It's pretty much unanimous in the onsite industry: Homeowners need more education on how to care for their septic systems.

That's whether those owners have just built new homes or have lived in the country on a septic system for decades. Many people simply would rather forget they have a wastewater treatment system buried in the yard.

Some universities, some state agencies, some counties – and for that matter, a number of onsite practitioners – do a great job with education. But there are, to say the least, major gaps in coverage.

Going national

Now there's a national approach to education that may help fill in some of the "bare spots" in the educational map of the country. The U.S. EPA late last year launched the SepticSmart campaign (www.epa.gov/septicsmart). In a way, it replicates the methods of the ENERGY STAR program, which promotes energy efficiency, and the WaterSense program, which promotes water conservation.

A key difference is that ENERGY STAR and WaterSense go so far as to rate and certify products for their performance. That isn't the case with SepticSmart, but the program does include a variety of good informational materials.

The program website includes links to pages with basic information about system care, and fact sheets on various more technical topics like large-capacity systems and recovery after flooding.

Likely of more interest to onsite professionals is an Outreach Toolkit that includes a variety of print-ready materials you can download from the website and take straight to a local print shop. These items include:

A doorhanger advising homeowners to take proper care of their systems

A 9-page "Homeowner's Guide to Septic Systems"

A 4-page homeowner's guide in a "rack brochure" format

Postcards with basic system maintenance advice

Good information

These seem well suited for installers, service contractors and local regulators who would like good educational "leave-behinds" or mailers, but lack the resources to create their own and haven't yet found publicly available items they can use. There's also a SepticSmart logo graphic that you can easily post on your website.

The EPA says SepticSmart aims to inform homeowners who have septic systems about the importance of maintaining them, and to provide valuable resources to help those owners make sound decisions where their systems are concerned.

Now there's no good reason for an onsite practitioner to shy away from education. The big roadblock to educational material has always been the time it takes to develop and design high-quality presentations. Now all that work has been done, and it's just a matter of getting the items printed locally in an appropriate quantity.

Printing is cheap these days, and so it should be easy for just about any entity, public or private, to get a supply of materials that offer sound advice.

Have you seen the SepticSmart materials? What do you think of them? Will you make use of them? If so, how? What's your opinion about the quality of information? We'd like to hear your opinions and ideas. Send a note to editor@onsiteinstaller.com and I promise to respond.