Provenance

Sources

Every filing on this site is transcribed from a public MassDEP record. Where we are uncertain, the page says so.

Primary sources

• Watershed application table — MassDEP, snapshot dated 11 June 2026. Every filing, transmittal number and filing type on this site comes from it.
• 310 CMR 15.000 — Title 5 of the State Environmental Code, amended 7 July 2023 to add the Nitrogen Sensitive Area provisions.
• 314 CMR 21.00 — Watershed Permit Regulations.
• Nitrogen Sensitive Area address lookup — MassDEP's public map, which determines whether a property is inside a designated area.
• NSA disclosure template form — MassDEP, published in twelve languages.
• Implementation Q&A — MassDEP, source of the designation dates and the five-year window dates.

How this is maintained

The watershed application table changes as towns file and as MassDEP acts on applications. Transmittal numbers carry the filing year, so the record visibly moves. We re-check the table and date every page from the version we read.

What we do not know

• Whether any town is behind on the milestones in its approved schedule. This is the single most consequential unknown on the site: missed milestones can restart the upgrade clock.
• The Dennis / Herring River row carries no designation date in the source table.
• MassDEP states 31 designated watersheds; the table spells several of them more than one way, so any count depends on how variants are merged.

Corrections

If something here is wrong — particularly if you work for a Board of Health or a town's wastewater programme — tell us and we will fix it and say what changed.