Wastewater concerns continue to hover over the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s proposed new nursing home facility off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, with selectmen voting Monday to commission an independent analysis.
The Edgartown wastewater treatment facility has dramatically curtailed its capacity for taking pumpouts from septic systems in recent months, forcing septic haulers to scramble.
Without wastewater treatment facilities, Island ponds could be in worse shape. Estuaries suffer from nitrogen overload, coming mostly from septic systems that remove bacteria but not nitrogen.
A few hundred alternative systems are installed on Martha's Vineyard, mostly in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs. The technology could help achieve nitrogen mitigation in Island coastal ponds.
Edgartown Wastewater Treatment Plant Under Legal Seige for Ten Years
Over Its Discharge Permit
By IAN FEIN
A decade-long legal battle examining the environmental merits of the
Edgartown sewer system and wastewater treatment plant came before the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week.
The court heard arguments on the case last Thursday and will likely
issue a decision sometime this spring.
The algal bloom in Edgartown Great Pond has prompted much well-justified discussion and concern.The following is intended to provide a little additional detail on prospective solutions to improve the health of the pond.
A nine-month investigation by state and local police into possible fraud at the Edgartown wastewater treatment plant concluded this week with a criminal complaint against an Island septic hauler, alongside allegations of widespread mismanagement at the sewer plant and possible ethics violations by town employees and elected officials.
A yearlong investigation into record-keeping practices at the Edgartown wastewater treatment plant came to an end this week with the release of a sharply critical report from a special town attorney, who found a long list of deficiencies in management practices at the plant and in the way the elected members of the town wastewater commission conducted themselves.
