The project proposed a somewhat unique partnership between citizens, town officials, environmental managers, and a research laboratory. The project was designed to provide the Town of Falmouth with an ongoing, comprehensive database of water quality conditions in the ponds in preparation for the Coastal Pond Overlay Bylaw, which went into effect the following year. The bylaw specifies annual mean threshold values for total nitrogen concentrations in Falmouth's coastal ponds to protect them from declines that result from increasing nutrient inputs caused by development. With financial support from the Town and the WHOI Sea Grant Program, the project was off to a start, but the issue of volunteers to conduct the sampling remained unanswered. The project organizers appealed to the citizens of Falmouth for help through newspaper articles, radio and television.
Volunteers range in age from high school students to retirees.
Because of the large number of volunteers, simultaneous sampling is conducted at 34 stations on each sampling date. This provides data collected under the same conditions of weather and tide, critical to making system to system or station to station comparisons. Training is held each year, prior to the start of the sampling season. At these sessions, volunteers are briefed on the ecology of the ponds and potential changes they might see, issued sampling kits, and told of the goals of the sampling program. Additional water samples are collected and taken to the laboratory for more in-depth testing.