Green Pond, Bournes Pond, and Eel Pond in East Falmouth

A week after a day-long symposium on the potential for outfall pipes to handle the Cape’s wastewater problem, I’ve finally figured out what’s been bothering me.

It seems that wastewater managers and engineers, in their infinite wisdom, operate according to the “if it can be complicated, why make it simple?” ethic.

The speakers at the ocean outfall forum did not mince words: it would take no less than an amendment to three state acts protecting marine resources—not to mention, years of study and millions of dollars— for an outfall pipe to be constructed on these shores.

They were less candid about the probable impacts on the environment— and were subtle about the whole reason for entertaining the idea of an ocean outfall: it’s cheaper than the only other “approved” method of disposing of wastewater.

Having attended my fair share of conferences, symposia, summits, and forums on wastewater, it seems that there are two distinct schools of thought on the issue. Some play by the rules, insisting there is no way to serve an entire municipality with anything other than sewers and wastewater treatment plants. Others push for “alternatives” such as composting toilets and shellfish aquaculture— options that seem outside the box until you realize that’s the way humans have been disposing of their “waste” for millenia.

An important difference between these two schools of thought is the attention and resources given to the “big pipe” option, while grassroots groups are left to their own devices to promote eco-toilets or aquaculture. Kudos to the Falmouth wastewater committee (CWMP-RC for short!) for opening their minds and supporting a successful town meeting article to give sewering alternatives adequate study— while the taxpayer-funded report by the engineering firm Stearns & Wheler did not.

Known unknowns

An ocean outfall off of New Jersey (courtesy World News Network)

Popular in places where sanitation services are lacking, outfall pipes have fallen out of favor around the globe. Speaking on “possible environmental impacts,” Batelle scientist Carlton Hunt pointed out that the effects of putting semi-treated wastewater into our precious ocean are pretty much unknown.

Think about what products you use in the shower, the kitchen, the laundry room. Would you want to swim in it or eat it later on the half shell? What about road runoff that flows into storm drains?

Dr. Hunt also pointed out the anti-microbial nanotechnology that is appearing in everything from hand sanitizers to socks. David Dow, of the Cape & Islands Sierra Club chapter, pointed out that the byproducts of pharmaceuticals and personal care products are known to cause reproductive problems in fresh-water fish and amphibians. Studies have shown these contaminants of emerging concern in most of the country’s drinking water supply. What will they do in the ocean? We simply don’t know.

We also don’t really know what pumping precious drinking water into our toilets and sinks, and back across town for treatment will do to the water table— or to our municipal energy bills. We may not be water-poor on Cape Cod, but as the Dr. Hunt pointed out, we don’t know what to expect with climate change. Is it wise to build energy-intensive infrastructure in this age of sea level rise and uncertain weather patterns? How many more wind turbines will we need to handle the additional energy demand? (and how will nearby residents feel about that?!)

A truly holistic approach

Nate Weeks of Stearns & Wheler-GHD, with Dale Saad of the Barnstable DPW and Paul Niedzwiecki of the Cape Cod Commission.

There are essentially two reasons for considering an ocean outfall: the wastewater need not be treated to a point where it’s basically drinkable (through reverse osmosis)and town-owned land resources for groundwater discharge are dwindling.  Finding a suitable discharge site is complicated by the need to avoid putting nutrients back into the ground, which would require sewering the discharge area.

All these problems add up to one thing: groundwater discharge will be expensive.

One of the main messages from the panelists is that we need a “holistic approach” to solving our wastewater problem.

For hydrologists, that means recharging the treated wastewater into the groundwater or for irrigation. For Paul Niedzwiecki, director of the Cape Cod Commission, “holistic” means we need to collaborate as a region, rather than as individual towns. For Nate Weeks, of Stearns & Wheler-GHD, the term means we need to consider all the big-pipe options, no matter the regulatory obstacle course. For residents advocating for eco-toilets, aquaculture, and inlet widening, the answer lies in using our unused nutrients as compost and fish food, removing the “waste” from the wastewater equation.

It could be that being truly holistic means trying all these approaches, but in the end, decisions will have to be made. Why not make it simple, if we can avoid the complications?

Are we flushing money down the toilet?

As someone who goes to a fair share of wastewater-related meetings, I wasn’t expecting to be blown away at last weekend’s Eco-Toilet Summit.

On a conceptual level, I felt I already understood the basics of composting human waste— hey, I do it every day with food scraps.

Adding one step through my digestive system to my garden seemed to make sense… from a theoretical point of view.

But after hearing about the range of eco-toilet options available, and a variety of perspectives from regular residents, the theoretical became possible.

What stopped making sense is the way we use—and view—the bathroom.

Saturday’s Eco-Toilet Summit was a one-stop shop for those interested in reducing household water use and recovering nutrients from our excretia to make fertilizer to grow food.

A mid-size Phoenix composting toilet

Curious residents flocked to the shrines of ecological design—a large blue Phoenix composting toilet, the Ecovita’s familiar white bowl with a tiny hole for urine diversion, and the diminutive, portable Pacto toilet—and took advantage of the friendly sales representatives to ask questions:

How do they work? Does it smell? How much would it cost to install?

Sponsored by a coalition of grassroots environmental groups, the afternoon was dedicated to learning more about modern ecological approaches to dealing with an age-old problem: how and where to dispose of our waste?

That is the $600 million question, as Falmouth considers ways to clean up decades of nitrogen loading to sensitive coastal embayments, and one which the summit’s sponsors hope can be answered with alternatives to centralized sewering.

I know. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. But for anyone who poops and pees, it might be worth it to hold your nose and pay attention.

Eco-logical justice

The go-to solution for the past several decades has been centralized sewering, which collects sewage, storm water, and graywater (laundry, shower, and dish water) in a network of underground pipes for treatment and eventual release back into the groundwater.

I won’t get into all the pro’s and con’s of sewering here, suffice to say that there are two factions of environmentalists doing battle in town: biologists who favor sewers as a proven way to keep nutrients out of the groundwater; and ecologists who view the cycle of nutrients as a “closed-loop” system and favor composting to pump n’ treat.

It’s a fascinating chapter in environmental history, as we discover how we are all responsible for the decline of eel grass and shellfish in our beloved harbors.

The debate also takes on an environmental justice perspective, as one considers the economic cost-benefits of sewering vs. composting or diverting our waste.

Eco-toilet panelists Abe Noe (Phoenix), Carol Steinfeld (Ecovita), Hilde Maingay (the Green Center) and former state rep Matt Patrick

For eco-toilet advocates, the solution to nutrient management lies in closing the loop between waste and resources.

With urine-diverting and composting toilets, the waste products are collected and pumped out roughly every six months, depending on the size of the household. With a compacting toilet, waste is packaged neatly into a plastic or biodegradable bag, which can be collected for compost or thrown out weekly with the garbage, just like regular diapers.

Storage from six months (for urine) to two years (for solids) removes pathogens from the waste, a process that may also break down pharmaceuticals and contaminants of concern.

A composting toilet or urine-diverting system takes advantage of biological processes to break down the nutrients in urine and feces to create potent fertilizer and carbon-rich humus, said Don Mills, a sales manager for the Lawrence-based compost toilet vendor Clivus Multrum.

