History Spotlight: Falmouth's Sewer System

While the existence of a proper and well functioning sewer system is considered one of the hallmarks of a civilized society, Falmouth was behind the times on the creation of its own.

During the first 200 years of Falmouth's existence, everyone mostly relied on the town wells for the water they used, and tended to give indoor plumbing a miss. By the 20th century, though, this rustic approach would no longer do. The kickoff came in 1901, when Falmouth began planning the creation of a municipal water system.

By 1927, a new wrinkle had emerged from the Board of Health, whose members were worried about the possibility of water contamination of Woods Hole's water supply. It was then decided—during a Town Meeting vote—to create a committee that would implement a sewage system and an accompanying water treatment plant for the town of Woods Hole.

The work of the committee took a year to prepare and complete, and in 1929, the plan came up for a vote, which came back nay. The total cost for the system and its treatment plant came up to $65,290.

Something had to be done, as it was becoming evident that the contamination was not only present in Woods Hole. Reports were coming in that when the sun was out and shining, Shiverick's Pond ruined the day by emanating a bad smell.

It was no longer an issue that could be put off, and so yet another committee was created to study the problem and suggest alternatives. The idea was to create a gravity flow system would run from Palmer Avenue to just past King's Street. This plan was again voted down, as its roughly $80,000 price tag was too rich for anyone to stomach.

This is how matters stood for quite some time; committees would be created, results delivered, fees suggested, and then the whole thing would effectively go into the garbage can. The Board of Health even weighed in with stern-sounding ultimatums, but that failed to speed up the process.

The Department of Public Works made an attempt in 1938 to come up with the financial backing for the town, but the town disapproved it, thinking that it would not be approved by the PWA. The plan for Falmouth's sewer system had actually been approved, but by then it was too late: Falmouth had said no, and the grant that the Public Works Department had offered was gone.

The bureaucratic backlogs and problems continued far into the later half of the 20th century, from 1947—when construction of a Woods Hole sewer system started its own rough birth—to 1966, when Falmouth's Water Department began to press the issue of sewer construction.

It wasn't until the 1980's that the project actually got underway, not without its own problems. But as anyone can see (or in some cases, smell), it was all worth the effort.