrogen levels in surface water can lead to nutrient enrichment, which may result in harmful algal blooms, and negative impacts on fish and other aquatic life.

Mounding: Refers to the accumulation or buildup of treated effluent in the subsurface soil. This can occur when the rate of water entering the ground exceeds the rate at which the soil and underlying geological formations can absorb or disperse the water. If a wastewater treatment facility discharges treated effluent into the ground and shares the same aquifer or groundwater system as properties with Title 5 systems, there is a potential for mounding to affect the performance of these individual septic systems, flood basements, and impact dams/bridges.