A conventional wastewater treatment system uses the same process, but combines household waste with stormwater, requiring enormous amounts of energy to pump and adding heavy metals and pollutants to the mix.

Earle Barnhart, whose Green Center organization was the primary sponsor of the summit, noted that treating human waste as a resource could lead to the development of new industries. Whether collected and processed on-site or elsewhere, the compost and fertilizer could be sold and used to grow organic produce, he said.

Dollars and sense

For former state representative Matt  Patrick, the eco-toilet alternative would save residents millions in betterments and taxes to finance the sewer system. Going the sewer route, he warned, could force middle- and low-income residents to leave town.

I don’t think any of us want to live in a community that’s all wealthy, where middle class and low-income families can’t afford to live. But that might be one of the outcomes if we press forward with a conventional sewer system.

-Matt Patrick

According to Mr. Patrick, installing two urine diverting toilets in every home in the south coast watershed would amount to just 10% of the cost of sewering those neighborhoods.

(2 UD toilets + 2 UD urinals @ $1,500-$3,000/home)                    x 8,000 homes = $12-24 million

+ $175/year pump-out  x 8,000 homes = $1.4 million

x 10 years= $14 million

Grand total cost for 10 years installation & maintenance:

$26-38 million.

Not only would about 80 percent of the nitrogen currently leaching from septics be stopped in its tracks, but local plumbers and waste service industries would be employed by this system, Mr. Patrick said.

The cost for each alternative system varies depending on household needs, but the vendors estimated about $1,000 for a micro-flush urine-diverting toilet; about $1,100 for a compacting toilet, plus $200 a year for disposable bags; and up to $6,000 for a large composting toilet, not including installation and maintenance.

A three- to 12-watt fan is required to remove odors from the composting system, but Mr. Patrick noted that the electricity cost for such a system is less than one energy-saving light bulb.

The Falmouth precedent

One of the recurring questions from the audience was whether this innovative method of handling waste had been done elsewhere.

Mr. Patrick said that UD toilets are popular in Sweden. Don Mills of Clivus Multrum pointed out that Europeans, Americans, and Asians only stopped using “night soil” as fertilizer in the last century.

I might add that Africans are also composting their waste, providing low-cost sanitation as well as bananas, a source of food and income.

Hilde Maingay, of The Green Center, makes the case for eco-toilets as a means of achieving social justice

Faced with an almost overwhelming dilemma, Falmouth has a unique opportunity to set a precedent among coastal communities. Yes, it is scary to be the guinea pig—but how appropriate, given our world-renowned science community and ecological pioneer residents.

Money is relative to social justice and long-term stability. [Eco-toilets] could add more stability to communities and make them more socially just.

-Hilde Maingay, the Green Center

The Eco-Toilet Summit organizers are not expecting anyone to just take their word for it, however.

They are hoping for a study of these alternative systems, including an energy-use cost-comparison with a conventional system and the regulatory mechanism by which residents could install (and maybe even get loans for) an eco-toilet system of their choice.

The cost-benefit

Mr. Patrick is in favor of urine-diverting toilets, which sequester the high nitrogen content in urine while using small amounts of water to flush feces into a septic system.

He’s a fan because of the relatively low cost and high nutrient recovery. Given that the system only needs to be pumped periodically, the maintenance requirements are also pretty low.

Composting toilets are already approved by the Department of Environmental Protection and are widely used in Massachusetts, but urine-diverting toilets have yet to go through the permitting process.

While the jury is still out as to whether composting waste will remove the pharmaceuticals and other harmful chemicals, eco-toilet proponents make a good point that it is better to remove those “contaminants of concern” from the waste stream altogether, rather than combine them for centralized treatment.

Currently, most wastewater treatment plants lack the technology to remove the aspirin, caffeine, hormones, and pesticides from effluent anyway.

Even with an eco-toilet, septic systems would still be required to handle the household laundry, bathing, and dishwater, also known as graywater. The pollutants associated with those systems would not be addressed by an alternative toilet system either.

I’ve written at length about UD toilets, composting and compacting systems elsewhere on Under the Lens, so please click here if you are interested in the details.

Footnote: it’s in the report

For further reading, it’s interesting to note that Stearns & Wheler, the engineering design firm that developed a draft of Falmouth’s comprehensive wastewater management system, devoted a few pages to “waterless toilets” and UD systems in its 454-page report.

a. Wastewater flows and loads are reduced if properly designed and installed.

b. Water consumption is significantly reduced.

c. Minimal environmental concerns occur when properly sited and designed.

d. Composting toilets require minimal energy use.

e. Size of standard septic system can be reduced to treat only gray wastewater.

f. Routine maintenance is minimal and requires no special training.

As for urine diverting toilets, Stearns & Wheler lists the advantages:

a. Water consumption is reduced.
b. Minimal environmental concerns occur when properly sited and designed.
c. The nutrients in the urine could be positively recirculated in the environment by use as fertilizers.
d. The technology could decrease the nutrient removal costs associated with wastewater (less the urine component) at the WWTF.

Urine source separation toilets have the following disadvantages, according to Stearns & Wheler.

a. Existing biological and chemical technologies at WWTFs are not sufficient to treat concentrated urine. Additional facilities would need to be designed and constructed.
b. Homeowner renovation costs would include new toilets, plumbing, and urine storage facilities. Urine separating toilets are likely to be costly and lack decorative design options which may decrease homeowner acceptance.
c. Increased homeowner disposal hauling costs associated with two separate collection systems.
d. Septage hauling trucks may need retrofitted equipment to properly handle concentrated urine.
e. Technology works correctly with proper use. Proper use is limited to sitting on the toilet, meaning behavior modification for males.
f. Technology works correctly with proper maintenance, which includes removing urine scale that can block pipes over time and using certain cleaning agents which would not contaminate the collection tank.
g. Human urine use as an agricultural fertilizer may not be socially acceptable.
h. Not well suited to high seasonal community and tourist population.

A typical urine-diverting toilet collects solid and liquid waste, which could be processed into fertilizer, removing nitrogen from the waste stream

Considering that we all flush at least three times a day, it’s surprising how little we know about where our waste goes. Into a white bowl and then down a pipe— never to be seen, smelled, or thought of again.

But as many Cape Codders are beginning to realize, that’s not really the case. The by-products of our waste are seeping out of underground septic systems and into the groundwater, flowing finally into coastal ponds. The nutrients are harmless by themselves, but in concentrated form, throw off the ecological balance of sensitive estuarine systems.

Though there are many nutrients and “contaminants of concern” to be worried about, nitrogen is known as the culprit for changing pristine harbors into algae-filled swamps, devoid of marine life. Or so we fear.

Last night, Falmouth selectmen approved a town-wide comprehensive wastewater management plan (CWMP), developed over the course of several months last year by a panel of community members. It calls for over $300 million to install a sewer system in the neighborhoods south of Route 28 from Little Pond to Seapit Peninsula. Millions more are expected to sewer the next phases north of Route 28.

The CWMP committee and selectmen also set aside funding for the study of alternatives to sewering, which could lower the overall cost of the plan.

