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From Outhouses to Septic Tanks:

Looking for Solutions to Age-old Problem

From the outhouses of yesterday to the septic tanks and leach fields of today's plumbing, what to do with the effluent produced by human waste has been a topic of discussion, law, and regulation. In California today, over 58 jurisdictions have regulations and prescriptive standards governing septic tanks or onsite sewage treatment and management. These regulations are often not consistent.

Tibor Benathy, director of the California Wastewater Training and Research Center, is working on two grants, one that provides a model ordinance to improve regulatory consistency and allow use of innovative technologies, and one that examines the ways the ordinance can preserve farmlands.

The two-year $152,000 California Model Ordinance for Onsite Sewage Treatment and Management grant, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, builds on a draft model ordinance worked on by Ken Derucher, dean of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology.

The training and research center, a collaborative effort among the Colleges of Agriculture, Natural Sciences, and Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology, is developing a performance-based model ordinance "that would promote some consistencies and actually raise the standard of practice. We hope the end result will be onsite systems that provide better treatment than the systems that are currently available," Benathy explained.

The traditional system is a septic tank and a leach field. Currently, the standard of practice for onsite systems is a tangle of prescriptive standards with specific criteria that must be met before an onsite system can be installed or used. These criteria assume the traditional system. Benathy said, "The new technologies offer much better treatment so the specific site criteria that you had to have met for a traditional system don't necessarily apply. You're treating the wastewater a lot more thoroughly, so you mitigate some of the environmental and public health concernsÉ. Basically what these things are doing is maximizing what occurs in nature." This is done through systems using secondary treatment units and soil dispersal units.

Benathy explained that the second grant, about $126,000 from the Agricultural Research Initiative, asks the question, "How do you use this model, performance-based ordinance to help preserve agricultural land?" The researchers, Mitchell Johns, Agriculture; Irv Schiffman, Political Science; and Benathy believe that if they can provide ways of allowing onsite systems on soils that are not good agricultural soils, they can help people find other areas for development and preserve farmland. Benathy acknowledges that this is "a two-edged sword," in that the new technologies can allow sewage systems and development in areas that peole may want to preserve.

The training and research center also offers training workshops to the wastewater management community. One of the problems facing decision makers has been the lack of access to new knowledge. The center has offered over 20 workshops to about 500 wastewater professionals over the last two years to help fill the gap. Benathy noted that the decision makers need the information, especially as newer technologies develop, so they can "provide better environmental and public health protection with the better systems that are out there."

-- Barbara Alderson