Sewage concerns shake sound

In their long, hard campaign against development of an offshore wind farm, defenders of Nantucket Sound have often characterized their beloved water body as "pristine." Former governor Mitt Romney dubbed the sound a "national treasure."

But the ferry boat operators who are among the leading opponents of the wind farm in Nantucket Sound have been flushing their toilets in it.

Nantucket Sound serves as a veritable outhouse for the 3 million people who take ferries back and forth from Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket every year. The Steamship Authority treats the waste before dumping it, but Hy-Line Cruises does not.

The practice is legal because the ferries release the waste once they are in federal waters, 3 miles offshore.

Moses Calouro, who runs Maritime Information Systems in Orleans and Rhode Island, which handles computer consulting for the shipping industry, believes ferries should pump the waste into onshore sewage lines, rather than dumping it in the sound.

"I think ferries should pump because they dock every night - as opposed to a tanker, which goes thousands of miles offshore and it's logistically not possible," Calouro said. "I mean, why not?"

Calouro sparked a debate last summer by editorializing on community website CapeCodToday.com against the longstanding practice of discharging raw sewage. The site followed up with a series of articles on the topic.

Some Cape Cod organizations have begun asking the state and federal government to prohibit waste discharge in the sound. But a no-discharge area would only apply to the portions of the sound in Massachusetts waters, and would require a lengthy analysis of the boats using the area and the pumping facilities available to serve them.

The US Environmental Protection Agency, which last month backed a ban on dumping waste in Boston Harbor, will not support a community's request for a ban until it can ensure boaters have a place to take their waste, said Ann Rodney, an environmental protection specialist for the agency.

No-discharge zones protect coastline along New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, as well as eight coastal areas in Massachusetts - but not Nantucket Sound, the virtues of which have been applauded countless times in the six years since Cape Wind Associates proposed building a wind farm in those storied waters.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has waged a massive publicity campaign to kill the project, which members say would industrialize a body of water they describe as an unspoiled natural resource.

But that characterization belies the sound's long history of commercial activity, says Dick Elrick of Mashpee, president of Clean Power Now, a group formed to champion the wind farm project.

"It's a body of water that has been used for over 200 years," he said. "Commercial fishermen have dragged the bottom until it's a desert. We've got fuel barges going back and forth. It isn't the body of water that has been described."

Elrick previously worked as a ferry boat captain and long heeded orders to send waste over the side as soon as the boat reached federal water.

"It's being diluted. But I never felt particularly good about it," he said. "I certainly wouldn't have wanted to go swimming [there]."

Both major ferry lines and the Passenger Ferry Association of America have opposed Cape Wind's plans, citing concerns that the 130 massive wind turbines could interfere with navigation or radar systems.

The Steamship Authority is working on plans to pump waste from ferries to sewage lines at its terminals, said Robert Davis, its treasurer.

So, too, is Hy-Line, though R. Murray Scudder Jr., vice president of the company, cautioned that the company is still assessing how achievable it will be to connect to a town sewer line.

Susan Nickerson, executive director of Nantucket Soundkeeper, is among those who proposed banning discharge in the sound, even though she acknowledges that regular water testing has found no problems related to the discharge.

But Nickerson, who agrees with ferry owners in opposing the wind farm, said she has encouraged the ferry operators to build pump-out stations.

"It is unfortunate that it's gone on as long as it has," Nickerson said. "But they're addressing it."

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com.