The Alternative

The Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center (MASSTC) is a program of the

Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment

Looking Back to Look Forward

This is the time of year we take a long look back before looking forward and 2024 was truly a game-changing year for our wastewater division.

Clean Water Center

Our biggest news was receiving $3.3 million through Mass Tech Collaborative's Innovation Institute and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to expand MASSTC into a one-of-a-kind innovation hub for wastewater treatment. With this grant, MASSTC will enhance its research facilities and leverage connections with academic institutions and the private sector to overcome wastewater treatment challenges, which include nutrients, pathogens, and contamination from pharmaceuticals, micro-plastics, and “forever chemicals” also known as PFAS.

Stay tuned for our April ribbon cutting and the unveiling of our Clean Water Center!

AquiFund

In 2024, AquiFund received a $13 million cash infusion. AquiFund provides low and no-interest loans to residents who need help paying to fix, replace or upgrade their septic systems, or hook up to municipal sewers. The funds support residents making crucial upgrades to their septic systems that benefit our local environment.

Septic Utility Program

Our Septic Utility Program (SUP) grew this year by three new employees to provide management assistance for innovative/alternative septic systems, ensuring these systems are functioning as they should to protect our health and environment. Actively managing these I/A systems maximizes their performance and prolonges their lifespan, contributing to the overall well-being of the community and its environmental sustainability.

Eco Sanitation

Regarding innovative ecological sanitation practices, we made good progress identifying permitting pathways with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and the Plumbing Board to allow urine diversion (UD) as a nutrient management tool. The MassDEP offered to permit UD through the I/A tracking program as a provisional use technology and allowed watershed scale nutrient accounting. We also played an important role getting UD design specifications included in the International Plumbing Code, which is HUGE. We've interacted with people internationally about our ongoing eco sanitation work and just installed our own urine diverting and composting toilet systems in the Clean Water Center!

EPA STAR Project

Our EPA STAR project (see below), MASSTC's major pathogen research collaboration with MassDEP, just completed its third year. Over 1,000 wastewater samples have been analyzed in our lab for viral surrogates so far. We are excited to publish our data in the new year and continue pursuing research projects that focus on public health and climate resilience.

Waste No Water Library Tour

MASSTC staff traveled all over the region interacting with and educating the public. We gave over 60 talks throughout the Cape and Islands and also toured 12 libraries as part of our Waste No Water Library Tour.

MASSTC in the News

MASSTC was featured in three very sobering documentaries on Cape Cod's wastewater challenges in Scientific American, as well as Circuit Arts' The Great Ponds Series and Woods Hole Oceanographic's Saving Our Ponds series.

While we are proud of our achievements this year, there is so much more work to do. Education is paramount to gaining public acceptance of these new technologies and approaches to protecting our local waters. It requires an open an inquisitive mind and the ability to see that a blended approach is the only way to save our region.

Project Update: EPA STAR

In 2021, MASSTC was awarded $1.2 million under the Viral Pathogen and Surrogate Approaches for Assessing Treatment Performance in Water Reuse RFA within the EPA STAR (Science to Achieve Results) program.

This project took advantage of existing infrastructure at MASSTC to continue virus

research that began during the Groundwater Separation Study which used constructed test cells to represent virus removal capabilities of a standard title 5 leach field at varying depths.

The EPA STAR project investigates decentralized wastewater treatment modalities and municipal treatment unit processes for their capability to remove human enteric viruses to a level that will allow safe reuse of treated wastewater.

Cape Cod & the State of the Waters

The Association to Preserve Cape Cod launched State of the Waters, a multi-year project in 2019 in order to answer the question: “How healthy are Cape Cod’s waters?”

How did we fare?

• Cape Cod’s saltwater embayments and freshwater ponds are suffering from the negative effects of too many nutrients.

• Water quality is in decline due to pollution from septic systems, stormwater and fertilizers.

• The quality of our drinking water supplies remained excellent or good.

Read the full report below.

New Regulations Underway for Wellfleet's Cesspools & Septic Systems

This week in the Cape Cod Times: Cesspools, failed septic systems must be replaced in Wellfleet under new state regs.

"The Wellfleet Board of Health is working on regulations that would require owners of central district properties with cesspools and failing septic systems to upgrade to innovative/alternative septic systems."

"What is known is that Wellfleet Harbor is a designated Area of Critical Environmental Concern and nitrogen is leaching into the harbor from the central district. The nitrogen pollution is threatening the waters and its wealth of natural resources. 'It’s time to begin the clean-up,' said Board of Health Chair Nick Picariello. 'The sooner the better for everything that lives in the harbor and those who work in the harbor. If the harbor goes, the town is in trouble.'”

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