This commentary is by Ned Farquhar, a resident of Waitsfield who recently served on the board of Friends of the Mad River.
We have an old sugarhouse on our property — one for which an excellent central Vermont band (“Sugar Shack”) is named because they rehearsed there. The place practically resonates with the vibe if not the sound of the Grateful Dead.
We have been interested in whether the Sugar Shack could be converted into a highly livable, extremely beautiful affordable housing unit here in our Mad River Valley, where there’s an extreme shortage of rental units for young couples and singles.
So I started asking around. What would it take?
Obviously a water supply and at least a gray water disposal system. Fortunately there’s a great well just uphill from it.
And something for septic treatment, too, for sure. I inquired among state and local experts, governmental and private consultants. It turns out that the cost of converting that sugarhouse with a septic system would cost at least $35,000 to $40,000.
Perfect opportunity for a composting system, I thought. They have come along quite miraculously, for a basic technology, since I learned about them in the 1980s and ’90s as director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. (In fact, back then, a visionary and ambitious bio-experiment at a major local ski area failed because, as I understood it, hot tub owners used some copper sulfate to clean the tubs, killing off the hothouse grasses intended to purify the effluent.)
But a person or two should be able to use and manage a conventional composting toilet with few issues and lots of savings, I thought.
Wrong.
State rules require a backup septic system with 75% the capacity of a standard septic system, in case the composting toilet system fails.
That hardly ever happens. And if you have a failure, it’s pretty easy to replace the failed composting toilet, for maybe $1,500 to $2,000. You don’t need a $35,000 to $40,000 backup septic tank and field. Just make a new rule that a failed composting toilet must be safely and immediately replaced.
Very few toilet users would want to live with a failed toilet for long, even a day. Connecting a new conventional toilet to a backup septic system would take a lot longer and probably cost much more.
And why would 75% of a septic field suffice to replace a failed composting system? There’s something wrong with the logic of saying you can build three-quarters of the usual, safe septic field for what would be 100% of the usual use of your toilet.
Lots of Vermonters have outbuildings or extra space that could be converted with reliance on composting toilets instead of expansion of their septic systems. Vermont could free up a lot of homeowners to help with the state’s affordable housing challenge, at least for rentals, by allowing a more logical regulatory system for composting toilets. Older Vermonters might appreciate a renter who can help with chores or watch the house when the owner-retirees are away.
This won’t pose a threat to water quality. Composting toilets create clean, usable compost/waste. And they don’t leak into our waterways as septic systems sometimes do. If they fail, they can be quickly removed and affordably replaced, unlike a septic tank and field. They are a smart way to manage water and waste.
The costly, prohibitive belt-and-suspenders approach of our outdated septic rules needs rethinking, now. I look forward to hearing from state officials, including our legislators, whether reconsideration of the rules for composting toilets could be timely and what the barriers to it might be. Many Vermonters — homeowners and renters — will benefit.
With a wave from the big windows of the Sugar Shack, thanks for thinking about a new approach to the composting toilet.
