The Town recently extended Town Water out to Madaket on the western end of the island. Until this occurred, all Madaket properties were serviced by private on-site wells and on-site septic systems. Residents can now choose whether or not to connect to Town water; it is not mandatory. During a recent conversation with Richard Ray, the Nantucket Health Inspector, when asked when Town sewer might come to Madaket, he responded that we do not yet know. He said, “We are moving ahead with the concept that Town sewer will be brought to Madaket IF the taxpayers approve a funding mechanism”. Such approval, by statute, would need to occur at a Nantucket Town Meeting, the governing body for our municipality. The next Annual Town Meeting is in April 2014, but finding common ground on such a complex issue may take some years.
The benefit of extending Town sewer to more rural areas is to protect the island’s bodies of water, which are being threatened from too many nutrients leaching through the soil and ending up in the ponds and harbors, a problem that affects all of us, and not just residents in these areas. The challenge now is to agree on a fair and equitable way to pay for the solution.
The Town has explored, with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the possibility of constructing an additional wastewater treatment plant in Madaket, which could have cost as much as $50-$60 million. Consultants are now working to determine whether or not the existing Town Wastewater Treatment Plant (located in Surfside) could handle the additional sewage from Madaket. This would be much more cost effective than building a new plant in Madaket. If Nantucket can get the DEP to recalculate the existing sewer plant capacity, there is a chance the existing plant could handle waste not only from Madaket but also from properties out to Shimmo and maybe even Cisco, according to Mr. Ray. If Town sewer were to be extended to Madaket, the west end will remain largely the same in terms of how it looks. Zoning regulations were instituted to insure that build-out would not be radically altered by bringing sewer to Madaket.
-Penny