An almost unbelievable tale illustrates the folly of blindly believing the big pipe of municipal sewer is the appropriate answer to any wastewater challenge.

Some folks complained about the condition of an outhouse on a peninsula jutting into a small lake heading toward the Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota. The outhouse emits a foul odor on the hottest day of the summer and no one would describe it as “comfortable’’ restroom accommodations. But officials from the state’s Department of Natural Resources have said it’s not creating any environmental hazards.

It is one of 1,500 outhouses at DNR boat landings across Minnesota, with all but 10 of them being what is often described as pit toilets. This one is pumped once a year for $250 to take away 150 to 250 gallons of waste, according to the DNR. Most people might recommend constructing a nicer pit toilet or placing a portable restroom at the launch site and call it a day.

But not Minnesota’s state Legislature. Through various appropriations, the state authorized running sewer pipe 1.1 miles to the site and approved a plan to spend $300,000 to build a bathroom with flush toilets and running water.

On its face, this story seems ludicrous. Who would spend an estimated $1.3 million to replace a pit toilet handling a few hundred gallons of waste per summer with a bathroom utilizing flush toilets? Supporters of the expenditure argue it will help the environment; opponents call it a boondoggle and part of a bigger plan to expand municipal sewers to a sparsely populated recreational area. They say the few seasonal homes in the Crane Lake area can’t support a public sewer and that the high infrastructure costs will become a vast financial burden on users.

QUESTIONABLE DECISION

University of Minnesota onsite expert Sara Heger, in a report by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, called the decision to run the sewer pipe to the outhouse “backwards.” A trusted leader in the installer community, Heger was critical of beginning construction of the sewer line based on property record studies that indicated a high percentage of failing systems in the area not based on a physical inspection of septic systems.

“A very expensive pipe is going out there for a very small amount of water,” Heger told the newspaper.

Opponents including Brent Bystrom agree. A civil engineer in the Twin Cities, Bystrom’s elderly parents live on Crane Lake and someday they may be forced to hook up to the municipal sewer line. Bystrom contends these remote homeowners stand to face large connection fees and monthly service fees of $80 to $100, when existing or updated septic systems would serve them more economically.

“I tried to fight it, not because of my parents but because it’s the wrong thing for the community,” Bystrom told me. “Because they will have to manage it, and eventually it will drive the community into bankruptcy.”

Bystrom says the numbers just don’t support the public sewer option. The area is more than four hours north of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and he says most people don’t want to drive that far to a second home. He contends there are less than 300 properties in the sewer district, and only a small percentage have hooked up voluntarily to date. He estimates the area only has about 60 year-round residents. Bystrom believes Crane Lake is like many small communities where individual onsite systems should have been chosen as the answer.

“The goal is to put as many residents as they can into the wastewater treatment facility to bring additional flow as well as revenue,” Bystrom says. “They oversized it for development and the development hasn’t taken place. … Now it’s an albatross. If they’d provided the proper guidance, most people would look at the cost-benefit analysis and say individual systems would be the wise thing to do.”

A DISCLAIMER

I’m sure the Crane Lake Water and Sanitary District story is more complex than I’m letting on in this brief retelling. I’m sure plenty of local and state political maneuvering was involved in the outcome. Given the opportunity, proponents could try to justify the costly sewer line extension to a rustic outhouse. Interested parties could – and probably will – accuse me of oversimplifying the issue.

I’m not here to drill down into a local issue of importance to a small northwoods community or to Minnesota taxpayers. Rather, this microissue points to a macrochallenge we have in the onsite industry. What can we do to persuade officials who make wastewater funding decisions to give fair consideration to decentralized treatment options? The Crane Lake example tells me we have a lot of communications work to do.

We must:

Share the good news about advanced onsite technology.

Decentralized wastewater treatment advances have been coming at a blistering pace in recent years. Today’s systems are more effective, more reliable, easier to install and more cost-effective. A wide variety of technologies open up properties for development that were previously thought to be too small or contain too poor of a soil profile to support building. These messages need to reach property owners disgruntled over being told their aging systems (which, by the way, have often performed well beyond expectations) need replacement and bureaucrats who relentlessly promote municipal sewer extensions.

Preach operations, maintenance and thorough inspections.

Much of the criticism of onsite systems can be traced not to the technology or the system installer, but to a failure on the part of owners to provide adequate maintenance. A bury-it-and-forget-about-it mentality must be changed for the onsite industry to reach its full potential. System owners must be convinced to pursue maintenance contracts and follow the reasonable usage guidelines set forth by qualified installers. Sure, systems can perform better and create a cleaner environment, but this doesn’t happen when owners ignore their needs or test them beyond their limits. Always go the extra mile in customer education and support efforts to require periodic system inspections.

Discourage a sewer-is-always-best attitude.

The concept of the municipal sewer line seems so carefree and easy to homeowners. Flush the toilet and someone somewhere down the line takes care of your waste. City, town and county officials don’t readily consider efficiency in the wastewater treatment equation. In smaller communities, the cost to build the infrastructure and operate a treatment plant is shared by fewer users. And homeowners have a tendency to give more weight to the cost of hookup and forget that those high monthly and quarterly sewer bills keep coming. When you hear about a potential sewer extension project, urge property owners and lawmakers to crunch the numbers and consider individual onsite or cluster systems when it makes sense.

TAKE A STAND

Do you face an uphill battle convincing folks about the value of individual wastewater systems or cluster systems to serve neighborhoods in your area? What lessons have you learned that can help other installers get the onsite message across to a distracted or disinterested public? Drop me a line and I’ll share your thoughts in a future column.