Nantucket Tipping Point Urges Community To Comment On Nantucket And Madaket Harbors Action Plan

To the editor: Nantucket Tipping Point has submitted comments on the Nantucket and Madaket Harbors Action Plan. Written comments remain open until September 25, and I hope others will add their voices.

We support approval, provided the state’s decision does two things: updates the water-quality record and provides for continued PFAS work; and expressly retains the existing harbor licensing protections.

The Plan’s nitrogen figures stop at 2020, while the Town has published results through 2025. Some results are improving, but important monitoring stations remain above or very close to restoration targets. The Plan should explain those margins and what happens when targets are exceeded.

PFAS deserves attention beyond whether it is safe to swim. The Town detected PFAS at 13 of 21 surface-water sites across Nantucket. The study included sampling in both the Nantucket and Madaket Harbor areas, and PFAS was found at much higher concentrations in foam collected at Madaket Harbor and Sesachacha Pond.

The study offers reassurance about swimming: all surface-water results were below the state’s 20 ng/L guidance value for the eight PFAS covered by that guidance. But it does not settle questions about sources, groundwater movement, sediment, ecological effects, accumulation in fish and shellfish, or long-term exposure through several pathways.

Many people here are also concerned about cancer. Those concerns do not establish that Nantucket has a cancer cluster or that PFAS has caused cancer here. EPA nevertheless recognizes an association between exposure to certain PFAS and an increased risk of some cancers.

We have asked for a formal referral to MassDPH to review Massachusetts Cancer Registry data for Nantucket and determine whether further research, exposure assessment, or pilot biomonitoring is warranted. That is a request to examine the evidence, not a claim that the cause is known.

The state should also expressly retain protections for water-dependent uses and public access, along with restrictions on certain harbor facilities and new private docks and piers.

The Plan is available on the Town’s official page: Nantucket and Madaket Harbors Action Plan.

Our submitted letter and sources are at: https://nantuckettippingpoint.org/harbors-and-water-quality. Please read it if useful, then write a few sentences in your own words about what you want protected.

Send comments to stephen.mckenna@mass.gov by 5 p.m. Friday, September 25, 2026.

Will Willauer
President – Nantucket Tipping Point