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Dan Bush faced a busy day.
He first had to travel to a mobile home park in Lebanon,
a town in northwest Oregon. Its manager called on Bush, who
works as an environmental health specialist with Milwaukee,
OR–based Septic Technologies Inc., after the park’s
onsite septic system sounded a high-level alarm. The frustrated
manager could tell Bush nothing about what the problem might
be or why the alarm went off.
After tackling that emergency, Bush was scheduled to travel
60 miles south to a municipal airport in Aurora, OR, to inspect
its onsite septic system. An electrician the day before had
shut down the system while making repairs to a system pump’s
control panel. Bush’s job was to inspect and test the
airport’s septic system before giving the facility’s
officials the OK to turn it back on.
Though his day would require spending some serious time in
his car, Bush didn’t mind.
“That airport job was a surprise for me last night,
but the thing is, I do like when they call me with these issues,”
Bush said, as he motored toward Lebanon. “It’s when
they don’t call that we run into real problems.”
Bush is no different from the other engineers, health specialists,
and contractors who offer repair service for the owners of
onsite septic systems across the country. He’s seeing
demand for his services increase, and quickly.
This is not surprising. US residents continue to build new
homes in rural areas, portions of the country not served by
the central sewer lines that are common in urban areas. These
new homeowners need onsite septic systems, and they’re
getting them. It is estimated that a third of all new homes
in the country are being built with septic or other forms
of onsite wastewater treatment systems.
The vast majority of these systems work well, and supporters
of onsite options say they offer many benefits over traditional
central sewer lines. They are more efficient, for example,
flushing waste a short distance outside a home rather than
sending it down mile-long networks of pipes. Onsite systems,
especially the newer, more advanced models, are powerful enough
to discharge water clean enough to drink.
But the rising number of onsite systems has also resulted
in an increase in problems. Homeowners may find slushy goop
spilling onto their lawns. Foul odors may rise up outside
their kitchen windows. Worst of all, their systems may experience
severe backups, sending waste flowing back into their homes.
The contractors and engineers who work with individual septic
systems say that such problems will continue so long as contractors
struggle to understand which systems work best in which areas,
as long as homeowners fail to realize that onsite systems
are not merely “flush-and-forget” items, and as
long as municipalities refrain from drafting tougher regulations
governing the installation and inspection of these systems.
This may sound grim, but contractors also agree that states
and both local and national industry associations are taking
steps to reduce the number of septic system malfunctions and
failures. Even better news? Onsite treatment pros can also
take some fairly simple steps to slow the rise of system failures.
“Little by little, I think we are getting to the point
where people are understanding that we need more regulation,
we need more performance standards for the systems themselves,”
said Richard Otis, vice president of applied technologies
with Ayres Associates, a multi-disciplinary engineering firm
based in Madison, WI. “Once we get these standards in
place, I think we are going to see more understanding across
the country on how these systems work.”
And that, of course, can only mean one thing: fewer system
malfunctions.
A Growing Problem?
Are onsite septic systems failing more often or are the rising
number of problems simply the inevitable result of their growing
popularity?
And who is most to blame for failures? Some point to the
contractors who install systems incorrectly, or who install
the wrong systems at the wrong sites. Others look to homeowners
who either fail to perform regular maintenance on their systems
or who abuse them by treating them as they would more forgiving
central sewer lines. Maybe it’s the health department
officials who often inspect and regulate system installations.
Are they educated enough about how systems work to know when
a contractor is installing one improperly?
Larry Stephens doesn’t pretend to know the answers to
these questions. But Stephens, owner of Haslett, MI–based
Stephens Consulting Services PC, does know that he’s
seen systems in his area fail for an incredible variety of
reasons.
“I would suggest that one of the primary reasons we’ve
seen for failures is poor design or construction practices,”
Stephens said. “Another primary cause is a lack of maintenance
or system abuse. Systems that are properly designed, installed,
and maintained have a very good track record. The problem
is, we’ve been called in on a number of sites where systems
have been placed in locations where they didn’t stand
a good chance in the first place.”