Several of these options were covered in a forum held earlier this month at the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (WBNERR), in which four experts in various areas of wastewater treatment delivered “The Scoop on the Poop” from the perspective of traditional sewer systems, alternative systems, shellfish aquaculture, and coastal engineering.

It’s not as complicated as it sounds. In fact, it should be taught in grade schools.

The big pipe method

Falmouth's wastewater treatment plant on Blacksmith Shop Road is one of just five such facilities on Cape Cod

Michael Giggey, the senior vice president of Wright-Pierce, an engineering and consulting firm, started off the evening with an overview of the municipal treatment options, from individual “on-site” systems to cluster and satellite systems to centralized wastewater treatment facilities.

As an advisor to the Town of Orleans on its comprehensive wastewater management plan and an islandwide wastewater plan on Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. Giggey noted that each watershed has different needs, which can be met through a combination of technologies.

The simplest option, he pointed out, is to simply eliminate the main controllable source of nitrogen pollution by removing enough septic tanks to meet the TMDL and connecting those homes to a sewer system, discharging the treated effluent outside the watershed.

However, across the Cape, that strategy has proven to not be so simple, and certainly is not cheap.

In Falmouth alone, the cost of sewering homes south of Route 28 from Little Pond to Seapit Peninsula is expected to cost $310 million for the first two phases, to be paid for by a combination of taxes and homeowner betterments. Across the Cape and Islands, these figures add up to billions.

In a report compiled last April by the Barnstable County Wastewater Cost Task Force, the study found the most important factor when choosing a wastewater treatment strategy is the amount of nitrogen that each system can remove per dollar spent. Centralized wastewater treatment facilities can reduce nitrogen down to 3 milligrams per liter, whereas effluent from on-site denitrifying systems ranges from 10 to 19 mg/L, Mr. Giggey said.

Though sewer mains and wastewater treatment facilities require a large amount of capital up front, the task force found that operation and maintenance costs for a centralized sewer system were far lower than on-site denitrifying systems, cluster, or satellite systems.

“It’s not just about cost, but cost-effectiveness,” said Mr. Giggey, who served on the task force. “It would seem the most cost-effective option is with the larger systems.”

David Dow, president of the Cape and Islands chapter of the Sierra Club, asked Mr. Giggey whether wastewater managers on Cape Cod have had any experience with removing “contaminants of concern” from effluent. These chemicals are the byproducts of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and detergents that most wastewater systems do not treat, or even monitor.

“Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of local experience. We’re just now getting our arms around what nitrogen does. Contaminants of concern are not just one compound, it’s thousands,” Mr. Giggey said.

Innovative & Alternative systems

The British-designed "Loowatt" toilet was originally built with the waste disposal needs of developing countries in mind.

Also serving on the task force was panelist George Heufelder, director of the Barnstable County Department of Health and the Environment, who established the Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center at the Massachusetts Military Reservation in 1999.

Mr. Heufelder noted that every wastewater treatment option works on basically the same principle: to “manipulate the nitrogen cycle inside a black box.” Though some methods are more efficient than others, the basic idea is to break down nitrates into nitrogen gas, a major component of the air we breathe.

In over a decade of testing, Mr. Heufelder found that innovative and alternative (I/A) systems “remove about 50 percent of the nitrogen 70 percent of the time.”

Emerging membrane technologies, such as the Nitrex, is capable of removing 90 percent of nitrogen from groundwater. The Nitrex, which Mr. Heufelder referred to as “a box of proprietary cellulose material, otherwise known as wood chips,” and other membrane systems are also becoming cheaper and easier to maintain.

A composting toilet: the only difference is the pipe

Another affordable and effective option for individual homeowners is the composting toilet, which Mr. Heufelder noted has an added benefit of separating toilet waste from graywater—the shower, sink, and dishwasher water that usually goes down the drain.

In an earlier comment from North Falmouth resident Alison Robb about the need to keep drinking water from becoming wastewater, Mr. Heufeulder agreed that the tradition of defecating into potable water “is lunacy, but we do it.”

However, he said it would probably require “mass hypnosis” to get every resident to install a composting toilet and never put kitchen scraps or chemicals down the drain. Even if Town Meeting members bought into composting toilets as a nitrogen management strategy, the Department of Environmental Protection would need a way to ensure its regulations were being met, he said.

“It’s trust and verify. Not everyone’s composting nicely in the back yard. There will be some nitrogen [in the system], and we need to know what it is,” said Mr. Heufelder.

The Eco-flush urine diverting toilet can remove 90% of the nitrogen from human waste, using 80% less water than a traditional toilet

Another innovative home nitrogen removal method on the market is the urine-diverting toilet, which was on display at WBNERR, thanks to Conrad Geyser, president of Cotuit Solar.

Though Mr. Heufelder admitted that he and other men might have a problem sitting down to use the toilet, he said one day the market for phosphorus and nitrogen would put a premium on mankind’s most abundant waste product.

Because urine contains up to 90 percent of the nitrogen and 50 percent of the phosphorus in domestic wastewater, separating and collecting it is also a simple way to prevent nutrients from reaching the groundwater.

“I envision a day when someone comes to your door to write you a check for good-quality urine,” Mr. Heufelder said, estimating that there is a total of 150 more years of phosphorus left in traditional mines.

Mr. Heufelder noted that membrane systems can be “a little power hungry,” using five to eight kilowatt hours per day in a typical home. However, the Nitrex makes use of a trickling system with lower energy use, he said.

There are other costs associated with on-site systems that should be factored into their overall costs, said Mr. Heufelder, estimating that one full-time employee would be required for every 1,500 on-site systems to ensure they meet environmental standards.

Furthermore, homeowners are required by regulations to have a maintenance contract for their on-site system, and any residual waste would have to be disposed or converted into fertilizer by a private company, he said.

“I cannot imagine DEP allowing composting or urine-diverting toilets unless the residuals leave the watershed completely,” he said.

The shellfish solution

The Sippewissett oyster, a product of local aquaculture efforts

While town officials and residents tend to focus on technical solutions for wastewater treatment, local scientists are turning to Mother Nature to help reduce the nitrogen load.

Diane Murphy, an aquaculture and fisheries specialist for the WHOI Sea Grant and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, gave an overview of the potential for shellfish aquaculture to remove nitrogen from sensitive coastal embayments.

While shellfish are becoming more accepted as a method for meeting total maximum nitrogen loads (TMDLs), Ms. Murphy emphasized that aquaculture should not be considered the only solution for reducing nitrogen loads.

“Oysters can serve a crucial role in the uptake of nitrogen. Aquaculture should not be the sole source, but should be integrated into a nitrogen management plan,” she said.

Acting as grazers on the sea floor, oysters and other shellfish consume the phytoplankton that tend to grow in the presence of elevated nitrogen levels. The more food there is, the more the oysters grow.

Though there are conflicting reports on how much water oysters are capable of filtering each day, the accepted number is about 20 gallons per day, Ms. Murphy said. Studies have found that a market-size oyster can sequester an average of 0.52 grams of nitrogen and 0.16 grams of phosphorus over its lifetime.

When harvested, all that nitrogen is removed from the ecosystem “free of charge,” she said.

