Chapter 10
From The Septic System Owner's Manual
Excessive Engineering and Regulatory Overkill
(page 2)

Personal Experience With A Pork-Barrel Community Wastewater Plan

In 1989, my town (Bolinas, California) got right to the brink of a publicly funded $7,000,000 septic plan for 300 houses. This plan was orchestrated by the county health department (as it was constituted in those days), an engineering firm hired by the county, and a small group of local people.

It was a poorly conceived and insensitive plan that was eventually abandoned, but only after an enormous amount of homeowner resistance. Grant money was available from “clean water” funding. In order to qualify for the grant, the county had declared Bolinas septic systems to be malfunctioning and by the time homeowners became aware of what was happening, the county, the engineers, the State Regional Quality Control Board, and eight or so Bolinas people were well on their way in design of a plan that would upgrade all 300 houses. (There were maybe ten actually failing systems.) A group of us started having Saturday morning meetings. From the outset we saw that the project was flawed in a number of ways. It was not based on science, practicality, or efficiency, but rather on obtaining grant money. As we studied the plan, we came to the following conclusions:

1. There was no proof that the purported pollution was human in origin. We wanted testing done to confirm the source: animal or human. It was never done.
2. We had determined, from our studies, that simple gravity-fed systems were, for the most part, working well in town.
3. We wanted nothing to do with any of the engineering firm’s plans, which involved major disruption of the landscape, unnecessarily expensive high-tech “upgrades” for all 300 houses, and seizing land by eminent domain, if necessary.
4. Maintenance of these systems was going to be ongoing and expensive.
5. The county and engineers were desperate to get the grant money. When disposal fields could not be found outside the town, the engineers drew up a plan for “community leachfields,” to be interspersed around the one-square-mile town. One resident was going to have effluent from 20 houses pumped to the lot next door.

To show people in town where this was leading, our group performed some guerilla theater: we took yellow construction tape out and on a Sunday morning roped off the proposed leachfield locations, putting up signs saying “Community Leachfield.” People were astounded once they saw what was being planned.

Meeting after meeting took place for more than a year. The town’s small newspaper was filled with a few pros and mostly cons. Cartoons were drawn. People were passionate. This wasn’t right!

In the process, I got an insight as to how many grants work. Systems that work fine are deemed to be polluting in order to qualify for grant money. It was the first time I heard the phrase “non–cost-effective,” which means that the engineers operate on the premise of: “How can we pick the most expensive solutions to use up all available grant money?” There was also the ethical question of grant money (public funds) being funneled to private homeowners: why should taxpayer money be going to upgrade personal homes of people already in an upper income level?

We eventually had a protest petition signed by 450 townspeople. In spite of this, the county and the engineers continued to push for the plan, but the funding had run out. Nothing was ever done. Predicted disasters never occurred. Most of the functioning gravity-fed septic systems continued functioning. There have been no health problems. Since then, however, any new construction or remodels require very expensive ($30-50,000) mound systems. (The county health department is currently far more open to homeowner [and scientific] input than it was 15 years ago, but it is still saddled with unreasonably restrictive standards.)

The engineers ended up collecting some $500,000 for designs that the town rejected. $500,000 would have easily fixed every truly failing system in the town and installed road drainage — which is actually our biggest problem — with enough left over to fund future repairs. It was a tragic waste of taxpayer money.

By the way, this book was generated by our experience in fighting this plan. We found there was no good book on septic systems for laypersons, so we published one.

Our experience showed us how it is possible for engineers and wastewater regulators, along with special interests, to misuse funding from the clean water legislation, ignore the wishes of homeowners, and craft bloated, expensive, and unnecessarily high-tech systems that generate maximum income for the engineers and health departments. Sad, but true.

The crudeness of these pork-barrel schemes is astounding. Upon examination, it’s obvious that things are wrong. There’s probably so little homeowner resistance because people don’t understand septic systems. They’re underground, invisible, and work so well that most people are unaware of them. When regulators and engineers appear, presenting a problem, along with a publicly funded solution, people fall for it. The planners are, after all, “experts.” In fact, the plans make no sense other than generating maximum income for engineers, regulators, and developers.