Stephens, for example, remembers one repair job his firm
took on at a residence in Livingston County, MI. Contractors
had installed the septic system on a small lakeside lot, and
had placed the system’s drain field in the side yard
of a home with a walk-out basement. In the process of landscaping
the lot, contractors poured several feet of backfill over
the field. The system soon failed because it had become so
deeply embedded below the surface terrain that it couldn’t
get enough oxygen to work properly.
Another homeowner in the county, one whose residence sat
on a small lot cursed with heavy soils, ended up facing an
expensive repair job after calling Stephens about a failed
system. Contractors installing the original septic system
had used a machine to bore cores below it into deeper sand.
The crews then constructed the septic system near the land’s
surface, on top of the clay underneath it. The system didn’t
have enough contact with natural permeable soil to transmit
waste water to deeper permeable strata.
The owner’s problems, though, were just starting. Because
the home’s lot was so small, repair crews couldn’t
get any equipment into the yard without first encroaching
and traveling on the neighbor’s lot. Crews then had to
install a completely new system in the front yard.
Jeff Snowden, president of the Texas Onsite Wastewater Association
and owner of Austin, TX--based Snowden On-Site, has a story
that tops even that. He once worked on a job in which a homeowner
had to pay more than $100,000 to replace his failed septic
system.
The home in question sat on a severe slope, and the only
space available for the residence’s onsite system was
a rocky portion of this slope. Crews called in to repair the
system could not get their construction equipment to the site.
They instead had to take in all their materials by hand.
“Every load of dirt had to be taken in with a wheelbarrow,”
Snowden said. “Groups of guys carried the tanks in on
their shoulders. It was a bad combination: bad soils, a large
house, a steep slope, and no access. It didn’t take much
for that to add up to $100,000.”
Such horror stories would seem to scare homeowners into treating
their systems properly, and into making sure that the contractors
who install them do so correctly. Unfortunately, say industry
pros, that isn’t always the case.
“A lot of people who are getting onsite systems just
came off of city sewers. The sewers are very forgiving. If
you are flushing what you shouldn’t be flushing, the
city ends up with your problem. It always ends up being someone
else’s problem. That’s not the case with septic
systems,” Snowden said. “When people move off city
sewers and onto septic, all their bad behaviors immediately
show up in their septics. Even something like using a garbage
disposal. Garbage disposals seem like a neat invention. The
reality, though, is that they are bad ideas. They shouldn’t
be in any house, whether it’s on septic or sewers, but
they definitely shouldn’t be in homes with septic systems.”
Many Reasons for Problems
Pros who have repaired and installed onsite septic systems
say that the reasons for failures can be divided among three
main culprits: contractors who install them incorrectly, homeowners
who don’t treat them well, and local regulatory bodies
that don’t do enough to police the industry.
Otis considers inappropriate locations to be one of the biggest
reasons for system failures. Contractors often install septic
systems in areas with poor soils, something that puts extra
stress on their performances.
Such situations arise, Otis says, because owners and installers
look at the process backwards.
“Right now people are always looking for suitable sites
to install an onsite system. I contend that we shouldn’t
be looking for suitable sites, but that instead we should
be looking for suitable systems,” Otis says.
This means that instead of trying to force an inappropriate
septic system in land that isn’t right for it, owners
and installers should instead analyze their land and its soils
and then search for a system that will work well on that site,
Otis says.
“If we had better site evaluations, who knows how many
of these problems we’d eliminate?” he says.
When systems are installed properly, and in the right location,
it is sometimes homeowners themselves who cause the problems.
Bush, for instance, says that many systems are simply overloaded
with too much water flow, because homeowners either don’t
realize that the toilets in their homes are leaking or don’t
realize how serious a problem this can be.
Bush once worked with a homeowner whose especially leaky
toilet was adding about 4 gallons of water every minute to
the residence’s onsite septic system. During a 24-hour
period, then, that toilet was adding nearly 6,000 gallons
of water to the system.
Other times, Bush has worked with homeowners who mistakenly
believe that when they push the button to shut off their septic
system’s alarm that they have somehow solved their system’s
problem. These people won’t call for repairs until they
see water on the ground or until their unit’s power shuts
off.
Repairs can be costly. Because of this, owners sometimes
choose the most inexpensive way to solve a problem, even if
it means choosing a quick fix over a more effective—but
also more costly—way of treating a failure, Bush says.
