The Falmouth, Mass., Nutrient Loading Project focuses on the presumption that housing density within the watersheds of fresh and coastal ponds is related to water quality. In the fall of 1982, the town began investigating the relationship between water quality and the extent to which septic systems, lawn fertilizers, and road drainage leached into water systems. The town was (and remains) reasonably convinced that water quality, both fresh and salt, is dramatically affected by the amount of nutrients entering the water from septic systems and other man-related sources. On this basis, the town devised a means of regulating the amount of nutrients entering the town's water systems vis-a-vis zoning and subdivision controls.