Based on a study of the 2006 oyster harvest in Wellfleet, Ms. Murphy said that 20,000 bushels of oysters can assimilate 282 kilograms of nitrogen. The oyster feces become buried in the sediment, stimulating denitrifying bacteria, a process that results in nitrogen gas being released to the atmosphere. In Wellfleet that year the total nitrogen removed was 2.3 tons.

Even though oysters are good to eat, Ms. Murphy does not advocate turning every coastal pond into an aquaculture site, noting the impact on recreational users’ access to and enjoyment of the water.

A large-scale oyster aquaculture project could clean up Falmouth's coastal ponds, create jobs and increase local food production

About 2.5 million oysters would be needed to filter all the water in Waquoit Bay, Ms. Murphy said, requiring about 10,000 square meters, or about 2.5 acres, for all of the gear.

According to an estimate by Woods Hole resident and aquaculture consultant Ron Zweig, many more oysters may be necessary to adequately filter the water, covering up to 30 acres of the 825-acre bay.

The ecosystem also has a certain “carrying capacity” for aquaculture production, and even oysters have their limits before disease, predation, and lack of food inhibit their growth, she said. Because each estuary is different, she recommended a feasibility study to determine how extensive an aquaculture operation the ecosystem is capable of supporting.

Mashpee Shellfish Constable Rick York. said that conditions in the estuary also determine the type of shellfish most suitable for aquaculture. In the low salinity of the Mashpee River, he had great success in growing half a million oysters without fear of predation or disease. Since 2005, the oysters have removed over a ton of nitrogen, he said, which increased the dissolved oxygen content to the point of being safe again for fish.

However, he said the Mashpee River is unique, and in other areas he would recommend seeding quahogs instead of oysters.

“I take issue with oysters having the most potential,” he said. “Quahogs don’t filter as much water, but they consume as much nutrient.”

Flushing the bays

Another strategy to decrease the impacts of nitrogen in sensitive embayments is to increase the amount of “flushing,” or exchange, between the ocean and the estuary.

Nitrogen concentration is higher at the head of coastal ponds, but becomes diluted in areas of greater flushing

The adage, “the solution to pollution is dilution” rings true in this case, said John Ramsey, a senior coastal engineer at Applied Coastal Research and Engineering, a Mashpee firm.

If the tidal conditions are right, nitrogen concentrations can be decreased to acceptable levels, even if the load remains high, he said. Since people tend to live near the water, the nitrogen load at the head of the bay tends to be higher than that near the tidewater.

Due to coastal geology, estuary inlets tend to become filled with sand, or even become blocked by the formation of barrier beaches, he said, showing slides of such events. Unless the inlets are dredged, flushing will decrease over time, Mr. Ramsey said.

Even if the inlets are maintained, all tides are not created equal. While Cape Cod Bay has a 13-foot tide, Vineyard Sound only has a 1.5-foot fluctuation, and Buzzards Bay tides are about 4.5 feet.

“The size of the pump matters,” Mr. Ramsey said. Some towns, he said, “are at a huge disadvantage for tidal flushing.”

Green Pond, Bournes Pond, and Eel Pond in East Falmouth

In Falmouth, Bournes Pond has been cited as one area that does get a generous amount of flushing activity. Mr. Ramsey said if the inlet could be widened from 50 to 100 feet, the coastal pond’s nitrogen concentration would be reduced from 0.6 milligrams per liter to 0.46 mg/L. That reduction would mean that half as many homes in the Bournes Pond watershed would have to be connected to a sewer, he said.

Although on paper widening the inlet seems like a win-win solution, wetland protection regulations place restrictions on projects of this kind because of the impacts on barrier beaches, which protect coastal zones from storms and flooding and provide habitat for endangered species, said Mr. Ramsey.

“Widening the Bournes Pond inlet will create a bigger footprint of impact on the barrier beach system. It’s something regulators will struggle with,” he said.

Though it is still in draft form, the bylaw declares the entire town a nitrogen-sensitive area, limiting new home construction or additions to four bedrooms per acre, with those on smaller lots limited to three bedrooms.

Homes that already exceed the number of bedrooms per acre would be exempt from the bylaw.

Speaking with the board at its meeting on Monday, attorney Robert H. Ament said the bylaw, as written “would be very bad for the economy” due to limitations on future growth.

However, board member John B. Waterbury, who led the effort to draft the bylaw over the past year, explained that even the most sophisticated wastewater treatment can only remove 90 percent of nitrogen.

Because the treated effluent has to be discharged elsewhere in the watershed, the town needs to ensure that that discharge does not cause any estuary to exceed the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) mandated by state law.

“One consequence of sewering is that if there are no rules, development goes berserk,” Dr. Waterbury said.

Homes or estuaries?

The issue boils down to placing limits on development in order to safeguard the estuaries. Falmouth may end up paying $250 million to connect sewer mains from Little Pond to Seapit peninsula with the Blacksmith Shop Road treatment plant, in the proposed first phase of a project to sewer the entire town.

One problem with the bylaw that Mr. Ament didn’t mention is that it assumes the town will choose to install a large-scale sewer system. Unless town meeting members are also asked to approve the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan (which selectmen haven’t even voted on yet), consideration of this bylaw would be premature in April.

Mr. Ament suggested that instead of meeting a per-bedroom or capacity limit, homeowners be allowed to install denitrification equipment in order to meet a certain per-gallon nitrogen limit.  He added that special consideration should be given to non-residential establishments, especially schools, churches, and science institutions that offer a public benefit.

This blogger might add that affordable housing, like the proposed Spring Bars Road and VFW Hall projects, should also be exempt. Managing development should not come at the expense of residents who make less than the median income. Limiting the number of bedrooms allowed per acre would ensure that housing density remains low, thus keeping the housing prices high.

Setting a standard, without “toilet police”

The board of health appeared receptive to the idea of setting a nitrogen output standard, rather than requiring homeowners who want to build an addition or another house on an acre lot to get a variance.

Homeowners could achieve the standard inexpensively by installing a composting toilet, which removes human waste from the equation altogether. The nitrogen breaks down over time, resulting in a small amount of material which then can be disposed of in the trash, buried in a non-edible garden, or turned into fertilizer by professionals.

A Hatchville couple, Hilde Maingay and Earle Barnhart–who have appeared frequently in this blog and in the Enterprise– say that they remove almost all their household nitrogen output by using a composting toilet, composting food scraps or feeding it to chickens, and being careful to use biodegradable, low-nitrogen/phosphorus cleaning products.

They have challenged board of health member George Heufelder to test their septic tank for nitrogen content. It would be interesting to see the results, if that plan moves forward.

Perhaps with a few small changes in each household, we wouldn’t need a sewer system– nor a nutrient management bylaw.

Given that its now easier to find oysters from Duxbury and mussels from Prince Edward Island than it is to get locally-sourced seafood, this locovore’s dilemma begs the question: which came first? The shellfish or the septic system? The problem or the solution?

Sometimes, when overhearing discussions among wastewater experts, the idea is floated that Cape Cod should try to get back to 1619– that is, before Pilgrims landed on these shores.

Though it took until roughly 1990 for humans to load the estuaries with enough nitrogen to kill small fish, the basis for the idea is that we should limit our inputs to the environment to basically zero, just as the native Wampanoag did.

