WELLFLEET — Just over six months after the town adopted new septic system regulations in January — passed in part to help meet state requirements to curb nitrogen runoff into Wellfleet Harbor — the board of health is planning to revise those rules.

The board is currently drafting amendments, Health Agent Heith Martinez told the Independent this week, and has scheduled a July 30 hearing for public comment, discussion, and a possible vote. The text of the amendments will be released several weeks in advance of the hearing, Martinez said.

The January regulations require property owners to upgrade their septic systems to “best available nitrogen-reducing technology” when certain triggering events occur. Triggers include home sales, changes in use that expand septic flow, system failures, and new construction that creates more habitable space on a property.

There has been continuing debate about the January rules at board of health meetings, including a June 11 meeting at which five homeowners requested variances from them.

But the decision to revise the rules is principally due to the amendments to the town’s Targeted Watershed Management Plan that the select board adopted on May 13, Martinez said.

Those amendments, proposed by former select board vice chair Michael DeVasto, called for targeting septic upgrades on properties outside the town’s new sewer district but within 500 feet of surface water, including near sub-embayments like Wellfleet Harbor, Duck Creek, and the Herring River.

This “strategic siting” approach would result in some homeowners near water having to upgrade their systems “regardless of whether they’re doing anything to the property,” Martinez said. An analysis by wastewater consultant Scott Horsley found that pairing a “strategic siting” approach with a sewer system could meet the town’s required nitrogen load reductions for each sub-watershed over a 40-year period.

 

Reconsidering Triggers

When the board of health adopted the January rules, members said they would consider granting variances to property owners who had hit a trigger and were required to upgrade if they demonstrated financial hardship, inadequate space on their lot, or similar challenges.

Since January, 13 households have requested variances. The board has approved nine and granted administrative consent orders — or permission to undertake stopgap measures — to two others because they are in the town’s projected sewer district. The board considered the two most recent requests on June 11 and continued both of them until July.

Three of the requested exemptions had challenged the definition of “new construction,” asking whether additions to garages, attics, or other rooms should trigger septic upgrades.

On June 11, applicants Kris Smith and Sarah Matto requested a variance to add a living room to their 700-square-foot home, which some board members felt should trigger the upgrade.

“Five hundred feet on a 700-foot house — it’s hard to say it’s not habitable,” said member Janet Drohan.

The homeowner disagreed: “We have a three-bedroom septic, and we use two of our bedrooms,” Smith said. “We’re not adding any flow.”

Board member Ken Granlund said that septic upgrades should perhaps be based on bedrooms, “not on if it can be habitable space or not.

“I feel your pain,” Granlund said, adding that “you just may have to wait” until after the July 30 hearing.

 

Rising costs

Other speakers at the June 11 meeting said that the “best available nitrogen reducing technologies” were proving more costly than expected.

Dahlia Johnson and Jeremy Storer, whose variance request was also continued, told the Independent that three different Cape Cod-based excavation companies had quoted prices for an installed system ranging from $58,500 to $81,700.

“We were told that these machines were going to cost $30,000 to $55,000, and they’re obviously getting charged higher,” Johnson said.

Martinez said that the components for a single-unit NitROE septic system cost between $23,000 and $25,000 — but that charges for installation are more variable and “can run anywhere from approximately $15,000 to $100,000, depending on the geography of the lot.”

Rather than “getting one giant bill” for a septic upgrade, residents should ask excavation companies for itemized quotes and compare them carefully, he said.

Assistant Shellfish Constable Sarah Comstock told the board of health that she had lost her bid to buy a house partly because of septic rules. She said Seamen’s Bank had been unwilling to have her mortgage be legally considered a “second lien” behind the Barnstable County AquiFund program’s “first lien,” which meant she couldn’t use the loan program to finance the upgrades.

In the end, the seller picked another bidder who said they could cover the septic costs without a county loan, Comstock said.

Shellfish Constable Nancy Civetta urged the board to “alleviate the burden of these required transitions.”

The town has to consider “the impact on our younger generation of residents,” she said.