NewEnglandFilm.com

For decades, nutrients from human waste have been seeping out of septic systems and into the groundwater. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus now threaten a majority of Cape Cod’s estuaries, endangering critical ecosystems, the shellfish industry, and tourism-reliant economies.

In revealing portraits of the people affected by nutrient pollution, THE WATERSHED brings this mostly-invisible problem into sharp focus. For shellfisherman John Perry, algae has choked out the once-abundant quahog habitat in his backyard estuary, putting his livelihood at risk. Emma Jo Mills is a Wampanoag artist who grew up eating fish from Santuit Pond. Thirty years later, the algae pollution is so bad she no longer can eat the fish and rarely ventures out to kayak.

With input from scientists, aquaculture experts, and local oyster farmers, this short documentary offers the natural filtering capacity of shellfish as a partial solution to the problem. But despite the promises of aquaculture, is it too much to ask Mother Nature to solve the problems of over-development?