Onsite Esperanto

An industry glossary aims to foster better communication in the onsite treatment profession, especially across states and regions

Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction, by now should be antique.

Henry Higgins

The classic musical “My Fair Lady” was all about language – how speaking well or poorly helps separate people into castes.

There have been language divides in the onsite industry, too, though not as deep as the one between ‘Enry ‘Iggins and his pupil Eliza Doolittle. The Consortium of Institutes for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment (www.onsiteconsortium.org) has tried to bridge terminology barriers by creating a Decentralized Wastewater Glossary. You can think of it as a sort of Esperanto – universal language – for the onsite field.

The glossary isn’t new – the first edition came out in 2007 and a second in 2009. But I hadn’t really looked closely at it until recently. Now that I have, I consider it a great resource, both as a tool for promoting consistent terminology and as a way for people new to the profession to learn about it. Almost anyone in the industry would be well served by spending some time with it.

 

What drove the drafters

The document’s drafters said their aim was to define the management requirements for sustainable, long-term onsite system performance, as befits an industry that wants its offerings to remain a permanent component of the nation’s water treatment infrastructure.

“The final definitions were chosen on the basis of the best fit to the industry as a whole as determined by a wide group of stakeholders, and the result is a collection of terms that illustrates the broad landscape of decentralized wastewater treatment,” the introduction states.

Part of the aim was to get past regional disparities in terms. Professionals who spoke to groups from around the country or who attended national trade shows found some trouble communicating because people used different terms for the same thing.

In reviewing the glossary front to back, I found fewer such instances than I expected. Still, a meaningful number of terms now come with “see” references that direct the reader to the preferred term, as identified during the glossary review process. For example, “Septic System: see wastewater treatment system, onsite (OWTS).”

 

The chosen term

Another high-profile change has to do with what people from different (or even the same) parts of the country called the leachfield or drainfield. Now the preferred term is soil treatment area (and you will note that our “Basic Training” columnists Jim Anderson and Dave Gustafson use that term exclusively). Here are several other terms as identified in the glossary – the preferred (“official”) term is listed second:

Aggregation – soil structure

Cess pit – cesspool

Clogging mat – biomat

Curtain drain or French drain – interceptor drain

Effluent filter – effluent screen

Freeboard – headspace (the space above the water line in a septic tank)

Fixed film process – attached growth process

Greywater – graywater (just for consistency in spelling)

Header pipe – manifold

In-ground system – below-grade

Leaching pit – seepage pit

Wisconsin mound – mound (my home state loses a bit of its identity)

Observation port – inspection port

Outhouse or privy – pit toilet

Packed bed filter – media filter

Pump station – lift station

Zone of aeration – vadose zone

 

Are you up to speed?

Now, this glossary is a useful tool, but how much impact it has depends on how widely it is accepted. The onsite consortium doesn’t have a big budget with which to advertise it, let alone any authority to direct industry members to follow it.

So consider this an ad for the Decentralized Wastewater Glossary. Go see it at the consortium website. Consider downloading a copy (it’s free) for your own use and for your team. It’s educational, it’s fun, and it’s evident from the content just how much quality effort the authors and reviewers – all volunteers – put into it.

Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady” lamented, “One common language I’m afraid we’ll never get.” Well, now the onsite industry can have one – if its members only have the wisdom to learn and start using it.



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