Imagine that you’re an onsite professional trying to help the mayor or town chairman of a very small rural community — a church or two, a post office, a few stores, a municipal hall, a few dozen homes.

It’s time for the community to get away from septic tanks, but a gravity sewer system and an activated sludge treatment plant are strictly out of the question — too costly. What options can you offer?

You could find help in one of the latest work products from the Consortium of Institutes for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment. It’s a set of Decentralized Systems Performance and Costs Fact Sheets, created under a grant from the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF).

It’s one of the many training and educational products created by the consortium, which is profiled in an article in this issue of Onsite Installer. The fact sheets could be valuable in the toolbox of an engineer, designer, or other onsite professional in the business of helping communities meet their treatment needs.

 

A step forward

“The materials are focused on very small communities that are still on septic systems and really need to upgrade to some form of more centralized treatment, but probably don’t need a full-blown wastewater treatment plant,” says John Buchanan, who chairs the consortium’s executive board.

“The documents use very plain language, saying for example that to handle water up to so many gallons per day, you’ll need a treatment system that occupies so many square feet, and when it comes down to it, here is an estimate of what it’s going to cost.

“The fact sheets aren’t written for engineers. They’re written for that small-town mayor, who probably has a full-time job in the next town and maybe is only mayor on Tuesday night once a month.”

 

Getting the answers

Wastewater treatment can be a big challenge for communities in that no-man’s land between individual septic systems and municipal sewerage. It’s hard for community leaders to act when they have no homegrown expertise and no idea what options are available, let alone how much they cost.

There are four series of fact sheets covering collection, treatment, effluent dispersal and cost. The collection series, for example, covers gravity, pressure, effluent and vacuum sewer systems. As defined here, an effluent sewer is one that carries wastewater that has undergone liquid/solid separation — primary treatment.

Each fact sheet discusses the particular system’s compatibility with the community’s vision, land area requirements, construction and installation procedures, maintenance requirements and costs. Charts are provided that show ranges of costs for homeowners to install their system components, and the materials and installation costs to build the collection network, based on the flow rate and number of homes served.

The treatment series includes information on liquid/solid separation, suspended and fixed-growth aerobic treatment, constructed wetlands, nutrient reduction, disinfection and residuals management. The dispersal series includes gravity, low-pressure, drip and spray distribution, plus evapotranspiration, surface water discharge, and water reuse.

Presented with selected items from this fact sheet series to suit its specific situation, a community could get a good start toward choosing an appropriate and affordable treatment approach that will serve its needs well.

 

Pay a visit

It seems worth almost any onsite professional’s time to get familiar with these community system options. Who knows when an opportunity might come up to help someone who needs expertise, or to undertake or support a small community’s wastewater treatment system project?

You can find all the fact sheet materials on the WERF website at www.werf.org/decentralizedcost. Go have a look. You’re just about certain to learn something, and along the way you might get inspired about a business opportunity you never actively considered before.