Here's what eel grass should look like

In the past three decades, we have developed our communities to the point where the nitrogen leaching from household septic systems and fertilized lawns has caused our beloved estuaries to seriously decline.

Across the entire Cape, algal blooms clog and stink up the water, leading to unpleasant swimming and boating experiences– and signaling a major ecological disaster.

A lack of eel grass is often the first sign that nitrogen loading has tipped the scales towards an unhealthy estuary. As nitrogen seeps in with the groundwater, it causes algae to grow– and infamously, bloom, when summer temperatures heat up.

Not only is it yucky to look at, algae blocks the sunlight needed by eel grass, causing a rapid decline for this aquatic plant species– as well as the shellfish that grow on its blade and stems.

Dying eel grass: a familiar sight in Falmouth harbors

As the algae dies off, it sucks up the oxygen in the water. If the die-off is extensive, it can cause dissolved oxygen levels to get so low that fish die– or swim to less suffocating areas.

The less lucky marine creatures– snails, worms, and shellfish– are not mobile, and tend to die at much greater rates than fish.

So how do we get back to the way it was in 1619? The state, through the Massachusetts Estuary Project, has set daily maximum nitrogen loading (TMDL) targets that we’ll need to achieve to restore the estuaries, but does not offer any guidance on how to get there.

We need only take a lesson from nature to understand how the nitrogen cycle has balanced itself out over millennia.

A bi-valve solution

While towns on Cape Cod brace themselves for a lengthy, costly, and energy-intensive installation of a sewer system, some residents have taken a back-to-the-Earth approach.

Drawing on his 30 years as an aquaculture consultant with the World Bank, Woods Hole resident Ron Zweig thinks that the solution to the Cape’s water woes could be staring at us from our dinner plates.

Mr. Zweig’s experience with aquaculture in Southeast Asia and at the New Alchemy Institute in Hatchville corroborate the findings of numerous studies establishing the ability of shellfish to filter and remove nutrients (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) from water and suspended sediments.

A Falmouth Shellfish Cooperative cage, used for growing oysters in deep water.

A 2006 study of aquaculture in Waquoit Bay by WHOI’s Marine Policy Center found that 500 oysters and quahogs removed 0.1 kilograms of nitrogen per liter from the water, and an additional 0.1 kg from the sediment underneath the growing tray per year.

According to Mr. Zweig, one oyster, on average, is capable of removing 0.65 milligrams of nitrogen per year during two years of growth.

If grown on an exponential scale, aquaculture could potentially meet TMDL targets, especially if the inlets to some coastal ponds are also widened.

In a spreadsheet analysis of four coastal ponds in Falmouth facing Vineyard Sound, Mr. Zweig recommends setting aside 8-9% of Bournes Pond, Great Pond, and Green Pond for aquaculture, and about 22% of the heavily polluted Little Pond, in order to meet the state-mandated TMDL’s.

Getting Aqua into the Culture

While these studies may be little more than numbers on paper, Mr. Zweig is working with members of the Falmouth Shellfish Cooperative, four companies that hold aquaculture permits in Buzzards Bay, to turn his hypotheses into action.

The Cooperative is currently working on a proposal to start up aquaculture plots in one or several of Falmouth’s coastal ponds. Not only would a more inland location make it easier for the farmers to get to their oyster cages, the development would also serve as an experiment on the potential for shellfish to remove nitrogen.

If successful, the Cooperative estimates that expanded aquaculture operations could create or maintain 165 permanent jobs in Falmouth, while restoring 3,700 acres of shellfish habitat.

An aquaculture site in Buzzards Bay operated by the Falmouth Shellfish Cooperative.

This summer, the Cooperative plans to market their first batch of the Sippewissett Oyster, sold straight from their retail location on Coonamessett Farm. With a fledgling mechanism already in place to put Falmouth’s seafood on the map, the oyster farmers say there is much more room to expand.

In Mashpee, Shellfish Warden Richard York hopes to build on the success of an aquaculture program he started in Mashpee River. The Mashpee Enterprise reports that Mr. York is writing a $75,000 grant to purchase, propagate, and plant 10 million quahog seeds in Waquoit Bay. Quahogs, he says, are ideal for aquaculture because of their resistance to predators.

Even if only half of the quahogs survive to maturity, the initiative will generate up to $750,000 in revenue, enough money for 15 shellfishermen to make a decent living, estimates Mr. York.

It may just turn out that doing the right thing for the environment is also good for the economy– and for our appetites.

The downside of aquaculture

However, the simple solution is not always the easiest. As Cape Codders know well, changes intended to solve environmental problems (think wind turbines) often come with a serious backlash from stakeholders.

The Marine Policy Center quantified the costs and benefits to aquaculture not only from the nitrogen removal angle, but also from the point of view of recreational users of Waquoit Bay.

Due to the potential “aesthetic costs” caused by exposed aquaculture gear at low tide, as well as decreased area for boating, the Marine Policy Center estimated that 1.5% of the head of Waquoit Bay could be used for aquaculture without negative consequences.

One additional issue that aquaculture does not address is the need for a wastewater solution that removes not only nitrogen, but a range of “contaminants of concern” from products consumed and eliminated by humans, now concentrated in your drinking water.

A typical composting toilet: the only difference is the pipe.

Even if shellfish were capable of filtering and sequestering aspirin, Viagra, and shampoo chemical residues from the water, would that solve the problem? (And would you want to eat them?) Or does it just point to a larger question: why are we contaminating fresh drinking water with our waste?

In my humble opinion, we need a variety of options to deal with our wastewater worries. If it is not conceivable to place aquaculture operations in coastal ponds on the scale necessary to remove the entire nitrogen load, it would be wise to eliminate the main cause of the contamination: septic tanks.

Even on a small scale, aquaculture can likely eliminate nitrogen released from non-point sources, namely fertilizer and road run-off. And by installing household composting toilets, we would eliminate at least half of the nitrogen load, while also pre-empting contamination by other, potentially very harmful, chemicals.

Earle Barnhart and Hilde Maingay, whose nonprofit organization, The Green Center, is the successor to the New Alchemy Institute, is concerned that the “big pipe” solutions being discussed by a town committee are inefficient and expensive ways to reduce nitrogen loading to Falmouth’s coastal ponds.

The husband and wife team have compiled nine options that residents can undertake to eliminate nutrients from wastewater. They suggest that a feasibility study be conducted to see how much nitrogen would be eliminated, and at what cost, under each scenario.
“With a great variety of options available right now, home-based systems can be designed to respond to the specific needs of each individual residence or area of concern, require very little design time or costs, can be installed immediately, and have a great degree of inherent flexibility,” wrote the couple in a five-page handout they e-mailed yesterday to Town Meeting members.

• Residents can reduce their nitrogen contribution by using low-nitrogen and phosphorus-free soaps, cleaners, and detergents.
• Eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers and garbage disposals would also reduce the amount of nitrogen in the waste stream.
• Noting that car exhaust and road runoff is a significant source of nitrogen deposition to estuaries, residents can reduce their mileage or switch to a hybrid vehicle.
• On a townwide level,  Falmouth could collect food waste separately from garbage to make compost, thereby using the nitrogen and other nutrients in food as fertilizer.

