Animal Waste Disposal Laws in Massachusetts: What Every Livestock Owner Must Know
October 16, 2026
If you keep even a single horse, goat, or flock of hens in Massachusetts, you’re already subject to animal waste disposal laws that most owners never read until a neighbor complains or a Board of Health inspector shows up. Massachusetts doesn’t have one single “manure law” — instead, dead-animal and manure handling sits at the intersection of state solid waste rules, wetlands protections, and whatever ordinance your city or town’s Board of Health has adopted.
That patchwork can catch livestock keepers off guard, especially when local rules layer stricter setbacks or fines on top of state requirements. This guide walks you through what state agencies actually require for storing, spreading, and disposing of manure and carcasses, who enforces those rules, and what you risk if you get it wrong.
What Massachusetts Requires for Livestock Waste and Dead-Animal Disposal
Massachusetts treats farm waste as a solid waste issue first. Massachusetts law and regulations governing the disposal and management of solid waste apply to farms, and state officials have pursued cases involving accepted solid waste without a valid site assignment and maintaining an unpermitted dumping ground. The relevant framework runs through M.G.L. c. 111, §§ 150A and 150A½, along with 310 CMR 19.00 and 310 CMR 16.00.
On top of that state layer, cities and towns can adopt their own manure and animal waste ordinances through their Board of Health. Easton, Massachusetts, offers a working example: its manure and waste management regulation exists to give animal owners a method for handling accumulated manure and other wastes safely and sanitarily, covering composting, storage, and removal of manure related to keeping domestic animals. If you raise livestock, poultry, or even a couple of goats under our goat ownership laws in Massachusetts guide, check whether your town has a similar bylaw before you assume state rules are the only ones that apply.
Pro Tip: Call your local Board of Health before you build a manure pile or composting bin. Many Massachusetts towns layer their own setback and storage rules on top of state requirements, and a five-minute call can save you a costly retrofit.
Manure Storage, Stockpiling, and Land-Application Rules in Massachusetts
Massachusetts regulates how manure gets defined, stored, and spread through 330 CMR 31.00, the state’s plant nutrient application rules. Under that regulation, “animal manure” means animal excrement produced at an agricultural operation. The rule also draws a hard line around where that manure can legally end up: surface waters protected under the regulation include rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, springs, impoundments, estuaries, wetlands, coastal waters, and vernal pools.
If you compost manure or accept material from other farms, registration matters. The Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) requires agricultural facilities that compost material other than their own to register with MDAR’s Farm Composting Program, which is built around guidelines meant to ensure environmentally sound management practices. Smaller operations get more flexibility: general permits are available for those composting up to 20 cubic yards per week of vegetative materials, food scraps, and animal manure generated on-site, combined with bulking materials from on- or off-site. Anyone wanting to compost on-farm needs only submit a registration application and comply with the policies MDAR outlines.
Local bylaws add practical, day-to-day rules on top of the state framework. Easton’s ordinance, for example, requires that manure and waste be removed from paddocks and open fields based on standard farm practices, the size of the grounds, the type of animals kept, and weather conditions. The same ordinance flatly bans runoff: the property owner, agent, tenant, or any entity controlling the manure operation cannot allow drainage from stockpiled manure to flow over or onto abutting property, public ways, watercourses, or wetlands. If you’re fencing pasture to keep animals away from these storage areas, our livestock fence laws in Massachusetts article covers the boundary requirements that pair with manure management.
Backyard poultry keepers aren’t exempt either — litter from a coop still counts as animal waste under most local health rules, so if you’re weighing a flock, read our backyard chicken laws in Massachusetts breakdown alongside this one.
How You Must Dispose of Dead Livestock Carcasses in Massachusetts
Composting is the method Massachusetts agencies actively support for dead livestock, and it comes with less red tape than many owners expect. You should check with your state’s environmental agency or state veterinarian before you begin, but the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection does not require a permit for this practice. On-farm composting of dead animals generated on the same farm as the composting facility is exempt from needing a permit if it’s operated in compliance with Massachusetts Department of Agriculture regulations.
The technique itself follows a fairly specific recipe. Use a mixture of hay, manure, and bedding as an underlying layer, with moisture content between 40 and 50 percent. Keep odor to a minimum by turning the pile to aerate it and using covering material with enough carbon sources — straw, sawdust, or hay — to provide roughly a 25:1 carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. Construct a windrow 10 feet wide by 4 feet deep, located on a solid spot where the ground slopes 1 to 2 percent, and sited lengthwise with the slope so runoff and snow can’t puddle against it. Composting isn’t a fit for every scenario, though: this method is not recommended for whole herd or flock disposal cases.
