The Tisbury board of health met on Tuesday to discuss its latest draft of nitrogen regulations it proposes to impose over the Lake Tashmoo and Lagoon Pond watersheds. Board members voted unanimously to shelve an earlier set of draft regulations that included a scale of mitigation fees for anyone building a new home or addition.
In their place, the board proposed a new draft of nitrogen regulations that would require homeowners to install enhanced denitrification technologies. Board of health chairman Jeffrey Pratt said that advanced treatment technologies would cost $10,000 to $12,000 more than the cost of a Title V septic system.
Health agent Maura Valley said it would cost about $1,000 a year for “operation and maintenance.” The draft has 18 approved examples of advanced systems.
The board of health agreed to schedule a public hearing on the new draft regulations on Tuesday, Sept. 13.
The board of health decided that rather than present the draft to the board of selectmen, they would provide written copies of the new draft. They would also provide town administrator Jay Grande with a copy to forward to the town attorney. Board of health member Malcolm Boyd said this would “save everybody time.”
On Tuesday night, Mr. Pratt described the core of the proposal. “It’s very much the goal of the board of health with these regulations to endorse new technology, research new technology, and to introduce new technology that can help reduce nitrogen into the ponds and estuaries,” Mr. Pratt said.
Triggers that would require an enhanced system include new construction or the failure of an existing wastewater treatment system. The draft also states that when a property is transferred to another owner and upon inspection the board of health determines the septic system needs to be upgraded or replaced, then the homeowner would be required to do so. Another trigger would be additional development done to a home, if the board of health determines the “property’s existing wastewater treatment system capacity is insufficient” to handle the proposed development.
Joining the discussion on Tuesday was Joan Malkin of Chilmark. Ms. Malkin, a former lawyer, sits on the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) and is chairman of the MVC planning and economic development committee, in addition to serving on the Chilmark planning board and conservation commission. She has been serving as a consultant to the board of health, helping draft the regulations, and said she was in agreement with them during the meeting.
Kent Healy, a West Tisbury resident and well-respected civil engineer with 50 years of experience dealing with groundwater flow also joined the discussion. During the last series of public hearings, Mr. Healy urged the board to test the groundwater for accurate data and said that there were other major sources of nitrogen aside from septic systems that were contributing to issues in the ponds.
“The power plant exhaust to generate the electricity to operate those [advanced] systems puts out more nitrogen in the form of nitrous oxides than these systems remove,” Mr. Healy said. Even though the plant is on the mainland, it still makes its way to the Island, according to Mr. Healy.
On Tuesday, he repeated many of the points he had made in previous hearings. He said that groundwater was not hard to measure and needed to be tested.
Mr. Healy also said that, generally speaking, nitrogen has been used as a zoning tool to limit the density of housing and as a measure of human activity. According to Mr. Healy, a three-bedroom household with a septic system releases nine pounds of nitrogen per year. He compared that to one goose, which puts out three pounds of nitrogen per year, and noted that Tisbury Great Pond has nearly 500 nonmigratory geese that live there year round. Other major nitrogen contributors, Mr. Healy said, are horses, corn and lawn fertilizers, car exhaust, and rainwater. Land clearing to build a house releases more nitrogen in the ground than that home’s septic system, he said.
“I don’t mean to minimize the importance of nitrogen that’s going into the estuaries. This is a problem and it has to be addressed,” Mr. Healy said. “But if you want to address it, it’s very important that you know where the nitrogen is coming from if you’re trying to reduce it. The idea that we put nitrogen in from our septic systems and it gets into Lake Tashmoo or the Lagoon, that’s good, but I think it’s important that you measure it.”
Board members Michael Loberg and Mr. Pratt said they wanted Mr. Healy as “a serious partner” in both the testing and research of the groundwater, which they said needed to be data-driven. Mr. Loberg said although they have conducted some testing, it needed to be more extensive and more qualitative.
Mr. Healy said he’d be happy to help in the process, but also told the board he disagreed with almost everything that was on the first page of their new draft. The first page deals with what the board of health has concluded in their “findings.”
Mr. Loberg said that the main Tashmoo well was tested and that the Massachusetts Estuaries Project (MEP) also tested it “exhaustively” and the results were that it wasn’t very high.
“That’s a major point of testing,” Mr. Healy said. “And if it’s not very high in nitrogen …”
Mr. Loberg interjected, saying that although the nitrate input function was low, the organic nitrogen in the spillway was high and “quite toxic.”
Mr. Healy said that there were a lot of factors in the ponds that contribute to that, pointing to frogs, otters, birds, and other contributors. He reiterated that the spring was “certainly a testing point.”
Mr. Pratt requested to “move the conversation along” and asked Mr. Healy if he had anything else to share. Mr. Healy said he believed that the board of health had a great responsibility.
“I would suggest that before you start imposing people spending a lot of money, you should have a good basis,” Mr. Healy said.