Rolling the dice With Nemasket Herring

As many of you already know, The Wampanoag Indians are seeking Federal approval to locate a casino resort in Middleborough. One of the many environmental issues includes the plan to dump up to 1.5 million gallons per day of treated sewage effluent into the Nemasket River, just below the Oliver Mill fishway. As many of you also know, the Nemasket is host to the states largest Alewife run with an estimated 1-2 million fish returning anually to spawn in lake Assawompset. Currently the Nemasket recieves an average of 750,000 up to 1.5 MGPD of treated sewage from the Town of Middleborough Waste Treatment Plant. To add an additional 1.5 Million Gallons per day would cause the amount of treated sewage water in the river to be 50-75% of the total river flow (at low water periods). The Nemasket currently has problems with algea due to high levels of nitrogen and elevated temprature due to the treatment plant and other factors, including urban and agricultural runoff.

To endanger the herring population, which has already been decimated by over fishing and habitat degridation is, in my opinion, not an option. The best solution would be to NOT build a casino in Middleborough, barring this, there are also other methods of disposing the treated sewage.

During the Federal approval process, specificaly the environmental impact assessment, there will be a period of public comment. I encourage anyone interested in writing a letter to contact me. In the coming months I will be gathering information regarding the potental environmental effects of the casino. I will include any letters in a package that I will submit to the BIA (board of indian affairs).

I believe it is extremely important to stop the proposed wastewater treatment plan. Little or no study has been done regarding the effects it may have on the Nemasket Herring. The current population seem to be fairly stable, although far from historic levels. Rolling the dice with the states largest herring run is, IMHO, not a good bet.

You can e-mail @ scott@tidehuntercharters.com