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Buzzards Bay NEP's Stormwater Atlas Project

NEW: 2007 Draft Stormwater Atlas Map Updates Available

Go to our 2007 draft stormwater maps pages to see the latest information.

Background information about the stormwater mapping program, and the 2003 maps are provided in the sections below.

2003 Stormwater Atlas Downloads

For several years, the Buzzards Bay NEP had been working on the Atlas of Stormwater Discharges in the Buzzards Bay Watershed. In 2003, we completed that effort and the report and companion CD were distributed to municipal boards and local libraries.

The 100+ page report includes maps of more than 2,600 stormwater discharges and more than 12,000 catch basins along the shores of nearly all of Buzzards Bay. (The City of New Bedford and the Elizabeth Island chain of Gosnold were not included in the study.) A hard copy of the report and a press were released in November 2003. Boards receiving the document and poster size maps included Boards of Selectmen, Departments of Public Works, Boards of Health, and Conservation Commissions.

Email us and request a free copy of the Stormwater Atlas on CD.

The Buzzards Bay NEP continues to update and revise the stormwater drainage and discharge GIS database, particularly through the Stormwater Mapping Collaborative with the Buzzards Bay Action Committee and New Bedford Voc Tech. The updated database will be posted on this page in early 2005.

Download Document Sections

[Click to open in your web browser (if capable), or right click to save to your computer. Graphics on these pdf files has been degraded to reduce file size. These CD contains the higher resolution pdf files. ]

Cover Letter from Secretary of Environmental Affairs Ellen Roy Herzfelder. (31 KB pdf file).

Entire report excluding maps in Appendixes. (3.7 MB pdf file, may take 30 minutes to download on dialup).

Appendix A. Prioritization Maps (2.3 MB pdf file, may take 20 minutes to download on dialup).

Appendix B Maps (Town Maps)

Click this Appendix B Map Download Page

ArcView (TM) Files

Arcview GIS files compressed in Bbpstormatlas.zip

Town-Wide and Bay-Wide Poster Maps

11x17 Discharge priority map, topographic map base (750 kb, right click to save to your hard drive)

Try this 34" x 42" discharge map with street names shown, only 600 kb.

With Adobe Acrobat Reader(TM) (available for free at the Adobe website), you should be able to blow up small sections of this map with streetnames, and just print that area on your printer.

Please email your comments to us about this page.

Background

Rainwater running off streets, parking lots, roofs, lawns, golf courses, agricultural land and other pervious and impervious areas carry contaminants into bays, rivers, and ponds. Some stormwater contaminants like bacteria, are forcing the closure of shellfish beds and sometimes the temporary closure of swimming beaches around Buzzards Bay. Most often, paved roads and parking lots that are connected to Buzzards Bay by drainpipes and road-cuts offer direct pathways for contaminants that were once isolated from the Bay.

This atlas is meant to inventory, in maps and tables, all known stormwater discharges pipes and road-cuts discharging to tidal waters in the Buzzards Bay basin. It also identifies all known contributing catch basins and surface areas for each of these stormwater discharges. Finally, based on drainage system size, available water quality data for discharges of stormwater and the receiving surface waters we attempt to establish priorities for remediation of stormwater based on water quality, stormwater drainage area land use, and shellfish resources.

Methods

Prioritization Methodology for Individual Discharges and Shellfish Resource Areas
The purpose of this report is to inventory stormwater discharges to Buzzards Bay and their contributing drainage area, and to help establish remediation priorities for based upon water quality, land use, estimated cost of remediation and potential benefit. To accomplish these goals, we have prioritized both individual stormwater discharges, and individual shellfish resource areas based upon a variety of parameters. To evaluate the shellfish resource areas and stormwater discharges, many common and somewhat overlapping data sets were used. In this report, the Designated Shellfish Growing Areas (DSGAs) employed by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) boundaries were used as the management unit for evaluating and scoring both resource areas and stormwater discharges.



Stormwater Discharge Prioritization To evaluate stormwater remediation sites, the following information was gathered for each discharge:

-number of catch basins in stormwater network
-length of stormwater collection system
-sewering of homes in drainage area
-Division of Marine Fisheries prioritization of existing shellfish resources
-estimated cost of remediation
-sensitivity of receiving waters to changes in pollution

Results

Summary of stormwater discharges, by town.

Town	pipe	road cut	total
Bourne	168	63	231
Dartmouth	255	168	423
Fairhaven	221	25	246
Falmouth	202	40	242
Marion	227	53	280
Mattapoisett	276	42	318
New Bedford	21	12	33
Wareham	592	118	710
Westport	80	55	135
GRAND TOTAL	2042	576	2618

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