“Sewage, in the first place, is not a subject anyone
wants to talk about at the dinner table,” Bush said.
“If it’s expensive, too, then there’s an even
greater chance that something’s not going to get done.
You pay umpteen dollars for this system, then someone like
me comes in and says he has to cut and paste the pipe. You
can’t do that for free. The owners say, ‘I paid
for this once, I’m not going to pay for it twice.’
They’ll just ask us to pump the tank, instead. I know
a lot of people who get disappointed that they can’t
really complete a job because the owners are not willing to
pay the extra money that costs.”
Both contractor error and owner mistreatment are important
causes for system malfunction. But engineers serving the onsite
industry agree that the biggest problem they face is a lack
of local and federal policies regulating the installation,
maintenance, and inspection of onsite systems.
The Need for Regulations
Barry Tonning, associate director of Pasadena, CA--based Tetra
Tech Inc., has seen enough septic system failures during his
career to know what the industry needs to reduce them through
better inspections of existing systems and tougher performance
standards for new systems being installed.
Consider the issue of inspections. Most states do not require
the owners of onsite septic systems to schedule inspections
after their systems are in place. Tonning says he wouldn’t
be surprised if, because of this, 60% to 70% of all onsite
systems across the country are never inspected.
Some sections of the country do a better job. In Fairfax
County, VA, for example, county policy requires that owners
have their septic tanks pumped out every five years. In Massachusetts
and Minnesota, state rules require that septic systems be
inspected whenever a property is sold.
Tonning, though, would like to see more states adopt such
regulations. In his ideal world, every state would require
that owners have their septic systems inspected after a certain
number of years, depending on the system and its location.
“Ideally, what you’d like to see is an inspection
schedule based on risks,” Tonning said. “What type
of system do you have? Does it have switches, flow switches,
electric pumps? Is it a complex system, or is it a simple
gravity-flow system? There should be other parameters we consider.
How old is the system? What kind of environmental setting
is it in? Is it next to a lake, on top of a hill, two miles
away from the nearest body of water? There are density issues,
too. Are there 15 systems per square mile or 15,000? There
are a lot of parameters out there to help segregate out the
kind of risk that a system or group of systems presents. Ideally,
the local jurisdiction or health department would develop
some criteria. Not all systems need to be inspected annually.
Some may need to be inspected four or five times a year.”
Tonning would also like to see states develop written performance
standards that every onsite system is expected to meet. This,
he says, would lead to more uniform installation practices,
and help eliminate many of the malfunctions resulting from
construction error.
“This has happened in other areas,” Tonning said.
“It’s happened with large sewage treatment facilities.
We’ve gotten over the years best management practices
in agriculture and in stormwater management. As our ability
to detect problems and identify their causes improves, we
start to focus on how we can build a better mousetrap. That’s
what’s happening in a lot of places. Look at Florida.
We have a lot of high-density developments going in there
with their own onsite systems. A lot more attention is being
paid to system performance.”
There are challenges, of course, to creating stricter inspection
and performance standards. The biggest? Knowing exactly what
kind of septic systems are installed at what location.
Counties may have good inventory records that show exactly
where septic systems have been installed in the last five
to 10 years. These records may even show what types of systems
have been installed in each location. But the longer you go
back in time, the sketchier such inventory records are likely
to be. Go back 50 or 60 years, and you’re apt to find
little to no information about the type of system located
in a specific area, when it has been serviced, or whether
it has ever been repaired or replaced.
Then there are the ever-present budget problems many counties
face. Simply put, when money is tight, spending dollars on
creating inspection and performance standards for onsite systems
may not be a priority.
“Because the budgets of these health departments are
limited, they have to triage the issues they are dealing with,”
Tonning said. “They have to deal with the most critical
first. To their credit, some departments have identified these
complex systems in sensitive settings as systems that need
to be dealt with. They are now moving slowly down through
the ranks to look at moderate-risk systems. The low-risk systems?
There’s not a lot of attention being paid to them unless
there’s been a demonstrable problem.”
There is some good news on the regulations front. Officials
with the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association,
a national lobbying group based in Edgewater, MD, last year
created a draft version of their new Model Performance Code.
