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Small Flows Quarterly, Fall 2004, Volume 5, Number 4 LetterI Dear Editor: As I watch the wheels of government turn, I sense a dangerous and costly grinding. It comes from the management of septic waste from homes in our shoreline towns. Here in Connecticut, our registered sanitarians are monitored by their town health directors. They follow the rules of the Public Health Code of the State Department of Public Health. The system has been in place for years. They supervise septic installations. For new installations of conventional septic tanks and leach fields, this system of management works. Our septic waste is safely and economically recycled into wholesome water and harmless gases. Make no mistake; both the process and its administration are proven. For repairs of failed systems that erupt to the surface, again the sanitarians can and do promptly enforce and supervise repair. The recently enacted law sponsored by State Representative Marilyn Giuliano will help permit correction of many failed systems. A problem arises when a failure underground does not come to the surface. Here, the existing law does not permit a sanitarian to enter upon a person’s property to investigate. A test well on public land nearby might suggest a failure or an illegal subsurface hooking of a sewer pipe from a home to a town storm drain. According to present law, however, the town sanitarian cannot come upon the private property to conduct a harmless but colorful dye test to find the source of the contamination. At the same time, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) can, and sometimes does, declare an area to be polluted, but the sanitarian is still not permitted to search out the source in order to have it corrected. One might ask how does this come to pass? I believe it is because the Connecticut State DEP does not want the town sanitarians to succeed in doing their jobs. The DEP wants those failures, which they will then try to correct by building still more structural sewage treatment plants. These plants are part of the DEP empire and job security. Unfortunately, these sewage treatment plants are expensive to build and maintain, and they are often unreliable. Also, they discard a valuable resource—water. Worse, they discard less-than-pure water into our rivers. The rivers are thus polluted as they are loaded with impure or chlorinated water. Marvin Roberts Old Lyme, Connecticut 18
LetterII Dear Editor: Your recent Q&A [Spring 2004] about onsite wastewater treatment systems was chock full of useful information for the consumer. However, the Water Quality Association must take exception to your statement, “Don’t allow backwash from home water softeners to enter the septic system.” The negative reaction of onsite systems to softener brine has become an “urban legend” (or in this case, “rural”) that has no scientific basis. The overwhelming majority of technical and scientific research papers demonstrate that softener brine does not pose a hindrance or hazard to onsite systems. Upon review of the literature, in fact, four states recently withdrew restrictions or bans on softener brine discharge through the administrative or legislative process. These included New Jersey, Kentucky, Montana, and Texas. In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency re-issued its guidance document, “Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems Special Issues Fact Sheet 3—Water Softeners,” on the softener/onsite system issue last year. It, too, found no reason to restrict flow from water softeners into septic systems. If your writers reviewed the reason for onsite system failures in any given state, he or she will seldom, if ever, see failure attributed to softeners. And in fact, tens of thousands of onsite system owners throughout the U.S. use softeners without any biological or mechanical failure. With more home growth occurring outside municipal waste treatment systems, the onsite market is expanding to meet the need. But many of these new homes are also built in water with high hardness levels. Today’s consumers want to have a working waste treatment system and water of a quality that won’t ruin their pipes, cut the operational efficiency of water heaters or add more wear and tear to their water-using appliances, clothing, and linens. It is not fair to these consumers—or to the home water treatment professionals who serve them—for such authoritative sources as the National Small Flows Clearinghouse to continue repeating an unproven “rural legend.” Carlyn A. Meyer Government Relations Water Quality Association LetterIII Dear Sir: The Technical Overview on Alternating Drainfields in the Spring 2004 issue of the Small Flows Quarterly neglected to mention an important cause of the failure of septic systems, one that can affect alternating systems as well as conventional ones. I am referring to the waste products of anaerobic processes that occur in the soil when it is saturated. The alternating drainfield system takes advantage of the fact that the biomat that forms as aerobic organisms digest the wastes in the liquids entering the drainfield dies off when that part of the system is not in use. The waste products of aerobic decomposition are largely carbon dioxide and water, which do not affect the soil’s permeability. But anytime a system is in use, and the soil is completely saturated for any length of time, anaerobic decomposition of our wastes occurs. The by-products of these processes are insoluble compounds of iron and sulfur that accumulate in the pores of the soil, reducing its permeability. This “sludge” does not die off when the system is not in use, and over time, increases to the point that the septic system malfunctions. Proper water maintenance can reduce the growth of these insoluble compounds, but we cannot prevent it completely because we cannot control the weather. In temperate climates, spring rains often cause the ground to be saturated for several days. And the melting of snow in late winter does the same. So the liquid wastes we produce will be subjected to anaerobic decomposition for a substantial portion of some part of every year. Except perhaps in arid regions, over time, every drainfield will eventually malfunction because of the by-products of anaerobic decomposition. Sincerely, Pascal de Caprariis Professor Emeritus Department of Geology Indiana University- Purdue University, Indianapolis Small Flows Quarterly, Fall 2004, Volume 5, Number 4 19
Page 2 and 3: Helping America’s Small Communiti
Page 4 and 5: 2004-05 STATE ONSITE REGULATORS/ GO
Page 6 and 7: N E W S & N O T E S New York Govern
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Page 14 and 15: R E G U L A T I O N S S E C T I O N
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Page 20 and 21: CONTRIBUTING WRITER Elizabeth Dietz
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Page 26 and 27: NESC NSFC STAFF WRITER Caigan McKen
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Page 30 and 31: NESC STAFF WRITER Caigan McKenzie S
Page 32 and 33: The Cycle of Life: Wastewater Recla
Page 34 and 35: FIGURE 1 Schematic of Shearer’s S
Page 36 and 37: Cost and Affordability of Phosphoru
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Page 42 and 43: TABLE 3 Annual Expense for Phosphor
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Page 46 and 47: TABLE 5 Effect on Stephenville WWTP
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Page 54 and 55: The National Environmental Services
Page 56 and 57: Products List Small Flows Quarterly
Page 58 and 59: Products List All Products 25% OFF
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Page 62 and 63: C L O S I N G T H O U G H T S Small
Page 64: Crivitz, Wisconsin The village of C

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