Fighting the Good Fight
APPC’s Roots Run Deep
After fifty years, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod has established itself as the reigning environmental champion for the region, working for the adoption of laws, policies and programs that protect and enhance Cape Cod’s natural resources and quality of life. APCC’s reach ranges from large-scale issues such as offshore drilling, to educating the public on the benefits of native plants, and their influence continues to fill a vital role on Cape Cod.
The APCC was founded September 26, 1968 in the kitchen of Dr. Herb Whitlock, amidst the country’s New Environmentalism movement. A retired chemist and Eastham resident, Whitlock and sixteen Cape citizens organized the APCC in protest of the Army Corps of Engineers proposal to dredge a deep-water port that would provide refuge for freighters and tankers in Nauset Marsh by way of a bridge over a break in the outer beach. They successfully halted the project, and the Association continued to advocate for the Cape’s vulnerable and unique habitat through science-based credibility.
By the 1970s, the APCC had expanded its outreach to the restoration and preservation of Wellfleet’s herring population and began studying groundwater flow in response to stressors such as wastewater discharge. APCC helped accredit the identification of Cape Cod as a sole-source aquifer after the creation of the Cape Cod Commission Act in 1990. “There was a real need for a cohesive regional planning agency,” says Assistant Director Don Keeran. In 1999, the Association spearheaded the Cape Cod Land Bank, which allows all fifteen Cape towns to acquire land to use for water protection and recreational use. Within the last decade, APCC assembled thirty-six organizations from Cape Cod that collectively outlined the Cape Cod Environmental Summit Statement, a declaration in support of prompt wastewater regulation on a state and local level.
The non-profit continues to support Cape Cod’s autonomy against institutional forces like corporate industry and government bureaucracy, including by identifying the waterways surrounding the Cape as a no-discharge area for boat sewage, and legislative efforts in opposition to offshore drilling. The APCC’s Restoration Coordination Center (RCC) was created three years ago and it highlights how wetlands, salt marshes and coastal resources have been degraded over the years, and that, in addition to losing the natural values function around species diversity and habitat, this also leaves the Cape more vulnerable to the effects of climate change and storm frequency.
Executive Director Andrew Gottlieb says the RCC was created to provide the technical assistance to other non-profit partners and towns to figure out where and how resource restoration can be used to both provide habitat value and be a shock absorber for storm intensity. “We’ve been working on a number of projects over the last three years that have enabled us to become known as a go-to place for communities looking for technical help,” says Gottlieb. A resource, Gottlieb says, that is hard to acquire because it’s not traditionally a municipal function.
Most recently, Gottlieb has been involved in the passage of the Cape Cod Water Protection Trust. The Trust would provide a source of money from off-Cape to help towns manage wastewater and infrastructure. “We’re thinking it’s potentially worth upwards of a billion dollars over a fifty-year period,” says Gottlieb.
APCC’s influence has also promoted the responsible stewardship of open land. In 2007, APCC took inventory of the agricultural land use on the Cape. Keeran says, “What we found was not surprising, but still alarming. We’ve essentially lost much of our prime agricultural soil, which was historically at a premium anyway, based on our soil structure. Agriculture and farming is another form of open space on the Cape, and part of the cultural heritage, but also an open space value on the Cape that we’re losing more and more every year. We wanted to bring to light the demise of farm use on the Cape and promote the idea that we need to save farms just as much as water or wetlands.”
The Association promoted the return of Sandwich’s Windstar Farms to agricultural use per a recent court order, and Keeran says the APCC was happy to hear the decision. “In the past decade there’s been much more awareness of local, homegrown produce and farmers’ markets. Sustainable landscapes advance that conversation because people are talking more about how you can better steward your own property and be responsible. Those things are encouraging.”
Kristin Andres, APCC’s Director of Outreach and Education, says the organization’s vision of responsible land stewardship is key to set the example for sustainability and connectivity. “We really believe in living what we preach,” she says. “We often think nature is somewhere else. It’s in a park down the road, it’s in the wild area that a land trust purchased, and while that’s all true, it’s also in the area where we live.” Andres, who has a degree in wildlife biology and has worked as a conservation agent for the Town of Chatham, creates events and programming that engages membership participation.
Educational opportunities with organizations throughout the Cape, notably the “Gardening for Life” series through the Museum of Natural History, encourage native landscapes, nowhere more visible than on APCC’s East Dennis headquarters. Native plants and grasses, Andres says, are essential to the soil health of the region because their root structures can grow up to fifty feet in length, as opposed to exotic plants that might grow a half inch or so.
“One of the things we talk about with the native plant initiative is the real need to reduce the chemical input into the ground, because fertilizers and pesticides have no place on such a fragile environment,” says Andres. She plans to reduce as much lawn as possible on APCC’s property, which includes a rain garden—a depressed area of land that captures roof runoff—and two raised-bed vegetable gardens, both contained by a repurposed downed tree. The parking area is porous pave comprised of recycled tires with an adhesive layer on twelve inches of compacted stone. Storm water absorbs through the surface and is able to infiltrate through the stone. “What we should be doing is allow the rainwater to soak in the ground where it falls instead of what we traditionally do which is divert it into a wetland,” explains Andres.
Both vegetable gardens are enriched by local compost bought from Cape Save, a local weatherization company. Plantings include radishes, Egyptian onions, tomatoes, purple basil, and beans that wrap around repurposed invasive bittersweet vines. APCC hopes the grounds, which were acquired in 2016 and are known as the Living Landscape Laboratory, can set the example for ecological land care. They’ve hosted workshops on site that promote the responsible use of lawns and garden spaces, including techniques like solarization and using composted mulch over cardboard to grow new soil. Andres hopes to promote the idea that native plants and insect-populated gardens are a positive addition to the environment, and to encourage homeowners to move away from fertilization, irrigation and landscapes dotted with plants that have no wildlife or insect value. “They’re what help transform the energy for the rest of us, and we really enjoy the fact that our landscape is alive with all types of creatures,” says Andres.
Future plans for APCC’s acreage include an additional rain garden for another downspout on the north corner of the building, a “green roof ” composed of plants that soak up rainwater and regulate building temperatures, and composting toilets. The large barn in the back of the property will become an education space where up to forty people can listen to lectures about pollinators like the Monarch butterfly, or take part in hands-on gardening workshops. Soon, Andres, the APCC’s science department and Gottlieb will begin their lecture series on freshwater pond health and harmful algal blooms after their second year of monitoring pond health for the town of Brewster and in partnership with Friends of Chatham Waterways.
APCC insists they’ll remain steadfast in championing for the Cape’s future generations, including the promotion of green infrastructure for departments of public works and contractors that will prove advantageous to the Cape’s economic health. “We’ve spent fifty years fighting the fight that other people don’t have the time to fight and we’re looking to expand our reach so we can do that successfully for the next fifty years,” says Gottlieb. Sometimes, he says, legislative or policy advancement may make the news, and at other times the conversation can be continued with gentle nudges. But mostly, their commitment to the Cape’s future is rooted in modest appreciation. “People see our work every day whether they know it or not. So it’s always great when we get the headlines but even when we don’t, we know that we’re helping every day, everywhere, on the Cape.”
