While Wareham has a “legal obligation” to comply with a recent set of nitrogen limits imposed by the state, those limits don’t require the town to take any action at present. 

That was the message from Marc Drainville, a consultant with the firm GHD, to the Sewer Commissioners in a meeting of Thursday, July 11. 

The town is already “on a path to complying” with the state’s limits, Drainville told the commission. 

The limits come from a set of Total Maximum Daily Levels on the amount of nitrogen which can enter Wareham’s waterways, a set of regulations which the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection released in June. 

Excess nitrogen — a chemical released from septic systems, agricultural fertilizers, wastewater treatment plants and more — has caused damage to the waters in Buzzards Bay and in Wareham. The state’s limits are an attempt to reverse that damage. 

Wareham residents had concerns during the process of setting the limits that it would force individual citizens of the town to upgrade their septic systems. 

A separate set of regulations enacted in 2023 forced Cape Cod residents to expand their sewer lines or upgrade their septic systems; the concern was that would happen in Wareham as well. 

That’s not the case, according to Drainville. While the Total Maximum Day Limits make the town “legally responsible” for its nitrogen emissions, they don’t impose a mandatory schedule for septic system upgrades like the Cape Cod regulations do, he said. 

“At this point, really all you need to do is show progress, which you are doing,” he said.