In a year’s time, Martha’s Vineyard waters could be protected from sewage pollution with federal designation as a boater’s no-discharge area. The move would make the waters cleaner, protect Vineyard shellfish, and open Island towns and businesses to federal and state dollars to further clean up the waterways.

Efforts to protect Vineyard waters got a boost on Wednesday when the Steamship Authority was awarded a grant of more than a million dollars to build new sewage pumping facilities for its ferries at the Vineyard Haven, Nantucket, Hyannis and Woods Hole ports.

Just about everywhere in the state except the Vineyard already is protected. Nantucket was among the first in the state to be designated as a no-discharge area, in 1992. Two weeks ago, the coastal waters of outer Cape Cod were the latest to be protected, meaning boats may no longer dump sewage, treated or untreated, into any coastal waters of Massachusetts from the New Hampshire state line south to Chatham. All of Rhode Island, including Block Island, has the designation.

“I think we should do it,” said Jo-Ann Taylor, coastal planner for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

Work to make all state waters around the Island a non-discharge area began about four years ago, according to Stephen McKenna, a regional coordinator for the Coastal Zone Management, Cape Cod and the Islands. The no-discharge area would cover the Island harbors, all the waters around Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket Sound and Vineyard Sound. For now, a corridor used by the steamship ferries would be excluded, and the center of Nantucket Sound, which is a “donut hole” of federal waters, also is not included.

The lengthy process of gaining no-discharge designation from the federal Environmental Protection Agency involves towns, state and federal environmental agencies and private entities including the ferry operators.

“Frankly, we thought it was simpler than it turned out to be,” Mr. McKenna said. “We hadn’t thought of the ferries. That has been the biggest challenge.”

All boats already are prohibited from discharging raw sewage out to three miles. Vessels that have inboard sewage treatment facilities are allowed to discharge, and gray water is allowed, in deep water. Ferries servicing the Island and many cruise ships have these treatment facilities and they discharge, most often somewhere in Vineyard and Nantucket Sound.

But a no-discharge designation approved by the EPA would prohibit any discharge at all, whether it is treated or not. Vessel operators would then have to do their unloading at port, to a wastewater treatment facility.

So in order for a community to qualify for the designation, they must provide adequate facilities for pumpout. Martha’s Vineyard’s harbors already provide free pumpout facilities to recreational boaters. The next step is to be sure that there are adequate facilities for all visiting working vessels. That includes the Steamship Authority, Island Queen and Hy-Line, and all of them are onboard, according to Mr. McKenna.

The process of becoming a no-discharge area falls under the Clean Water Act. States establish the nondischarge areas, but the EPA must approve them based on its determination that there are sufficient sewage pumpout facilities to serve the area’s boaters.

Ann Rodney, environmental protection specialist at the federal EPA office in Boston, explains: “The state submits the application. There are three ways the application can be submitted. Either they have a reasonable ability to provide pumpouts for the boaters; does the area need more protection; and thirdly, is it a drinking water intake zone.

“There is a grant program for marina owners, towns, yacht clubs and public or private entities to apply for grants [covering the cost of] 75 per cent of the installation and maintenance of the pumpout facilities.

“That is an unbelievable amount,” Ms. Rodney said. “Massachusetts has gotten a lot of money from this.”

Ms. Rodney said the big question the EPA asks is whether the communities seeking the designation can adequately provide enough shoreside pumpout facilities for boaters. The idea is not to inconvenience ship and boat operators to the point that they can’t discharge their onboard waste.

The Vineyard’s harbor masters each day oversee pumpout boats service recreational boaters. Edgartown and Vineyard Haven each pumpout about 20,000 gallons a summer. Oak Bluffs pumps 10,000 gallons. Menemsha’s shoreside pumpout facility is a 1,500-gallon tank and it hasn’t been emptied yet this summer.

Island town governments, not private marinas, provide all the infrastructure for pumpout facilities. Vineyard Haven harbor master Jay Wilbur, who said he has attended many of the meetings on the Cape over the no-discharge designation process, said he wants local marinas to start providing the services because the costs associated with the work are too daunting for the towns to handle alone.

“Right now we are subsidizing the private facilities,” he said. “We provide the pumpout for free.” Marinas charge boaters for dockage, and boaters assume the pumpout is part of that arrangement, he said, but in fact the town provides the pumpout.

