We have a community issue of highest priority, but hardly anyone understands enough about it. In 1995, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) instituted its Title 5 septic regulations, creating new state requirements for individual onsite septic disposal systems.

Soon after, DEP scientists realized that because the Title 5 systems had much larger leaching areas than the previous cesspools and leaching pits, they would actually leach much more nitrogen into the groundwater. This meant that more nitrogen would get into the ponds and cause algae infestations.

The DEP has long known that the nitrogen from Title 5 systems drains straight into the groundwater, which flows toward the ponds at a rate of one to two feet per day. (The rate is faster when there is heavy rain, so fast that even coliform bacteria survive, leading to closures of ponds and beaches.)

The DEP knew that Title 5 systems located in sensitive watershed areas have been contributing to the destruction of our ponds. In short, the DEP has known for more than 25 years that Title 5 was in violation of the federal Clean Water Act, a law enacted in 1972, “... to ensure that drinking water is safe, and to restore and maintain oceans, watersheds, and their aquatic ecosystems to protect human health, support economic and recreational activities, and provide healthy habitat for fish, plants, and wildlife.”

In spite of this, DEP stood by its Title 5 rules, with a penalty of $500 per day for noncompliance. Fortunately, soon after the new septic rules were adopted, the DEP began a program to test Innovative/Alternative (I/A) technologies with the stated purpose of encouraging the development of systems capable of reducing nitrogen pollution stemming from Title 5 systems.

Unfortunately, for anyone seeking a permit to install an I/A system, the state program required years of unreasonable overkill testing at a remote military site on Cape Cod, costing many thousands of dollars, most of it unnecessary from a public health or any other point of view.

Therefore, today on Martha’s Vineyard, fewer than one per cent of our Title 5 systems are equipped with effective nitrogen-reducing technology.

Our Island story could have been written differently, with our own inspection and testing program that would have been just as safe and effective, administered by our own boards of health. It could have included an Island-wide team of health inspectors/testers to inspect and monitor all local I/A systems, checking for compliance with health and safety codes, and testing water samples for ammonia, nitrate and nitrites.

If we had started this two decades ago, our ponds would now be clean and safe. But that is not how the story went.

As a result, today our ponds are in various stages of decline, with some experiencing massive algae infestations, including highly toxic cyanobacteria.

The DEP eventually did take action, but only after being sued by the Conservation Law Foundation, which went to court to hold the state accountable for years of neglect that led to severe water pollution problems on Cape Cod.

New regulations issued last month aim to begin to undo the damage on the Cape by requiring state-approved I/A systems in sensitive watersheds — another heavily bureaucratic DEP process that will take years to complete and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Exactly who pays for it all has been left unclear.

At least for now, the new DEP regulations will not apply to the Vineyard. But as our ponds continue to decline, there are other options that could be pursued.

One such option is the BioCarbon filter system, first developed on the Vineyard as a retrofit on a standard septic system, and described in detail in my second book, Green Light at the End of the Tunnel. Basically, it’s a two-stage filter composed of aged woodchips, redworms and other composting critters, and various landscaping plants, retrofitted between a pre-existing septic tank and leaching field.

A pilot of the system done in 1995 showed an average of 91 per cent nitrogen removal. A video of the system is in development and will be released soon on YouTube.

The system is estimated to cost less than $15,000 versus $37,000 to $49,000 for the current generation I/A systems. It requires no tree removal because no big machinery is required. Fees for inspections and testing would also be far lower than for other systems on the market today.

By using such natural green retrofits, we can easily do on the Vineyard what the DEP will now require on the Cape: reduce nitrogen by 75 per cent within five years. With an estimated 10,000 Title 5 systems on the Island, 2,000 could be converted annually — or 40 systems per week. It would mean many new clean, green, well-paid jobs.

Of course caution is paramount — after all, we are dealing with human waste, with the potential to cause immense harm to our health and our ponds. This is exactly the harm that our state DEP has been forcing us to do to ourselves since 1995.

An all-Island community meeting is planned soon to get the ball rolling on the pursuit of these other options described above. The location, date and time will be announced.

It’s time to take back our inalienable right to protect our water.

Anna Edey lives in Vineyard Haven.