Falmouth Board Of Health Criticizes State's Proposal For Cleaning Up Town Estuaries

One choice involves having all septic system owners install innovative/alternative systems, or I/As, within five years. I/As are wastewater treatment systems, like septic systems, but include technology that helps filter out nitrogen before it can get to the groundwater.

If the town chooses this option, Health Agent Scott McGann said, “you’re looking at about 15,000 or so I/A systems going in within the next five or so years.”

The other option is the town taking out watershed permits for each of its estuaries. Each watershed permit would lay out plans for reducing nitrogen pollution by at least 75 percent in that particular watershed, whether that be through sewering, I/As, or other methods. Because a watershed permit is “a legal, enforceable document,” board member George Heufelder said, the plans laid out in the permit would need to be executed within 20 years.

Each of Cape Cod’s 30 watersheds requires its own individual permit. Fourteen of those watersheds are in Falmouth.

“It’s a pretty big lift for a town,” Mr. Heufelder said.

“They have a whole description of what a watershed permit has to include and it really is comprehensive. I can’t imagine the town being able to do it right away,” Mr. Heufelder said. He explained that towns can give MassDEP a notice of intent to apply for these permits, but that only gives them another two years.

The main problem with the watershed permit option is that there is no funding source laid out in the proposal, board member Kevin Kroeger said.

“I don’t think anybody’s against the idea of cleaning up the estuaries,” he said. “The reason it’s going slowly is because of funding limitations. So we just need to tell them that we’re on board with remediating the eutrophication problem, but we need a funding source.”

While the watershed permit option would cost the town millions, the I/As option would not cost the town anything, board member Benjamin Van Mooy said. This is because the people of Falmouth would be paying for their own household I/As.

“Don’t we have an obligation to protect folks from incurring the cost of [I/A] compliance?” he said.

The I/As option under the proposed changes specifies that homeowners put in I/As that have the “best available nitrogen-reducing technology,” as not all I/As are equally effective at removing nitrogen. However, MassDEP data on I/A efficacy is lacking, Mr. Heufelder said.

“It’s so vague when they say ‘the best performing system.’ I mean, they don’t know what the best performing system is,” Mr. Heufelder said.

Chairwoman Diana Molloy agreed.

“If you’re going to put in the I/A, what’s the point if it’s not one that’s going to perform?” Ms. Molloy asked.

Board member John Waterbury added that the town has no way of monitoring roughly 15,000 I/As to see if they are effectively removing nitrogen.

“We have trouble managing one major treatment plant. It’s the same microbiology as these 15,000 little individual plants we’re going to have to manage,” Mr. Waterbury said. “There’s no way in hell that towns can do that.”

Given all these points, Mr. Kroeger said that the I/As option was overall “not workable.”

Mr. McGann expressed concern that the MassDEP was offering an option that it knew was not going to fix the nitrogen problem.

“If DEP is giving you the option to put [I/A] systems in, then how concerned are they about the ponds?” he asked. “Because they know deep down inside they can’t get there from here.”

Mr. McGann explained that though there is new I/A technology being piloted that “looks very promising,” the new design has “not been scaled into the thousands and thousands that will be needed.”

Mr. McGann argued that if MassDEP was actually concerned about nitrogen levels in the ponds, the I/A option would not be offered to towns until the technology was further developed.

In response, Mr. Heufelder said he thought the I/A option was there to push towns to get the watershed permits. He explained that the MassDEP could not put forth an unfunded mandate that the towns acquire and execute these watershed permits, which is why they offered the I/A choice.

“It was, I think, perhaps a haphazard way to do it, but I think they’re just responding to a lot of pressure that things aren’t moving fast enough,” Mr. Heufelder said.

The Conservation Law Foundation brought a lawsuit against the MassDEP for failure to protect coastal waters in 2021, according to a WBUR article.

The board of health will submit comments on the proposed changes to Title 5 based on its November 7 discussion before the comment period closes on November 29.