When Should Homeowners Be Involved in System Diagnostics?

There may be pitfalls in a national trend to allow layman users of advanced treatment systems to perform required scientific sampling.

A recent newspaper article from Iowa pointed out that homeowners in Muscatine County who are served by septic systems covered under a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System general permit No. 4 are required by federal and Iowa law to have treated effluent samples tested twice a year. Homeowners are required to provide the results of the effluent test to the county zoning office. Examples of discharging systems listed that require testing were sand filters, coco filters, peat filters, mechanical aerobic treatment units, constructed wetlands or other bio-media filters.

The article stated effluent samples must be conducted only by a qualified sampler as defined by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Failure to comply would violate provisions under the NPDES permitting system and may subject homeowners to penalties under Iowa law. An educational program was set for homeowners about the sampling program.

This created some questions in our minds about the program and the involvement of homeowners in the process. In workshops and education sessions, we often discuss the need to sample and evaluate the performance of permitted systems. In fact, we would go so far as to highlight that if alternative technologies such as those mentioned above are used, they need to be periodically evaluated for performance and be on a regular maintenance and sampling program.

SAFETY AND ACCURACY

We have concerns about homeowners carrying out the sampling, as considerable attention needs to be paid to the process to end up with accurate results and a true picture of the system performance. Many factors must be considered when collecting samples, including timing of sampling, sampling location, sample collection, sample containers, sample volume, sample transport, laboratory and interference. If these are not given attention, a sample may be contaminated or give results that are not representative of the sample, or can misinterpret how the system is operating.

Perhaps even more important, from our perspective, are the safety risks involved with homeowners accessing parts of the system. For example, it is important for professionals to use proper personal protective equipment when collecting wastewater samples. This usually consists of a quality pair of latex gloves, eye protection and hand sanitizer.

A larger concern is that the homeowner must understand the risks involved in opening parts of the system. They should be aware to never enter a tank or any confined space, and to be cautious due to the risk of being overcome by toxic gases and falling into an open tank.

A final issue is the use of household equipment and hoses to perform the sampling. These items may come in contact with untreated or partially treated sewage, opening the possibility of coming in contact with pathogens.

PROPER TRAINING

Given these concerns, we looked at the requirements for a “qualified sampler’’ from the Iowa rules overseen by Iowa DNR. Here is what the rule says: “The owner is responsible to have the private sewage disposal system sampled to ensure compliance with this general permit. Only a ‘qualified sampler’ shall conduct effluent sampling for compliance monitoring. ‘Qualified samplers’ shall be one of the following:

  • A county or city environmental health staff person.
  • An Iowa-certified wastewater treatment operator.
  • An individual who has received training approved by the department to conduct effluent sampling.”

There is not a description of the exact training needed, but guidelines do highlight the need for proper training to take the samples.

Iowa is not alone in promotion of increased sampling. There is a growing recognition that if additional pretreatment is going to be used and certain performance is expected, sampling is a must. As an installer or service provider, you will probably be expected to provide sampling results in the future if this is not already a part of your service.

Performance is one of the two major reasons that sampling will be needed. These samples are taken to provide a picture of how well the system is performing and whether it meets regulatory requirements, which is the case in Iowa. It is a response to a federal requirement of the statewide general permit for the discharge systems. There are other cases of regulatory requirements where sampling is necessary, such as in nitrogen reduction. The sampling can also give information about necessary changes to attain desired performance.

COMPLEX ISSUES

Another reason to sample is to diagnose or troubleshoot a system status issue and potential changes that might be needed. System diagnostics associated with troubleshooting and mitigation usually require information on both the hydraulic load to the treatment train and the sample analysis from the component in question. So there may be the need to take more than one kind of sample as well as samples from different locations in the treatment train. The combined hydraulic and constituent load can provide a detailed view of system performance.

Sampling locations are usually at the inlet or outlet point of a treatment component. Effluent samples collected following final treatment may serve the purpose of either diagnostic evaluation or compliance monitoring. It is clear that sampling will be an important skill to develop in the future. In coming articles we will explore some sampling specifics.



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