The Risk Factor

One thing to consider when choosing a system is that there is no such thing as a no-risk decision, be it between central sewers or onsite waste treatment. While some people claim that individual systems are risky, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistics show virtually no cases of disease directly attributable to failing septic tanks. It is true that failing and improperly placed septic systems can contaminate wells and drinking water systems, but the risk of your septic tank failing and directly causing sickness is diminishingly small and is far less than the risk of being exposed to pathogens from a failing municipal sewer that can leak hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw sewage into public waterways.

The EPA has fined hundreds of municipalities for failures of this type, and many cities are facing costly renewal of aged sewers that are leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons into the groundwater. Onsite waste treatment and systems that pump treated effluent from advanced onsite systems pose far less human and environmental risk than large central collection systems, where failure of a single pumping station or breaking of a sewer main by earthquake, landslide or erosion can spill vast quantities of waste in a few minutes, or slowly leak into the groundwater when not maintained.

A Few Other Case Studies

In recent years I have seen this scenario in several other towns in Northern California. I’ve also heard of it in other parts of the country (see below), and I suspect it’s a growing phenomenon. There’s just too much money to be made.

Los Osos, California
The town of Los Osos, California is (as of this writing) a textbook study of everything that can go wrong with wastewater funding. From The Rock, a small newspaper in Los Osos:

“The (state and local water) boards used invalid, manufactured data to support establishment of a prohibition zone that many believe is illegal, used information taken out of context to support claims that septic systems are not effective in wastewater treatment, and participated in the funding of an illegal loan to finance an over-priced, unnecessary sewer that the majority of citizens did not want. When citizens fought back, the local board attacked with cease-and-desist orders, in an attempt to intimidate its victims into submission.”

Here is an excerpt from an email from Ed Ochs, Editor of The Rock:

“After what seems like centuries fighting to custom-build a STEP-collection system that fit the unique character of Los Osos, located in the Morro Bay watershed, a back-room deal to return to building a $220-million mega-sewer in the middle of town, in the heart of the community, was orchestrated by the Regional Water Board to overturn an election that moved the sewer out of town. It’s been nothing but scam after scandal, but since Los Osos operates in a virtual media vacuum on the Central Coast, in a no man’s land halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, our S.O.S. can only be heard on the quietest of nights.

“Because the county only builds big, expensive gravity sewers, the projected sewer bill for homeowners will range between $300 to $500 a month — which will wipe out one-third of the town’s 14,000 residents — those who can least afford it, of course. It’s an outrageous price tag for a mega sewer we don’t need or want. But you’ve seen this movie before.”

For further information on Los Osos (and an example of a small-town newspaper shining journalistic light on corruption) see:
http://rockofthecoast.com/

Nor is it limited to California:

Emmaus, Pennsylvania
“Briefly, without documenting the need through stream and well water samples, the township is trying to get 300 residents to pick up the entire $7.2 million cost of installing a gravity sewer, mostly in a high water table area next to a high-quality trout stream. Our engineer says ‘It’s gonna leak like a sieve’ in five years and really pollute the stream the township claims it’s trying to protect.”
“A gravity sewer would open the door for massive new development in our rural community in one of the hottest housing markets in the country. Residents are pushing for a low-pressure system, which would severely limit future growth. It’s a mess!”

–George DeVault
Wisconsin

This from Tom Larson, of the Wisconsin Realtors Association: “In preparation for the full implementation of the new changes to the state’s private septic code (COMM 83), many counties throughout the state are in the process of revising their septic system codes … Many of these codes contain onerous soil inspection requirements that will cost homeowners thousands of dollars. One county adopted a soil inspection requirement that required a backhoe to dig soil borings every time a house with a septic system was sold or remodeled, even if the house sold multiple times during the same year.”

