Owners of a two-bedroom seasonal lakefront cottage in Maidstone, Vermont, realized their functioning cesspool was leaching untreated wastewater into Maidstone Lake. They searched online for a contractor to replace it and found Mike Carbonneau, owner of Connecticut Valley Design in Littleton, New Hampshire.“Today’s standards would never allow the lot to be developed,” says Carbonneau. “A drainage ditch was 10 feet from the dry well, which was less than the mandated 25 feet from the ditch.”In addition, the Vermont Shoreland and Wetland Protection acts had become effective, and both had their own requirements. For grandfathered systems, the agencies allowed designers to
