 Water. We use a lot of it. At home, each one of us uses 40 to 60 gallons each day. In urban areas, wastewater flows into a sewer line, which carries it to a centralized sewage treatment plant. This expensive process of waste transportation and treatment requires heavy machinery, energy, and a trained personnel. Where population density is high, many people share the cost. But money for the centralized collection and treatment of wastewater is now harder to find. In small towns and scattered settlements, the cost per household is high. People in these areas need to find a different solution to their wastewater problems. Most households in less settled areas dispose of wastewater at their home site. The nutrients, solids, and disease organisms in the wastewater from these homes must be treated to safeguard our health and our groundwater. This film will show some of the options used by unsuered areas in different parts of the country. Let's look at the most common method of on-site treatment, the septic tank soil absorption system. Most of these systems serve individual homes. Household wastewater flows into a septic tank where solids settle to the bottom and greases flow to the top. Some breakdown of these wastes occurs in the tank. Clarified liquid flows to a soil absorption field. For proper treatment, it should then percolate through unsaturated soil. In suitable soil, most wastes or broken down and disease organisms die off before they reach groundwater. After installation, individual owners usually take over management of soil absorption systems. The owner can do several important things. Use water carefully to avoid overloading the system. Pump the septic tank and cut down on use of the garbage disposal. This will decrease suspended solids which clog the absorption field. Good management extends the life of a soil absorption field. Wisconsin water expert Harvey Worth explains the importance of finding the right site. The septic tank system allows the opportunity to locate a residence in the rural area away from the public sewer system. When properly maintained, constructed, and at a proper site, it is trouble-free. However, today we do have hundreds of thousands of failing systems caused primarily by poor sites not conducive to absorption of the liquid. Fortunately, soil science today has many parameters which permit the evaluation of the site and the conclusion that when located at a site meeting these parameters, this system will be trouble-free. A system providing adequate treatment begins with a thorough site evaluation. Here, a soil evaluator examines maps to acquaint himself with the soils, topography, and past surveys of the potential site. At the site, he notes geologic formations, slope, and the boundaries of the lot. Marking the position of the absorption field, he digs observation pits. The soil evaluator examines the soil layer by layer. He determines the texture and structure of each layer. He can then estimate the soil's permeability, which is the speed water moves through the soil. He observes the color and color patterns of the soil to predict the potential for seasonal water saturation. Here, he conducts a percolation test to aid his estimate of the soil's permeability. If water seeps through too fast, inadequate soil treatment will occur. If too slow, untreated wastewater will collect on the ground surface. The evaluation defines the limits of the site. If the soil of a site is inadequate for conventional soil absorption system, workable alternatives can be designed using the same data. Today's technology offers a range of alternatives for an area without sewers. Each alternative, however, requires a different kind of management. The natural environment affects both the design of a system and the way the system is managed. The soil absorption system serving this Wisconsin house failed because it was located in unsuitable soil. The absorption field no longer accepted effluent, which backed into the homeowner's basement. Modifying the site solved the problem, in this case by the use of a mound system. The plowed natural surface provides a base for the specially designed mound. A front end loader shapes truckloads of suitable fill into the form of a mound. Careful construction ensures proper performance, will be distributed in a gravel bed. There are several designs of mounds that can help many areas with a high water table, porous bedrock, or slowly permeable soils achieve adequate absorption and treatment. Inside the mound, wastewater is pumped in doses large enough for even distribution over the gravel bed. The fill supplements the natural soil to make sure the water is purified. Resting between doses allows time for drainage. Another option on problem sites is water conservation to reduce the volume of household wastewater. This house belongs to the Gledowskis, a family of six who use less than 80 gallons of water per day, total. Mrs. Gledowsky explains how her family cuts its water use 71% below average. It really is very little change once you get used to it. I think the biggest thing about water conservation is when we turn it on, when we use it, it's in our head we're thinking, I'm using water. Some of the ways that we save water, the boys wash their hands by putting water into the basin rather than running water over their hands and leaving it run out. The toilets use only six quarts of water rather than three to five gallons, which a conventional toilet will use. We take showers as frequently as we like. We have special shower heads that use approximately one-third the amount of a normal shower head. The washing clothes, our biggest change, I guess you could say would be that we installed a sub-seater. We can reuse the wash water three times and the laundry comes out just as clean as the first. The dishwasher, we run once a day, it's just a matter of getting used to stacking it well. You have to really think of all the times you use water, how you use it, and is that the best way to use it? Houses on East Fork Lake caused concern for the city of Olney in southern Illinois. The lake serves as a reservoir for the city's water supply. To prevent degradation of water quality, lakeside homes make use of a recirculating sand filter. This system consists of a filter of specially sized sand and a septic tank. A recirculation tank in between accepts effluent from the septic tank and also a portion of the sand filtered effluent. A time clock determines when the mixture is pumped to the