For those who think it is too hard to incorporate these tips into their lives, Hilde and Earle are living examples. They own a composting toilet, which they say is inexpensive and easy to maintain. As professional landscapers, they use compost and organic fertilizers, and at home they feed food scraps to their chickens and use plant-based cleaning products.

The Bigger Picture

A large-scale oyster aquaculture project could clean up Falmouth's coastal ponds, create jobs and increase local food production

Drawing from the expertise of farmer and aquaculture researcher Ronald J. Smolowitz and Woods Hole resident Ronald D. Zweig, an aquaculture specialist for the World Bank, Hilde and Earle recommend using oysters as  natural filters for nitrogen, and widening the inlets of coastal ponds to increase tidal exchange.

A centralized sewer system, while effective at removing nitrogen, comes with a high cost and long lead time to design, construct, and operate, the authors wrote. In terms of water and energy consumption, it is also inefficient.

Purifying water for drinking, then polluting it with human waste, and cleaning it again is inefficient. Transporting large volumes of water from a supply source to a pumping station, to homes, to a sewage treatment plant, and finally to a discharge area is inefficient.

A variety of sources contribute nitrogen to groundwater, but a majority leaches from underground septic tanks

If wastewater treatment was viewed as a “closed-loop” system, the nutrients it contains could be recovered, treated, and used as organic fertilizer, say Hilde and Earle.

Composting toilets

A composting toilet: the only difference is the pipe

The waterless composting toilet is one of the options Hilde and Earle propose for further study.

It looks like a regular toilet, without a pipe. A fan ensures that odors are released through a pipe in the roof, requiring as much energy as a 60-watt bulb.

“The lower the technology, the less likely it is to fail,” said Hilde.

“That’s right,” said Earle. “Gravity never breaks down.”

The holding tank of a Clivus composting toilet

Collection requires a basement storage tank for solid waste, which is typically removed four times a year.

Though current health codes require off-site disposal, the sterilized waste could be used as commercial fertilizer or at home for non-food crops.

Urine-diverting & packaging toilets

Another option is a urine-diverting toilet with an optional waterless urinal.

With this technology, naturally sterile urine is collected in a basement storage unit, where it can be collected for fertilizer, or be processed in a septic or sewer system.

Hilde and Earle also propose a few options for using waterless packaging toilets and urinals. These options would require a commercial contractor to collect waste “packets,” which can be sterilized and composted to create fertilizer.

The British-designed "Loowatt" toilet was originally built with the waste disposal needs of developing countries in mind.

Alternatively, the packets may be incinerated, either at home or off-site—not unlike throwing out diapers, Hilde noted.

The waste packets can be used in a bio-gas digester, which produces methane gas while killing off pathogens.

The result is a potent fertilizer suitable for edible crops.

Alternative Cost-Benefits

Based on each of these options, traditional toilets do not necessarily have to be replaced. With each of these options, a home would have to keep its septic tank in order to process the “gray water” from the kitchen and laundry.

They suggest studying the costs and benefits of maintaining the current septic treatment at most homes, with the addition of aquaculture and the widening of coastal inlets.

Jobs, food, and fertilizers could be created from this endeavor, whereby not only the oysters, but also the wastes and the macro-algae that grows around them could be harvested as fertilizer.

“Why don’t we try it  and see how much [nitrogen] is removed by reducing our inputs, then we can go to the next step?” asked Earle.

An Ecological Treatment System

This schematic by Ron Zweig proposes a centralized treatment system based on John Todd's ecological design principles

Another option is to install a centralized treatment plant with ecological principles in mind.

In this design, wastewater is treated with a biogas digester that releases methane, which can be used as energy to run the system– or cook food or heat a home.

The primary-treated water is then filtered through aquatic plants and wetlands, where the nitrates decompose and are consumed by beneficial bacteria. These aquatic plants may be composted, and the treated water can be reused to irrigate trees and non-edible plants.

Recognizing that not all residents would be comfortable installing an alternative toilet in their homes, Hilde noted that it will take serious study, modeling, and public outreach for people to understand that the systems are safe and just as effective as traditional toilets.

“We assume that we’re incapable of handling our own waste. That’s a really bad assumption,” she said.

Earle Barnhart has a vision for food sustainability on Cape Cod

In a white paper he wrote for his nonprofit educational institute, The Green Center, Barnhart discusses how—and why—Cape Codders should reduce their reliance on imported food.

In his paper, Barnhart makes the case for food self-sufficiency, which he argues will reduce the cost of food, lower the region’s carbon footprint, and increase food security on Cape Cod.

“One of the advantages of living on Cape Cod is that we can very clearly see the source of our food supply. Most of our food is imported over the bridge in trucks,” wrote Barnhart.

“Food produced regionally would provide a degree of insurance against the volatility of international economics and the disruption of food supply in turbulent times.”

Hilde picks fresh pea pods for lunch

Most supermarket produce is shipped thousands of miles to get from the farm to the dinner table. Due to energy-intensive transportation and fertilizer production, deforestation and concentrated livestock farming, agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Meanwhile, fresh produce and eggs from a backyard garden require absolutely no fossil fuels and have higher nutritional value to boot, said Barnhart.

While many residents enjoy gardening as a hobby, few would be able to live on what they produce at home. Using his own yard and greenhouse as tests for decades of research conducted at the New Alchemy Institute, Barnhart and his wife, Hilde Maingay, have found that intensive gardening and permaculture methods have resulted in a shorter grocery list year-round.

The Cape Cod Ark

The Cape Cod Ark House is designed to provide the essentials for modern living based on nature's principles

By planting crops with varying root depths close together and rotating crops with different nutritional needs, even a small garden can produce a hefty amount of vegetables, Barnhart said.

The couple’s large greenhouse makes use of passive solar heat to grow crops 12 months a year, and cold frames can do the same on a smaller scale.

Nutrient-rich water from the fish ponds feeds greehouse plants year-round

A few water tanks inside the greenhouse serve a dual function. Filled with algae-rich dark green water, they host catfish and goldfish, types of fish that digest the green algae to produce high-nutrient waste that Barnhart feeds to the lemon trees and nursery plants in the greenhouse. The fish themselves could be eaten, but in this case, they serve a more decorative purpose.

Barnhart and Maingay eat a vegetable-rich diet, but they also rely on eggs from a number of hens they raise in a fenced-off, shaded area.

By feeding the chickens kitchen scraps, those nutrients are “converted into a clean, highly nutritious egg, biologically packaged in an organic eggshell,” Barnhart wrote.

If more people kept hens, food waste that is otherwise incinerated, buried, or sent to septic tanks and sewers, would be diverted back into the nutrient cycle, he said.

Citing research conducted at New Alchemy and in his own back yard, Barnhart said that a year’s worth of fresh vegetables per person can be grown on as little as 1/100th of an acre—or 450 square feet, equivalent to a 15-by-30-foot garden. To grow grains, a quarter of an acre per person is necessary; if chickens or livestock are raised, at least 3/10ths of an acre are required.

A sustainable equation

Earle checks out his salad beds in mid-June

Considering that Cape Cod has 226,000 year-round residents and about 250,000 acres of land, self-sufficiency could hypothetically be achieved under this model.

The problem is that a majority of that acreage is covered by roads, buildings, or conservation restrictions, notes Barnhart.

