At the Delaware Gap National Recreation Area in Eastern Pennsylvania, the National Park Service erected a small outhouse that cost $330,000. Bob Kirby, the park's assistant superintendent, notes that installing a flushing toilet was out of the question, because "the cost of putting in water lines would have been astronomical." Instead, enzymes in the special $24,000 toilets turn the waste into compost, which the park would like to use if it weren't prohibited from doing so by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The outhouse design features a gabled roof made of slate, cedar clapboard siding, cottage-style porches, and a cobblestone foundation to withstand Pennsylvania's frequent earthquakes.

The project was initiated in 1989, the plan finalized in 1992, the money appropriated in 1994, construction started in 1995, and the comfort station opened in 1997. $42,000 of the total bill was spent on archeological investigation of the site, as required by federal law. Nearly $95,000 more was spent on design costs, which entail seeking construction permits from nearly a dozen government agencies. In addition, a portion of the contract had to be awarded to minority-owned firms, the outhouse had to conform with size requirements mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as federal energy-conservation standards, wages paid according to Davis-Bacon Act strictures that sets wages at "prevailing" construction union levels, and procurement had to conform to Buy-American Act requirements. Such projects must also pay an average of 15 percent extra to have a supervisor from the Denver Design Center (responsible for most of the NPS's large projects) on site at all times, along with a representative of a local Native American tribe to make sure construction does not disturb culturally significant lands.

Other federal outhouse construction projects include another $322,000 comfort station in New Jersey, a $175,000 "solar-convecting vault toilet" in North Carolina, and a more conventional $70,000 outhouse in the California desert. By comparison, the median price Americans paid for a home in 1995 was $112,900. A four-hole outhouse in Montana's Glacier National Park cost a whopping $1 million. The structure features solar-powered composting units and uses propane as a backup to keep the facility functional during a freeze. Construction required excavating 14 feet of rock, and getting materials to the site required 500 helicopter flights. The National Park Service apparently agrees that the money could be better spent, but says the project was mandated and funded by Congress.

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