Land and People: Finding a Balance

Student Guide | Cape Cod | Everglades | Los Angeles | Download PDF

Cape Cod:

Introduction

Reading

Focus Question

The Interested Parties

Cape Cod's Unique, "Absorbent" Geology

Where Do Cape Codders Get Their Water?

Porosity, Permeability, and Ground Water

The Massachusetts Military Reservation - An Environmental Dilemma

The Facts About Septic Tanks, and Other Threats to the Cape's Ground -Water Quality

Ground-Water Cleanup - No Easy Task

The USGS's Toxic Substances Hydrology Program, or "How We Learned About the Ashumet Valley Sewage Plume"

The Harwich Solar Aquatic Septage Treatment Plant - the Neighbors May Have One Answer

Glossary

Introduction:

Dunes and beaches attract hundreds of thousands of vacationers to Cape Cod each summer.

At Cape Cod's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, nature has a quite moment.

Cape Cod's population is constantly growing. During the summer, vacationers increase the population from about 200,000 to more than 500,000.

Sandy Neck dune bog, Cape Cod. A bog is a wet spongy area that consists of decaying vegetation. Bogs form in low-lying coastal areas where melting glacier-ice masses created depressions (kettle holes) that filled with water and eventually formed bogs.

Leaking landfills in towns on Cape Cod contain everything from pesticides to household waste. These landfills have been contaminating Cape Cod's groundwater for decades.

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Student Guide | Cape Cod | Everglades | Los Angeles | Download PDF