Tips For Homeowners

Homeowners Checklist

• Organize!
• Reign in engineers. Are they civil engineers (trained in compacting soil for building foundations) or do they have a degree in soil science, which focuses on friable soil?
• Don’t trust “experts.” Do the engineers have a conflict of interest? Have they had a hand in preparing local codes? Are they advising county health inspectors? Will they be designing an overall plan, and then be hired to design individual systems within the plan? There are engineers who favor expensive systems because their fees are that much higher.
• Insist that DNA testing be done.
• Educate yourselves. Study the alternatives.
• Communicate! Send out letters. Write articles for your local papers or letters to the editor. Inform others.
• Read pp. 117–132, “Small Town Septic System Upgrades.” It takes you step-by-step through the process of hiring and controlling engineers and coordinating with public agencies.

State-of-the-Art Small Town Technology

In Oregon and Massachusetts, there have been extensive tests on advanced systems. In LaPine, Oregon, advanced systems have been tested for several years in an area with very shallow groundwater, where nitrates were causing health problems and degrading the quality of the Deschutes River, internationally famous for its trout and steelhead fishing.
See: http://marx.deschutes.org/deq/LaPineIndex.htm

Massachusetts has set up a test facility, MASSTC, in Barnstable County to certify systems for nitrogen removal and remediation of failed drainfields. They have approved systems to strip nitrates and preserve many small ponds such as Thoreau’s famed Walden Pond. They have created a website which provides an excellent review of advanced onsite technology, including recirculating sand filters, peat filters, trickling filters, as well as graywater treatment and composting toilets; see: The Barnstable County, Mass. Alternative Septic System Test Center at:
http://barnstablecountyhealth.org/AlternativeWebpage/index.htm.

EPA Is Actually a Good Source of Info /
Small Flows an Excellent Journal

As stated, the EPA has improved its attitude regarding onsite wastewater disposal in recent years. In fact the EPA is now more reasonable in its outlook than some states (like California), which have instituted regressive regulations requiring high-tech, expensive solutions.

In addition to funding the evaluation of new technologies, the EPA and Small Flows Clearinghouse put out a wide range of handbooks on how a small community can plan and manage septic systems in their area while avoiding the many costs and environmental disadvantages of centralized waste treatment. As the EPA says in their onsite wastewater report to Congress cited at the beginning of this chapter, it’s the way to go … (no pun intended).

The EPA Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems Manual is at:
http://www.epa.gov/ORD/NRMRL/Pubs/625R00008/625R00008.htm.
Go here and click on “Chapter 4.”

DNA Testing / Bacterial Source Testing

As stated before, it is highly important that a distinction be made between animal and human pollution. This type of testing is well described in the EPA “Wastewater Technology Fact Sheet” at:
www.epa.gov/owm/mtb/bacsortk.pdf

For example, several years ago this type of testing uncovered the fact that pollution formerly attributable to septic systems was in fact from raccoons:

DNA fingerprinting proved helpful when an oyster farmer on Virginia's Eastern Shore was faced with the closure of his shellfish beds due to elevated levels of E. coli. Failing septic tanks were assumed to be the primary source of the fecal pollution, but a survey of septic systems in the sparsely populated watershed indicated that they were not the cause, and it became necessary to identify other potential sources. The highest levels of coliform bacteria were measured in the small tidal inlets and rivulets of the wetlands located upstream of local houses, shifting suspected sources from human to other sources. Researchers collected fecal samples from raccoon, waterfowl, otter, muskrat, deer, and humans in the area and used DNA fingerprinting to confirm the suspicion that the source was not anthropogenic in nature. Comparing E. coli from the shellfish beds against the fingerprints of known strains in the DNA library, the researchers linked the in-stream E. coli to deer and raccoon (mostly raccoon). Several hundred animals, including 180 raccoon, were removed from areas adjacent to the wetlands. E. coli levels subsequently declined by one to two orders of magnitude throughout the watershed, allowing threatened areas of the tidal creeks to be reopened to shellfishing.

For a more complete story of the masked bandit incident, see:
www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=547

- page - (1) (2) -