FREEPORT (AP) – Toilets are backing up and tempers are flaring on Bustins Island, where state environmental regulators have ordered a halt to the summer colony’s time-honored method of human waste disposal.

Residents have been told that they may no longer dump outhouse contents into a “honey pit” in the middle of the island, a practice that has been followed for nearly half a century.

The island, which has 115 cottages and no electricity, is one of the few communities in the nation where most people still use outhouses. Located about a mile off South Freeport near the mouth of the Harraseeket River, it has a summer population that ranges from 150 to more than 300.

Some residents blame the flap over waste disposal on the village corporation that manages the island, saying it has failed to safeguard water quality. Others blame Culver Barr II, a resident who has filed complaints with the state.

The Bustins Island Village Corp. lacks the required state permit for the sewage disposal area. Its transfer station and its seaside brush-burning operation have also been shut down by the state because they had no permits.

In addition, the state is looking for pipes that may be dumping wastewater into the ocean. Shellfish beds within 500 feet of the island were closed this spring because of “improper sewerage disposal.”

Yet another concern is the safety of the island’s drinking water. Two out of the island’s five public wells were “unsatisfactory” and are not recommended for drinking, according to a notice posted at the island post office.

“Basically, Bustins has been busted for illegal management across the board,” said Rosemary Thomas, an islander whose said the water has made her so sick that she now refuses to let her dog drink it.

The corporation’s Board of Overseers is committed to getting proper licenses and creating a new waste-disposal operation that will meet state Department of Environmental Protection rules, said its chairman, Tony DeBruyn.

“We are taking this very seriously,” he said. “It’s going to take a bunch of work. It will cost a lot of money. But it needs to be done. We are going to do the right thing here.”

Barr, who spends his summers on the island at his mother’s cottage, said he wants to dismantle the village corporation and turn the island’s administration over to the town.

But island resident Ron Sweatt, who created the honey pit more than 40 years ago, said hauling the waste to the center of the island and mixing it with leaves to compost it was a better solution than having residents bury their waste anywhere they wished.

“Barr makes it sound like we’re really doing something wrong, but there is no malicious intent to break laws,” he said. “That’s what makes people angry. He has turned this into a vendetta and is trying to bring the island down. And he’s doing a good job of it.”

Dick Garfield, who left the island a few days ago to return home to New Jersey, said the controversy has fractured the tight-knit community.

“It used to be that everyone loved each other,” he said. “Now they are suing each other.”

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-09-16-06 1234EDT

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