Westport caught a big break earlier this  month, when state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) officials exempted the town, and all other South Coast communities, from a series of regulatory changes that could have required homeowners to undertake costly upgrades to their septic systems in an effort to control nitrogen in the region's estuaries and waterways.

If the proposed amendments to the state's Title V regulations had been applied to towns like Westport, they would have required towns to either agree to a 20-year "Watershed Management Permit" that would compel them to meet stringent nitrogen requirements, or else require homeowners to pay for upgrades that some estimated would cost $30,000 or more per household.

The proposed amendments were introduced last year and would have designated dozens of South Coast watersheds as "nitrogen sensitive areas" where the changes would be required. Under the recent state decision, the regulatory changes will apply only to towns on the Cape.

At a meeting of the select board Monday evening, Westport Town Administrator James Hartnett said the state's decision to exempt Westport and other area towns is a big win.

"Very big news," said Hartnett. If the Title V changes are ever to be applied to Westport, "they would have to be amended to re-include" the town.

While the state's intention now is to work with area communities to "facilitate more nutrient wastewater planning," according to the DEP, it still has the authority to remove the exemption if communities do not make progress on the issue.

But according to Hartnett, Westport is "probably ahead of most communities" in the region with respect to its efforts to fight nitrogen loading in waterways.

The proposed changes generated considerable pushback from Westport, where officials have worked for years to update the town's regulations and practices in an effort to reduce nitrogen loading.

In comments submitted to the state earlier this year, the town's board of health criticized the proposed changes, while acknowledging that the issue of nitrogen pollution, and solutions to it, are extremely important to Westport and surrounding communities.

In a commentary sent to the Shorelines this week, board of health vice chairman Phil Weinberg wrote that the state's decision to exempt the town and others in the region "should be seen as a victory of the public comment process."

"The board acknowledged the importance of addressing the damage caused by wastewater pollution, but criticized the infeasibility, inequities and lack of flexibility in several provisions that were central to drafts’ framework," he wrote.

Westport also made the case, Weinberg said, that such an onerous "regulatory stick" was not needed in a town that has made "consistent progress" in reducing its nitrogen impact.

He pointed to many examples: The board of health's rules that require nitrogen reducing systems for new construction, the phasing out of antiquated cesspools, the town's Integrated Water Resource Management Plan passed in 2020, farmers' adoption of practices that reduce nitrogen runoff from manure, the nitrogen reducing septic system required by the planning board at the new middle-high school, and others.