Outside of farm composting, Massachusetts leaves a lot of the day-to-day carcass decision to city hall. In Massachusetts, dead animal carcasses are regulated by each individual municipality rather than a single statewide timeframe or method. Concord’s animal control office illustrates what that looks like in practice: if a dead animal is found on private property, it’s the responsibility of the property owner to handle disposal, and for small animals, the carcass can be placed in a securely sealed plastic or garbage bag and disposed of with routine trash collection. If burial is preferred, the site should be deep enough to prevent scavenging and located away from water sources, property lines, and other sensitive areas.
If the carcass in question came from a collision or a hunt rather than natural causes on your property, the rules shift again — our roadkill laws in Massachusetts guide and hunting laws in Massachusetts overview cover those separate scenarios in detail.
Which Agency Regulates Manure and Carcass Disposal in Massachusetts
No single office owns this topic, which is part of why the rules feel scattered. At the state level, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) administers solid waste regulations under 310 CMR 19.00 and 310 CMR 16.00, the same framework cited in enforcement actions against farms accused of improper waste handling. The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) runs the Farm Composting Program and, through its Division of Animal Health, oversees animal-related regulations more broadly.
Locally, your city or town’s Board of Health enforces manure ordinances and can inspect property. Inspections may be performed at any reasonable time by the Board of Health or its duly appointed agents, without prior notification. If you keep livestock that occasionally wander — a scenario covered in our estray livestock laws in Massachusetts article — both the Board of Health and animal control may end up involved depending on where the animal ends up and what it leaves behind.
For larger operations, federal oversight enters the picture. Massachusetts is part of U.S. EPA Region 1, and because Massachusetts is not an authorized state, it cannot issue NPDES permits itself. NPDES permits in Massachusetts are issued by the EPA Region 1 office instead of a state agency.
| Agency | What It Regulates | Governing Framework |
|---|---|---|
| MassDEP | Solid waste, illegal dumping, site assignments | 310 CMR 19.00, 310 CMR 16.00 |
| MDAR | Farm composting registration, animal health | Farm Composting Program, 330 CMR 25.00 |
| Local Board of Health | Manure storage bylaws, nuisance complaints, inspections | Local ordinances under M.G.L. c. 111, §31 |
| EPA Region 1 | NPDES permits for qualifying CAFOs | Federal Clean Water Act |
Water Setbacks, Groundwater Protections, and Health Standards in Massachusetts
Water protection is where state, local, and even federal rules overlap most heavily. The Wetlands Protection Act sets the baseline: the Act refers to M.G.L. c. 131, § 40, and defines “activity” broadly to include draining, dumping, discharging pollutants, and changing runoff characteristics. Administration happens close to home — at the local level, the community’s conservation commission administers the Wetlands Protection Act, a volunteer board of three to seven members appointed by the selectmen or city council, while MassDEP oversees the law at the state level.
That local-state split matters for manure storage decisions, because the definition of protected water is wide. Under 330 CMR 31.00, the surface waters covered include the same broad list referenced above — rivers, ponds, wetlands, and vernal pools among them. It’s no surprise, then, that local ordinances translate this into direct manure rules: Easton’s bylaw already bans stockpile drainage that reaches abutting property, public ways, watercourses, or wetlands, and most town Boards of Health borrow similar language.
Projects that could affect wetlands beyond routine farm operations may trigger an additional layer of state review. Discharges to rivers, streams, or wetlands that require federal permits also need a state Water Quality Certification, since MassDEP must certify that projects requiring federal permits won’t violate the state’s water quality standards, including protection for wetlands.
Important Note: If your property borders a pond, stream, or wetland used for waterfowl activity — the kind covered in our duck hunting laws in Massachusetts guide — manure or carcass placement near that water is exactly the scenario conservation commissions review most closely.
CAFO and Nutrient Management Plan Requirements in Massachusetts
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations face the heaviest compliance load of any livestock operation in the state, largely because Massachusetts handles their permitting differently than most states. As noted above, Massachusetts sits in EPA Region 1 and, as an unauthorized state, has its NPDES permits issued directly by the federal EPA regional office rather than a state environmental agency.
