Long lines are a common sight at the Toby’s Playground bathrooms, the third most visited public restroom in Marin and the only one in Point Reyes Station. To address increasing numbers of visitors to the village, the county plans to build 10 additional toilets after over two years of planning a smaller expansion.
The restroom design originally proposed adding four new restrooms, doubling the site’s existing capacity—not including several portable restrooms placed behind the facility in recent years. But after the county and its contractor, Sherwood Design Engineers, presented three design schemes to the community in June and heard public feedback, they decided to scrap the plans in favor of a larger expansion.
The price tag on the revised project has yet to be determined, but the county allocated $1 million from the American Rescue Plan funding. It is likely the project will cost at least that much, Supervisor Dennis Rodoni told the Light.
“I’m willing to commit the whole $1 million to that site, because we think it’s going to end up being actually more than that at the end of the day,” he said. “Planning and development costs are already running at a quarter of a million, so it’s going to be quite an expensive project.”
The Mesa Road restrooms were built in 2008 and renovated in 2021 to include a $165,000 wheelchair-accessible ramp. Their septic tank capacity is undersized by several thousand gallons per day, said Craig Richardson, senior planner for Marin County Parks.
The three permanent toilets receive around 6,000 gallons of wastewater daily, but the septic system can only process 900 gallons. (The site has a fourth stall that is used for storage.) As a result, the county pumps the site one to three times a week and placed eight portable toilets behind the facility in recent years.
The Point Reyes Station Village Association supports the larger expansion plan, president Steve Antonaros said. “We were concerned that the initial design didn’t account for the existing portable toilets and actually proposed fewer toilets than what we currently have,” he said. “So I’m glad they have addressed our concerns.”
Sherwood Design Engineers has recommended increasing the wastewater capacity by 7,000 gallons per day, which would involve constructing new water treatment and disposal areas. Although the community initially expressed support for composting toilets or other green alternatives, Sherwood concluded that these technologies require extensive maintenance, according to Allison Good, a project engineer at the firm.
“We interviewed operators at other facilities using green alternatives and found they require significant upkeep and operator involvement,” she said. “These systems need separate treatment and disposal of both liquid and solid waste streams, which isn’t ideal for this remote of a site.”
Instead, they are considering either a supplemental treatment system, such as a septic tank, or a water reuse system that treats water for non-potable reuse.
A water reuse system would require additional equipment and daily testing for indicator bacteria, with samples transported to San Rafael for analysis, the nearest testing lab. The remoteness of Point Reyes Station, its proximity to Tomales Bay and the absence of a centralized wastewater system present unique challenges for the project, Ms. Good added.
“Often, we’re dealing with projects in urban environments where you can simply connect to the sewer system,” she said. “In this case, there isn’t one, but it allows us to control the wastewater treatment process and ensure the systems are designed correctly to meet the area’s standards.”
The new restrooms will address the lack of accessible facilities in the area, a gap left by local businesses that close their bathrooms to customers.
“Many businesses in town have septic systems that are rather dated,” said Gwen Baert, an environmental health specialist with the county. “A lot of them are very old and struggling. Allowing customers to use their facilities would necessitate costly upgrades or replacements. So they are trying to limp along while adding as little sewage as possible.”
Sherwood is working on new drawings, and the county plans to present updated designs to the community later this summer.