Protecting Our Water is Personal

Cape Cod is shaped by its waters. They define how we live, how we work, how we raise our families, and how we understand home.

For me, water is not an abstract policy issue. It’s a part of my life.

I learned to swim right here. I grew up on and around these beaches, ponds, bays, marshes, and harbors. My mother and father built our lives close to the water, and like so many people who call this place home, I learned that our water gives us a lot, but it also asks of us.

It asks us to pay attention. It asks us to take responsibility. It asks us to protect it before the damage becomes impossible to fix.

That is why clean water has been central to my work in local government and why it will remain one of my utmost priorities as State Representative.

As Chair of the Dennis Select Board, I have worked directly on the decisions that matter most to the future of our water quality. Wastewater planning, nitrogen reduction, coastal resiliency, shellfish protection, pond health, and responsible growth are not separate issues on Cape Cod. They are all connected. Clean water does not stop at town lines or borders. What happens in our aquifer affects all of us. On Cape Cod, clean water is not something people need explained to them. We live beside it, work on it, swim in it, and understand exactly what is at stake.

This is the reality of environmental policy on the Cape.

Clean water supports our economy, property values, tourism, shellfishing, commercial fishing, and our quality of life. It also supports something harder to measure but just as important: the trust that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy the same water we were lucky enough to inherit.

That kind of trust has to be earned with action.

Our communities have already had to confront the hard choices that come with wastewater investment. These projects are complicated and costly, but the cost of doing nothing is far greater. Dirty water is not free. Closed beaches are not free. Lost shellfishing areas are not free. Declining ponds and bays are not free. Eventually, these bills will come due.

The Commonwealth needs to be a steady partner to the Cape in this work. Towns cannot be asked to solve regional environmental infrastructure challenges alone. Local taxpayers need relief. Homeowners need fairness. Municipal leaders need state support that matches the scale of the problem.

That means fighting for wastewater funding, clean water grants, and smarter regional planning. It means treating coastal resiliency as vital infrastructure, not optional environmental projects. It means protecting wetlands, dunes, marshes, herring runs, and shellfish habitat because those natural systems help protect us. It means confronting forever chemicals with testing, transparency, and funding so families know their drinking water is safe. It also means standing firm against any attempt to treat Cape Cod Bay as a disposal site for radioactive waste.

Cape Cod’s water is too important, and my commitment is simple and inherent.

The Cape’s clean water will not be treated as someone else’s issue. Not by this state. Not by regulators. Not by corporations. Not by people who enjoy the benefits of this place but do not understand the burden our community carries to protect it. And certainly not by me!

Our water is part of my responsibility, and protecting it is part of my job and my life.