Protecting Public Health and Water Resources through Testing, Monitoring and Research

Our water quality and wastewater programs provide testing, monitoring and research in every stage of water use; from recreation, to drinking, to wastewater disposal.

Drinking, Surface and Ground Water

The Barnstable County Water Quality Laboratory provides high quality analytical services to our region’s private residents and municipalities alike. Accordingly, the Laboratory assists water departments on Cape Cod in meeting the monitoring requirements necessary for adherence to state and federal water quality standards. Water departments benefit from the flexibility of the Laboratory to assist when periodic problems arise, such as the seasonal and transient occurrences of bacterial contamination in the water systems.

The Laboratory also provides analytical services to owners of private drinking water wells. Sample pick-up is provided in the towns of Wellfleet, Truro, Eastham, Brewster, Falmouth and Mashpee. In 2021, the Barnstable County Laboratory received over 16,000 samples and performed over 87,000 analyses.

Finally, the Laboratory supports Barnstable County’s groundwater and recreational monitoring initiatives, including the Landfill Monitoring Program which provides surveillance of groundwater plumes beneath Cape Cod’s landfills and the Bathing Beaches Monitoring Program, which conducts collection, analysis and reporting of bathing beach water Cape-wide from Memorial Day through Labor Day annually.

Wastewater

All 15 of Barnstable County’s towns rely on a single source aquifer–the Cape Cod Aquifer– for 100% of their drinking water needs, making effective wastewater management essential to public health and environmental protection in our region. The Department does this through three self sustaining programs:

The Innovative/Alternative (I/A) Septic System Tracking Program assists towns with monitoring their I/A septic systems at no cost. An internet database collects inspection reports and effluent monitoring results, and it also allows regulators the ability to track compliance for 3,600 I/A systems across the Cape, Islands and Southeastern Massachusetts.

Cape Cod AquiFund provides an effective and efficient means of financially assisting area residents with often cost-prohibitive yet essential septic system requirements.

The Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center is the nation’s premier test-bed for academic institutions and private industry alike, diverting untreated wastewater from Joint Base Cape Cod where it is used to simulate residential wastewater influent. This allows for the active investigation and development of products that focus on nitrogen reduction to protect sensitive marine resources.

It’s National Groundwater Awareness Week!

March 10th through 16th is National Groundwater Awareness Week (GWAW)! The National Groundwater Association (NGWA) encourages annual inspections of private water systems by certified water well contractors to ensure systems are operating […]

Read More

The Alternative: A Newsletter from the Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center

Check out MASSTC’s most recent edition of their newsletter “The Alternative” featuring insights on urine diversion or “Pee-cycling”.

Read More

Mass Audubon’s Cape Cod Natural History Conference on Saturday, March 9th, Features Talk on Urine Diversion

Mass Audubon’s 2024 Cape Cod Natural History Conference will take place in-person on Saturday, March 9th from 8:30am-3:30pm at Cape Cod Community College’s Tilden Arts Center. Bryan Horsely, Environmental Project […]

Read More

The Alternative: Creating Space for Technologists to Tackle Wastewater Challenges on Cape Cod

Interested in joining the discussion about wastewater challenges on Cape Cod? Check out “The Alternative”, a weekly newsletter from Barnstable County’s Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center! Read the latest […]

Read More

WBUR Collaborates with Scientific American to Spread Awareness about Nutrient Pollution from Septic Systems on Cape Cod

Big Press for Big Problems This week, WBUR, Boston’s NPR station, aired a two-part series about Cape Cod’s water pollution challenges. The series was part of a collaboration with Scientific […]

Read More

The Alternative: Creating Space for Technologists to Tackle Wastewater Challenges on Cape Cod

Interested in joining the discussion about wastewater challenges on Cape Cod? Check out “The Alternative”, a new weekly newsletter from Barnstable County’s Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center!

Read More