Acknowledging that the Cape does not have enough available land to feed its year-round population with land-intensive crops; nor is it sufficient to feed the millions of tourists who visit each year, Barnhart suggests that the available land be used to cultivate fresh fruits and vegetables, and that residents continue to import staple grains, meat, sweeteners, and oils.

Waste or Asset?

Another challenge of intensive gardening is the need for fertilizer to replenish nutrients in Cape Cod’s sandy, clay-filled soil. Instead of relying on petrochemicals, Barnhart suggests that Cape Cod’s biggest environmental problem—nitrogen pollution—could be turned into an asset for agriculture, by developing a system to process human waste into fertilizer.

Putting waste into clean water, where it then has to be processed out with chemicals, does not make ecological sense, Barnhart points out.

“It is an ecological error to put waste into water in the first place,” he said.

The couple has a composting toilet in their home, which collects waste in the basement, allowing it to decompose while a fan directs odors through a pipe in the roof. The result is about four bushels of compost a year, which must be buried nine inches underground, according to MA law.

(For more information on composting toilets, please see a previous post, Turning Waste Into Compost)

In his paper, Barnhart proposes an even more manageable system: packaging toilets.

“These are conventional-looking toilets that direct the post-eaten food into an absorbent, deodorized, biodegradable package in the toilet that is sealed after each use and is stored in the base,”  Barnhart wrote.

The isolated unit does not use any electricity or water, and satisfies hygienic sensibilities, Barnhart said. Packaging toilets are marketed by the Swedish company Pacto, and are often used in wilderness areas.

“There will inevitably be a need for the creation of new businesses, new occupations, new skills and improved ecological education,” Barnhart wrote.

“The personal and political change required to facilitate the transition is likely to be slower and less certain, but will be just as necessary to achieve the kind of world we want to live in.”

Eco-logical pioneers

John Todd, co-founder of Hatchville's New Alchemy Institute, surrounded by EcoMachines

In the 1970′s, a group of forward-thinking oceanographers and engineers sequestered themselves on a few dozen acres on Hatchville Road. Their dream: to design a self-sustaining way of living, limiting their consumption to what they could grow or make themselves, and returning any waste to the natural cycle. This was sustainability before the word turned into a marketing term.

In addition to growing their food in a bio-shelter and living in super-insulated buildings, one of the New Alchemy founders devised a way to turn what is traditionally called “wastewater” into a resource.

Dr. John Todd’s vision adapted nature’s principles to create the EcoMachine, a surprisingly simple design that effectively breaks down the harmful microbes and complex nutrients in wastewater.

A homegrown industry

Today, Dr. Todd’s designs are marketed across the US and the world by his son, Jonathan Todd, through the Woods Hole company, Todd Ecological Design. From China, to Hawaii, to the Bahamas, the likes of Coca Cola Company, Tyson Foods, and the Four Seasons are integrating EcoMachines into their wastewater treatment strategy. While the systems work well on a campus like the Omega Institute, they have also been adapted for the cities of Eugene, Oregon, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Much like a traditional wastewater treatment system, an EcoMachine employs aerobic and anaerobic bacteria to treat water to a very high standard– but without relying on chemicals like chlorine. What’s more, the system is designed so that water may be reused (not for drinking!) to flush toilets, water house plants, clean clothes, and so on.

The beauty of simplicity

Many people mistake an EcoMachine for a tropical greenhouse

Traditionally housed within a greenhouse or a combination of exterior constructed wetlands, a robust ecosystem is created between the plants, microbial species and distinct treatment zones. Within the Eco-Machine, all the major groups of life are represented, including microscopic algae, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and zooplankton, to snails, clams, and fishes.

Some EcoMachines are actually intended for aquaculture applications, wherein shellfish feed on the nitrogen in the water, and fish feed on the algae. Dr. Todd’s vision has been applied so that commercially valued trees, shrubs, and even edibles such as mushrooms, can be grown within the system. In short, this self-contained ecosystem that turns a problem into a solution.

Spreading the word

Inspired by Dr. Todd’s vision, local documentary filmmaker Kristin Alexander produced a short documentary, called Green EcoMachine. With this 11-minute film, she has exposed audiences of the Woods Hole Film Festival to the Awareness Festival in Los Angeles to the possibilities of sustainable wastewater treatment.

Alexander’s work with ecological designer Dr. John Todd will be showcased at the National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, opening on May 14.

At a screening of her film at Cinema Politica last Friday, several members of the audience questioned why Falmouth– and other Cape towns– do not have access to the EcoMachine. They wondered what impact household or neighborhood EcoMachines would have on the region’s estuaries, which are steadily declining due to nitrogen pollution from septic tanks.

The only response I can give you here is to bring these questions to the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan Review Committee, a convoluted name for the town board responsible for coming up with a way to tackle the problem. The committee meets every Tuesday at 5 PM at Town Hall. For those who can’t make it, the meetings are televised by Channel 13 and there is also an online forum. A big meeting on design alternatives is scheduled for May 27 at 7 PM at the Morse Pond School.

A view of West Falmouth Harbor

Earlier this month, the Coalition for Buzzards Bay went public with information about the performance of Falmouth’s wastewater management facility. Had not they not requested this information from the DEP, we would not have known that elevated nitrogen levels are being discharged from the facility to West Falmouth Harbor.  This is the kind of oversight that the media and environmental watchdogs will have to do in order to ensure that nitrogen limits are being met, no matter which wastewater treatment route is taken in the future.

Nitrogen effluent from Falmouth's WWTF, 1994-2009

As the graph shows, nitrogen output from the Blacksmith Shop Road wastewater treatment facility was very high, from the day it was built in 1994.

But even after a $15 million upgrade designed to reduce nitrogen output to 3 mg/liter– which worked well in 2006– periodic spikes have led to an average nitrogen discharge of 5 mg/liter over the last three years.

Averages aside, at times, those spikes have approached 20 mg/liter.  It’s not the sort of performance taxpayers might expect from an expensive upgrade to advanced treatment technology. And it won’t do much to improve conditions at Meshapaquit Creek, the area of West Falmouth Harbor most heavily impacted by a nitrogen plume emanating from the facility.

Let there be light

It’s a shame that we didn’t hear about the problems three years ago, when they started happening. But now that the information has come to light, town officials have started talking, and a contract is underway with the plant’s designer. Hopefully we will see a return to safer nutrient outputs to the harbor, which a Massachusetts Estuary Project study reported could recover, if the Total Maximum Daily Load for nitrogen is limited to 3.5 mg/liter.

In all fairness, the fine people in the wastewater department have been working hard to address the problem. The fact that the spikes tend to happen in the winter indicates that cold temperatures are making it hard for denitrifying bacteria to do their jobs. And they have been working without the benefit of advice from the new facility’s engineer, due to litigation with the designer, Maguire.

Also, to be fair, many of the benefits of the upgrade cannot be used at the current flow to the treatment facility. Because the plant handles just 3% of the town’s wastewater (the percentage of town that is sewered, not including New Silver Beach), it is operating at less than half its 1 million gallons-per-day capacity.  At these low-flow rates, the plant cannot use its denitrifying technology to do more than filter out solids. In addition, the plant accepts septage hauled in from the town’s septic tanks. So, it is handling highly concentrated influent without the benefit of technology designed to treat larger volumes of wastewater.