Federal technical support fills part of the gap. NRCS works with contract livestock growers to effectively manage animal waste, helping them create and implement Nutrient Management Plans (NMPs), providing agricultural waste management training, and publishing research to help producers follow federal regulations. A Nutrient Management Plan isn’t optional paperwork for qualifying operations — under the federal Clean Water Act framework EPA applies nationally, discharges from CAFOs that contain pollutants trigger NPDES permit requirements, and permitted CAFOs must implement an NMP addressing manure storage, land-application rates, and nutrient transport risk to nearby water.
Massachusetts’ own plant nutrient regulation, 330 CMR 31.00, layers state-level application standards on top of any federal CAFO permit. The regulation incorporates UMass Guidelines — materials developed by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Extension covering agricultural crops, animal manure management, and plant nutrient use and application — as the technical standard operators are expected to follow. If you’re weighing whether your operation crosses into CAFO territory, that’s a conversation worth having with MDAR and EPA Region 1 before you scale up herd size, not after.
Penalties for Illegal Dumping, Missed Carcass Deadlines, and Water Violations in Massachusetts
Local fines tend to be modest but real. Under Easton’s ordinance, the Board of Health is authorized by Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 111, Section 31, to impose a fine up to a maximum of $1,000 for violation of any reasonable health regulation. Multiply that across repeated violations or multiple animals, and a manure-storage dispute with your Board of Health can get expensive fast.
State-level enforcement carries more weight. The MassDEP case against Double “S” Farms in North Dartmouth shows how this plays out: the agency issued an order alleging the farm accepted solid waste — including cranberry waste by-products, stumps and brush, and sand with clam shell remnants — without a valid site assignment, and that it established and maintained a dumping ground of solid waste. Part of the underlying problem traced back to paperwork, not just physical waste: the farm had held an Agricultural Composting Registration with MDAR for agricultural composting operations at the site, but that registration had expired on March 31, 2017. MassDEP’s order required the farm to stop accepting solid waste for disposal and to submit a plan detailing how it intended to comply with the solid waste regulations going forward.
That case is a useful reminder: an expired registration can turn an otherwise legal composting operation into an illegal dumping ground overnight in the eyes of regulators. If you keep bees alongside livestock and rely on any kind of agricultural registration, cross-check your paperwork against our beekeeping laws in Massachusetts guide for a sense of how MDAR registration requirements tend to work across different agricultural activities.
Common Mistake: Letting an MDAR Farm Composting Registration lapse while continuing to accept off-site materials. Even a short gap can expose you to the same solid-waste violations MassDEP pursued in the Double “S” Farms case.
How to Confirm Current Massachusetts Animal-Waste Rules With the Agencies
Because manure and carcass rules sit across at least three layers of government, the fastest way to confirm what applies to your property is to ask each layer directly rather than relying on a single source.
- Start with your local Board of Health. Ask specifically about manure storage setbacks, stockpile drainage rules, and any local carcass-disposal timeframe — these vary by municipality.
- Contact MDAR about composting registration. The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture Resources can be reached at (617) 626-1700, with additional information at www.mass.gov/agr. Confirm your Farm Composting Program registration is active before accepting off-site material.
- Check with your conservation commission if any manure storage, land application, or carcass burial site sits near a pond, stream, wetland, or vernal pool.
- Review the state’s animal law resource page. Mass.gov maintains a page on animal laws and regulations in Massachusetts, pointed to resources from both the Mass. Animal Fund and the Mass. Department of Agricultural Resources’ Division of Animal Health.
- Ask EPA Region 1 directly if your herd size or operation type might qualify as a CAFO, since permitting for those operations bypasses the state entirely.
Rules around manure and carcass disposal shift as municipalities update bylaws and as MassDEP and MDAR revise their guidance, so a rule you confirmed a few years ago may no longer match current practice. If you’re also managing roosters, rabbits, or other small livestock covered under our rooster laws in Massachusetts article, it’s worth running the same verification process for each species you keep, since waste rules often differ by animal type even within the same town.
Key Insight: Massachusetts doesn’t centralize animal waste law in one statute. Treat state rules as the floor, your municipal Board of Health ordinance as the more restrictive layer that usually governs day-to-day practice, and federal EPA oversight as the trigger point only if your operation grows into CAFO territory.
Getting manure storage, land application, and carcass disposal right in Massachusetts comes down to knowing which of these three layers applies to your specific setup and keeping your paperwork current with MDAR and your local Board of Health. When in doubt, a phone call to your town’s health agent costs nothing and can prevent a $1,000 fine — or worse, a MassDEP enforcement order — down the road.