Conducting the Environmental Impact Analysis and Assessment - Environmental Impact Analysis: Process and Methods - page 172

Wastewater
treatment
plant

Rivermoor
Habitat
Park

Herring
River

FIGURE 5.1
North River and nearshore estuarine system.

density year-round inhabitation. As a result, faulty and failing on-lot waste-
water treatment systems were threatening the environmental health of the
very marine resources that characterized the town.
The solution to protecting the coastal and estuarine resources was to
expand the town's limited existing public sewer system service area and
upgrade the treatment facilities. Two primary alternatives to the treatment
and disposal of the wastewater from the expanded system were identified
during scoping. One was to provide an advanced level of treatment and main-
tain the existing discharge to a small tidal tributary through the Spartina spp.
salt marsh adjacent to the North River. The added flows from the expanded
system would increase the current nutrient and organic load to the system,
which in turn would exacerbate the eutrophication and associated degrada-
tion of water quality and estuarine habitat in the marsh, river, and nearshore
environment (issues identified during scoping). An advanced level of treat-
ment was necessary to address this issue if the discharge of treated waste-
water were to remain at the existing location within the North River system.
The second wastewater treatment and disposal alternative identified dur-
ing scoping was to relocate the discharge via an outfall pipe and effluent dif-
fuser beyond the North River and the adjacent nearshore environment. This
would reduce the nutrient and organic load to the system, thus arresting the
accelerated eutrophication process and addressing the issues of water qual-
ity and estuarine habitat degradation. The question was how far offshore