Looking over to Falmouth, which has the designation, Mr. Wilbur said: “The Falmouth harbor master will not pump out the boats in the marinas.” That free service is provided by the marinas.

Mr. Wilbur worries about the rising pressure on his department to ensure that everyone gets pumped out. The town has two boats. One serves the Vineyard Haven harbor and a second runs all day in Lake Tashmoo. Mr. Wilbur said overseeing the pumpouts in his harbors has become “a third of my job.”

“I am concerned that we will not be able to keep up with the demand. People don’t pump out when they are in their own home ports. They come here. They bring it here and get pumped out. That is why our volume is so much higher than the home ports. We are a destination harbor.

“We are the third highest in pumpouts in the state, Nantucket being the first. Edgartown is the second and Vineyard Haven is the third by volume,” Mr. Wilbur said.

“This is about providing facilities. I think that private facilities need to step up to the plate,” he added.

The next big hurdle for getting designation involves the ferry services that run to and from the Island.

Right now the nine Steamship Authority ferries have onboard treatment facilities to handle the waste. “We have marine sanitation devices on all the vessels and they treat 99.9 per cent of the bacteria. But it doesn’t treat the nitrogen,” said Wayne Lamson, general manager for the Steamship Authority.

Those ferries servicing the Vineyard dump the treated waste somewhere between the Chops and Nobksa Light. It is all legal. But the boat line is creating a new plan to offload untreated waste in the ports the ferries visit.

Mr. McKenna has high praise for the Steamship Authority’s plan. “I can’t say enough about the Steamship Authority. They knew this was coming and they have made it a part of their capital plan,” Mr. McKenna said.

Next year, the boat line will break ground on the installation of wastewater collection facilities at four of its ports, Vineyard Haven, Nantucket, Hyannis and Woods Hole. The project is expected to take a year.

On Wednesday the state announced that the SSA had received a $1.27 million grant to help cover the costs of those new facilities, part of 12 grants awarded to the state by the Federal Highway Administration.

The SSA expects the total cost to be $2 million. It is part of a $3 million effort to convert the treatment facilities onboard all the ferries from saltwater plants to freshwater holding systems.

“The municipal treatment facilities don’t like salt water,” Mr. Lamson said. “We are estimating that it will cost $100,000 per vessel.”

In addition to offloading wastewater at the ports, Mr. Lamson said arrangements have to be made to take onboard more fresh water.

“The modifications to the ferries would have to take place at the shipyard,” said Mr. Lamson. He said that once the shoreside wastewater facilities are completed, conversions of the boats’ treatment systems would begin as part of their regular, required shipyard drydock inspections. Based on the routine drydocking schedule, the conversion would take three years.

The Cape and Islands state representative Timothy Madden praised Mr. Lamson for pursuing the grant. “Not only will it be good for the environment, but it will also be good for the ratepayers ... funding the operations for the Steamship Authority.”

State senator Dan Wolf called the federal grant “an important piece of the puzzle to fall into place. [With] this grant, creating a no-discharge zone that covers all of the waters surrounding the Cape and Islands is now feasible.”

State, federal and local authorities feel the application to designate the Vineyard as a no-discharge area can proceed in tandem with the boat line’s upgrades.

Ms. Taylor said the state plan being drawn up will include corridors across the waters between Vineyard Haven and Woods Hole, and between Nantucket and Hyannis, where the ferries will still be allowed to dump their treated waste until they all are refitted. Once the work on the ferries is done, the corridors can be closed.

Ms. Taylor said she is concerned about the future work being done on the Cape Wind project in the unaffected center of Nantucket Sound. “For some reason this federal government won’t designate the donut,” she said. “That area is federal waters.”

Charlie Blair, harbor master of Edgartown, said it would be an education process, to switch from dumping to holding. “Remember the days when we used to throw our lunch overboard? That was normal. That was when I was a kid. We never worried about anything. This is an education.

“You have to make it real easy for the yachtsman to be able to pump out. Detergents are bad for shellfish. Yacht designers are creating boats with holding tanks, and they are routing the sinks and shower into the tank. Before when you took a shower, your water went right out. It is really important to make sure that the boat designers stay with the new program.”

Meanwhile Mr. McKenna may be able to get federal approval as early as next summer.