From the Falmouth Enterprise · September 6, 2023 · By Gilda Geist
The Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center, part of Barnstable County government, presented Falmouth’s Water Quality Management Committee on August 30, 2023, with a proposed urine-diversion pilot lasting about three years. Fifty households would each receive up to $10,000 toward fixtures and installation, and the total cost would be just under $900,000. The center would sample nutrients in septic effluent before and after the new toilets go in, track water use, assess how residents feel about the toilets, and pasteurize the collected urine for experiments. Residents including Earle A. Barnhart and Hilda Maingay of the Green Center and members of the Falmouth Pond Coalition had been asking the town for a pilot for months.
Committee members were receptive but wanted to meet with state regulators before voting. Wastewater Superintendent Amy A. Lowell noted that the pilot covers only collection, not how urine would be treated or disposed of on a larger scale, and suggested later phases could address that. Urine diversion is not on the state’s list of approved nitrogen-reducing alternatives, and the town hoped a pilot could help change that.
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