Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Right where the lobster boats operate?  |
The lobster boats are a little further out, but you get the idea.
One time I was standing on the wharf of Monhegan Island and saw a big bubbling foam blob pop up out of the water and disperse. I wondered WTF, and then as I looked around, I saw them. A handful of rusty cast iron pipes that blended right in to the brown rocks, dipping down into the water. They came from every building on the edge of the water. The coast is so rocky there, you can't have a functioning septic system. Not enough soil.
There must be some sort of grandfathering in of older buildings or different rules for different sized islands, and maybe some of the more populous islands near Portland have big pipes that go to the mainland and pump the sewage to be treated, but the small ones, like Monhegan, just try to be quiet about it. It's a big ocean, and it's biodegradable.
Edit: And my "Pipe that goes a few hundred yards out into the ocean" comment earlier is an exaggeration. This is individual houses doing it and it's only a hundred feet or so.