Just when it looks like we’re beginning to address nitrogen pollution — the driving factor behind Bay declines over the past 30 years — climate change is moving the goalpost and changing the Bay restoration landscape. Two factors that were not even recognized in the data when the Buzzards Bay Coalition started monitoring water quality are taking over as the greatest drivers of Bay decline — warmer water and rising sea levels. Warmer water in the Bay — up 4 degrees Fahrenheit since the mid-1990s — now allows bacteria to

persist longer leading to shellfish bed and beach closures, and extends the season of biological activity in the Bay encouraging algae to bloom on lower levels of nitrogen. In effect, we need to remove more nitrogen in a warmer Bay to see the same water quality improvements. And rising sea levels are proving to be the Achilles heel of the Bay’s vital salt marshes, which are eroding and drowning under higher tides and higher base sea levels. Buttonwood Brook, the primary headwater stream for Apponagansett Bay also faces climate-related challenges linked to habitat degradation, increases in annual precipitation, warmer temperatures, and higher volumes of contaminated stormwater runoff.