Permitting Pollution

Another bureaucratic snafu helps the wastewater department save face. Despite the 2005 upgrade, the treatment facility has been operating under a DEP groundwater recharge permit, which expired in 2002. The town applied for a new one on time, but has yet to hear from state environmental authorities.

Under that permit, the facility is performing beautifully. The out-dated guidelines suggest a maximum nitrogen output of 50 mg/liter and 810,000 gallons per day discharge.

One of the reasons that the DEP might not have issued a new permit yet, said the wastewater superintendent, Jerry Potamis, is that they can’t figure out how to regulate a maximum daily limits for nitrogen (the TMDLs) in a groundwater discharge permit. Falmouth’s facility is somewhat unique in that it discharges to the groundwater, but it is also a coastal community subject to state-mandated TMDLs.  Perhaps the DEP could use Falmouth as a study, as other towns seek to build treatment plants and recharge the effluent to the aquifer.

The whole situation makes me wonder who residents are supposed to trust, while swallowing multi-million dollar bills to improve our municipal wastewater treatment system. If the state regulators cannot get their act together, and non-profit advocacy groups are the only ones doing oversight, how will Falmouth residents know that a $600 million investment is doing the job it is supposed to? Right now, the only pressure towns feel to meet TMDL targets is from the Conservation Law Foundation, the group that sued the City of Boston, resulting in the effective, yet expensive, cleanup of Boston Harbor. With the recession on in full swing, it is unlikely that the state will be cracking the whip to enforce the MEP guidelines. Meanwhile, estuarine decline is in advanced stages in coastal ponds around the Cape. Eel grass and abundant shellfish beds may be distant memories by the time anything changes.

While it is understood that the town’s efforts will improve water quality and biological habitat, these benefits may not be realized in our lifetimes, due to the estimated 25-50 years it could take for all the contaminated groundwater to flush through the estuaries. Many residents balk at the $250-600 million price tag, which will likely be financed through betterment fees for homeowners and tax levies for all residents.

A message from Karen Schwalbe of Hatchville sums up the problem and offers a potential solution:

There is an old adage:  if you take a barrel of sewage and add a teaspoon of wine, you get a barrel of sewage; if you take a barrel of wine and add a teaspoon of sewage, you get a barrel of sewage… Adding clean (and drinkable) water to human waste, then having to clean up a larger volume seems the wrong way to go. Why aren’t composting toilets or dry toilets being considered as part of the solution to our wastewater problems?

What if there was an option that residents could undertake right now that would remove their household’s contribution to the waste stream? In this blog, we’ll explore some of the innovative ways that people are turning their waste into a resource. It’s not as tricky (or stinky) as one might think…

Amy Larkin shows off her vegetable compost pile

Alchemy Farm in Hatchville, the former home of the New Alchemy Institute, is a place where the traditional meets the modern. A wind turbine from nearby Coonamessett Farm beats under a steady southwest breeze. Houses tucked into the pine trees are adorned with solar panels. Roosters crow and goats bleat.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of the residents in the neighborhood have something unusual in their bathrooms: composting toilets, a method of collecting human waste and turning it into harmless, useful fertilizer.

Actually, there is nothing unusual about the bathrooms.  The Larkin family’s, in particular, smelled faintly of pine shavings.  The only noticeable difference in their composting toilet-enhanced bathrooms is the white pipe, which makes a faint whirring sound. And the subtle absence of a flush handle on the toilet.

Compost my… what?

A composting toilet: the only difference is the pipe

As Amy Larkin kindly explained, when someone uses the composting toilet, the waste drops down a tube to a Clivus Multrum storage tank in the basement. The white “stinkpipe,” seen at left, continually pulls air out of the toilet and the storage tank, removing any odors.

The fan in the pipe runs 24/7, but is powered by solar panels, which operate even if there is a power outage. Amy often cleans the fan and has replaced it twice in the toilet’s 11 years of operation. “If that fan goes, the whole house smells,” she said.

Occasionally, a user will throw some sawdust or wood shavings (in the bucket to the right) into the toilet, which helps promote the texture, aeration, and moisture of the compost.

At a cost of $6,000 to install two toilets (including labor for two men and one plumber), the composting toilets are not nearly as expensive as a sewer connection, and probably rival the cost of regular home plumbing systems. After jumping through a few hoops with the Board of Health and building department, they installed one of the first composting systems in Falmouth. Their neighbors soon followed suit.

The Larkins had enough foresight to install their composting system when they built their house 11 years ago. It would be more difficult, but not impossible, to remodel a typical Cape-style house to include one. As Amy’s husband, Jonathan, pointed out, “the limiting factor is gravity”: their house is designed around their 1st and 2nd floor bathrooms, which must be located directly over each other and the storage tank.

“That’s what we got, a two-story outhouse,” Amy said.

Muckraking can be fun

Fresh compost, straight from the chute

A composting system requires some maintenance, Amy said, but it has become part of her regular household chores to ensure the pipe is clear and aerate the compost with a rake. She estimates that she removes about 20 gallons from the tank every few months.

“I actually like it. It bothers me more to put sewage into clean water,” she said. “But it’s not for everyone. You have to be a little earthy.”

In the initial “mineralizing” phase, the waste is doused with fresh water. The liquid is then pumped out into a separate storage tank.  Aerobic bacteria and fungi break down the nitrogen in urea (the primary component of urine) into ammonia and carbon dioxide. As it passes through the compost mass, nearly all of the ammonia is converted, first to nitrites, and then to nitrates by nitrifying bacteria.

Good vs. bad bacteria

The holding tank of a Clivus composting toilet

Human pathogens are killed not by the heat within this “mouldering” composter, but by predatory organisms and the retention time they spend in the system. Phosphorous and potassium, along with a wide range of micro-nutrients, are also captured by the composting process.

According to the manufacturer, the compost liquid results is a stable, high-strength fertilizer. Fecal matter in the compost system is reduced in volume by more than 90%. When fully composted, this material looks and smells like topsoil, and is an organically rich soil amendment.

The Larkin’s system does not include red worms, but those may be added to the holding tank to transport oxygen and moisture throughout the compost mass, thus assisting the physical and chemical breakdown. Thermophllic composting systems rely on temperatures of 25-40 °C (77-104°F) to fully break down the pathogens, assisted by beneficial bacteria.

Ecological fertilizer

The remaining compost mass is supposed to be hauled away by a septage hauler, but if that step does not take into account the beneficial properties of adding the composted material to a vegetable-scrap compost pile to use as fertilizer. It also does nothing to remove nitrogen from our community’s wastewater stream. By letting soil and plants around your house absorb the nitrogen, phosphorus, and micro-nutrients, the “solution to pollution is dilution” adage is put to work.

Toilet compost may not be something you would put on your vegetable garden, but as the Larkin’s neighbors, Earl and Hilde Maingay said, “bury it 8 inches under a tree and see how well it grows.” In fact, the manufacturer advertises its composter as a way to produce a home-grown, organic fertilizer, instead of buying the energy- and chemical-intensive commercial brands, which are often made from the very same substances we flush down the toilet.