This code offers guidelines to the members of policymaking
boards who hope to create their own rules regulating the performance
and installation of onsite systems.
Association officials hope the code, once it is officially
approved following an ongoing review process, will provide
a blueprint for county, municipal, and state officials who
want to bring some consistency to the way onsite septic systems
are maintained, inspected, and installed in their jurisdictions.
The code merely provides recommendations to policymaking bodies,
association executives stressed. The wastewater recycling
association, of course, has no regulatory or policymaking
powers of its own.
Linda Hanifin Bonner, executive director of the association,
said she and the members of the association’s Model Performance
Code committee, met with state regulators across the country
as they developed the draft document. Government officials
provided their own input, much of which the association included
in the model code, Hanifin Bonner said.
“Most states recognize the need to change their codes
and regulations,” she said. “The industry has changed
over the years. Previously, septic tanks were considered a
temporary fix until the sewer line came along. Most municipalities
and towns now realize that onsite systems are a permanent
part of the infrastructure. They understand that they have
to make sure they are integrated properly.”
The wastewater recycling association recently surveyed states
across the country and discovered that regulators identified
changing and beefing up septic system codes as one of the
most important things that had to happen for inspectors and
regulators to do their jobs properly, Hanifin Bonner said.
One of the reasons increased regulation is so important?
Improved technology. Today’s onsite systems are more
advanced. They work better, but they are also far more complex
units.
“Owners need to understand that they have made an investment
in these systems, and that they need to know how to operate
these more advanced systems properly. With that comes management
requirements in the form of regular servicing and maintenance,”
Hanifin Bonner said. “Years ago, people would have these
systems put in and then it was out of sight, out of mind.
It’s different now. It is our hope that states will adopt
the suggestions in our model code, and that onsite systems
are going to be required to perform to specific technical
requirements.”
What Industry Pros Can Do
As the national association works with policymaking bodies
to encourage beefed-up industry regulations, there are also
steps contractors, engineers, and inspectors can take to help
prevent system malfunctions.
The biggest? Educate the homeowners who are using onsite
systems.
And this includes, maybe most importantly, teaching them
about their systems’ limitations.
“A lot of people come to these systems after having
been on sanitary sewers, where they can use virtually all
the water they want,” Bush said. “If people are
told what they have, if they are given the information that
this is what it can and cannot do—here are the recommended
‘do’s and ‘don’t’s—then you’ve
given them the opportunity to be knowledgeable about the system.
They don’t have to be system experts, but they do need
to know the reality of their situation.”
It’s up to the industry’s professionals to fight
against human nature, the desire to do nothing about potential
problems until they’re too big to ignore.
Snowden says his company does this by drafting newsletters
and informational pieces that explain how onsite sanitary
systems work, and then providing these pieces to homeowners.
“If you continue every time you speak to someone to
mention something about how the systems work, if you leave
them a piece of printed information reminding them that septic
systems are not ‘flush and forget it,’ if you provide
them with water-management tips, then you have done your job,”
Snowden said.
It also helps to put system failures in terms of dollars,
Snowden said.
“If you explain to people that septic systems can cost
thousands of dollars when they fail, that will get their attention,”
he said
Another way to help lower the number of system failures is
for industry pros to provide education to the contractors
who install systems and to the inspectors who service them.
Stephens points to efforts being taken by the national and
local wastewater recycling associations as a positive step.
The national association, for example, has developed onsite
training centers across the country filled with hands-on exhibits
showing how onsite systems work and fail. These centers also
offer classes. In Michigan, the state association offers classes
on soil science, system maintenance, and system design.
Stephens, like many of his peers, would like to see states
in the future require the pros who install and inspect onsite
sanitary systems to earn a designation to be able to work
in the field. Earning this designation would require a certain
number of classroom hours and hands-on training.
Such efforts may actually become more important as onsite
systems grow ever more advanced.
“Systems are becoming more and more sophisticated,”
Bush said. “It’s getting to the point where we may
be taking it away from the ability of homeowners to understand
and do the maintenance of their systems.”
DAN RAFTER is a technical writer based
in Chesterton, IN.
OW
- November/December 2005
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