Not so long ago, there were few options for people who wanted to build homes on soils less than ideal for septic systems. A perc test was performed. If the site passed, the lot was “buildable.” If not, it wasn’t – or maybe you could get a permit for a mound.
About 25 years ago, my wife and I looked at a lot on a favorite “up north” fishing lake of mine. A large share of it was low and wet; there was a postage-stamp-sized place where maybe a drainfield would fit, if the soil would perc. In actual fact we had no way to afford the lot, so we never found out if it was truly “buildable.” I’m betting, though, that it would be today. Why? Technology.
Making it possible
How things have changed! Innovative treatment units now make it possible to design onsite systems to function on almost any kind of site – rocky, high ground water, rugged, hilly, near a lake, tiny, confined.
So “buildable” becomes almost a given. It’s more a question of “buildable at what price?” In System Profiles on these pages we regularly report on cases where the right onsite system enabled a couple to build their dream house, a children’s camp with a failed system to keep operating, a new business to open.
If “to everything there is a season,” then maybe “to every site, there is a solution.” I am quite sure it would be technically possible (though likely not affordable) to build a treatment system for a house sitting on stilts in a wetland. All right, probably not with a soil treatment area, but the fact remains, technologies exist that could put out water of suitable quality for direct discharge.
Land use patterns
These technologies – ATUs of all kinds, membrane bioreactors, aerobic microbial generators, sand filters, UV disinfection systems and more – can have impacts on land use that should not be underestimated.
It was perhaps 15 or 20 years ago that my state of Wisconsin began allowing some advanced treatment systems, and the news at the time said one effect would be the protection of farmland. Onsite systems were no longer limited to land with high-quality agricultural soils. Now homes and subdivisions could be built on more marginal soils, leaving the best land to produce crops.
So here we have all these great technologies, yet regulators are still somewhat in the “dip a toe in the water” stage – the treatment units tend to get approved one brand or model at a time, state by state. And, appropriately, advanced systems come with various kinds of maintenance requirements, because where the environment is more sensitive the consequences of failure are greater.
Why so slow
But why all this hesitancy? Different states and counties may have different regulatory schemes, different traditions, and different soil types to deal with, but in the end it would seem what matters most is what comes out of the treatment unit and enters the soil. Whether you happen to be in Kansas, Wisconsin, Alaska or Pennsylvania, effluent at 10 mg/l BOD and TSS is essentially the same water, no matter whose unit it comes from. So why all the nervousness about the different units?
Yes, every treatment unit new to the marketplace has to be tested and proven, but isn’t that why we have NSF?
Last year, in sort of a historic occurrence, NOWRA held its annual conference in conjunction with the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) and the State Onsite Regulators Alliance (SORA). If these three groups are looking for a joint project going forward, maybe it could involve finding a way to speed up adoption of already-tested and already-proven treatment systems across state and county borders.
Then maybe landowners, installers and designers dealing with challenging sites would have more options. And maybe whoever may be looking at that “up north” lot my wife and I once explored would have more assurance that it’s “buildable.”
#1 from .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 20, 2012
“...where the environment is more sensitive the consequences of failure are greater”?
Come on Ted, and most of the rest of the current writers, when did the public health consequence stop being a primary concern?
In theory at least, onsite wastewater disposal systems, situated in “approved soils”, can be expected to provide adequate and reliable “treatment” of wastewater, such that risk of adverse health consequence from inadvertent exposure to that wastewater, is minimized. Even (or perhaps especially) in the absence of routine maintenance.
“Black box” mechanical treatment units can do as much, but only if kept in proper working order via a stringent preventative maintenance regime.
And that is the rub. Where there is sufficient local political interest and understanding of that point, to allow an effective enforcment machanism for such O & M to be established, then it seems reasonable that many of the regulatory impediments against use of such treatment systems should be eliminated.
But where such local enforcment mechanisms are not in place, (and that is just about everywhere in this country) then I’d say advocates for building lot approvals based on use of treatment units alone, are just (please excuse the euphemism) “singing” in the wind.