Stuart Bedard was planning on a career in drafting after high school, but that path took a detour, thanks to a family friend in the excavating business.

“He said if I bought a machine, he could get me lots of work, so I did,” Bedard recalls. So, Bedard Excavating Ltd. was born in Langley, B.C., about four miles from the United States border with Washington and about 25 miles east of Vancouver.

A short time later, the friend recommended Bedard for a conventional septic system drainfield job. “Once I did that one, I just continued doing them,” says Bedard, the owner and only employee of the company. So, onsite wastewater became his life.

“I do anything from the most basic conventional gravity-fed system up to Type 3 installations with pressure distribution sand mounds,” he says. Raised sand mound systems with pressure distribution make up about 90 percent of his work. “I don’t do many gravity systems anymore,” he says. “There are not many areas where they are allowed.”

Changing soils

The soils around Langley, about halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountains in the lush Fraser River Valley, make advanced designs necessary in many locations. Soils are mainly clay-based with about a foot to 18 inches of topsoil. Conditions can change quickly to rocky soil and steep, bedrock-lined slopes, or even areas with heavy gravel, which means fast drainage.

Closer to the ocean, Bedard has to contend with wet peat and clay-based soil with very fine sand and silt, usually only about 3 feet above sea level. Because of the high ground water table and poor soil permeability, these areas require Type 3 systems with disinfection, a sand mound, and pressure distribution.

In addition, all fiberglass tanks in such soils, and even some concrete tanks, need anti-flotation features, making design and installation all the more difficult. “You have to do it when the weather is dry, that’s for sure,” Bedard says. He also needs to be aware of the ocean tides: “The tides will determine when you excavate for the tank, because the ground water level is affected by the tides.”

Because of the local soil conditions, Bedard sticks to tracked equipment with low ground pressure. An example is his 2004 135C RTS John Deere excavator with 28-inch shoes that apply only about 4.5-psi ground pressure. “This size of machine allows me to excavate for larger tanks and have a long reach that reduces the amount of travel required for installation,” he says. “I don’t allow any vehicle traffic over the disposal field area before or after installation of the pipes.”

On sloped sites, Bedard accesses the field only from the high side to avoid compaction of the effluent-receiving area down-slope. “It is important to construct systems only during dry conditions to avoid dama-ging the soil structure,” he stresses.

His fleet also includes a 2001 Peterbilt gravel truck and a tri-axle tilt-bed trailer.