filter surface. A float valve controls the amount of recirculation. Recirculating wastewater several times results in a cleaner effluent. The system requires routine maintenance every three months. The homeowner rakes the sand and pulls any weeds. The city of Olney checks the time clock and the disinfection units it requires before final discharge to the lake. Simple tests check the effectiveness of the disinfectant in the discharged effluent. Borough is an old lumber town in north central Wisconsin. In 1976, 80% of the town's septic systems were failing. The small lots and unsuitable soils prevented rehabilitation of individual on-site systems. The cost of a proposed sewage treatment plant exceeded the property value of the whole town. Earl Kilby, county's owning administrator. Basically, our problem was polluting the silver creek off to our side over here with a high school was running their sewage into it. The whole town was running their sewage into it and the DNR had issued orders to get the sewage out of the river. When we found out the cost of the conventional type system was going to be so high, we had to go to a different type of thinking. And this is where the people from the University of Wisconsin helped the village out here after a great deal of paperwork why they came up with a system that could satisfy all the requirements. Environmental engineer Dick Otis. Westboro is a small community of about 80 homes, each of which had been served by individual septic tank systems. Most of these systems were failing, which required the homeowners to upgrade their systems, but the small lots and poor soils prevented them from doing so. The alternative finally selected is a cluster system in which the effluent from individual septic tanks is collected in small diameter gravity sewers. The effluent is then conveyed to one large soil absorption field for treatment and disposal. The district which formed operates and maintains a system including pumping of each of the individual septic tanks. The district now operates this cluster system for a small monthly fee to homeowners. Beautiful beaches in the short distance north of San Francisco make the town of Stinson Beach, California attractive to thousands of weekend visitors. Confined by the steep coast range and the Pacific Ocean, the town has little room to grow. Small lots, steep slopes, rock outcrops, a perched water table where seasonal springs hinder on-site wastewater treatment in different areas of town. In 1973, a survey found 10% of on-site systems to be failing and polluting Bolinas Lagoon. The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a cease and assist order against the Stinson Beach County Water District and all on-site system users. Lester Feldman of the Board explains what happened. Community action led to the concept of repairing and maintaining on-site wastewater systems with maintenance assured by the Stinson Beach County Water District. The Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board accepted this concept as an experiment to see if management could solve the water quality problems in Stinson Beach. Developing a septic system management program is just as complicated as planning for centralized treatment. Andrea DeMarco, water district president. As a result, we had to enlist the assistance of a state senator to get special legislation so that the district could enter private property to manage septic systems in a responsible manner. The district also had to develop sets of ordinances, operation manual, and so it took us two to three years to write the program that manages the septic systems. Technician Jack Burnham explains the district's management responsibilities. To begin with, we inspect every septic system in this town at least once every two years. If we find any trouble that we think could be developing, we inspect the system more often and hopefully we can discern what the problem is prior to it actually reaching a failing stage. If the system does have a problem and does fail, the district then issues a failed system citation and we work with the homeowner from the time of the failure up to the time it is repaired. The district does have the function of reviewing plans for proposed new and rehabilitated systems. The review process is to ensure that not only does the homeowner receive a system that we feel will function, but that it meets all the required codes. Part of the district's responsibility is to check every installation while it is occurring. This is to ensure that the installation is following the plans that were approved by the district. In some cases, a septic tank leach field cannot be installed. By accepting a composting toilet is an idea for a rehabilitation. We've prevented a situation of having to have a house closed. Composting toilets are monitored monthly at this point. The district does monitor surface and groundwater quality throughout town. We have surface stations and groundwater stations beginning above town as a control going all the way through town to the other end of the Balinus Lagoon. The district is monitoring for several indicators of human pollution. The idea behind this is an early warning system of failed systems should want to occur between one of these stations. The district then would start to move back up the creek and try to locate the point source. In Oregon, there are many regions of diverse climates, soils and topography. To provide adequate wastewater treatment in all areas, Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality began a statewide site evaluation and permit program. The department began denying many permits in unsuitable areas. This situation aggravated a housing shortage and intensified pressure to develop prime agricultural land. Jack Osborne, head of the program, explains his department's response. A high denial rate led to our experimental systems program, which has developed a number of alternative systems to deal with Oregon's numerous soil types, buried terrain and buried rainfall patterns. The department field tested different systems in problem areas. Strict rules were formulated for the systems that worked. Some of the alternatives commonly used are tile dewatering trenches, lowering a high winter water table below the absorption field. This allows treatment to occur in unsaturated soil. Seepage trenches on slopes up to 45% with deep well-drained soils. Sand filters in areas with a temporary high winter water table, discharging high quality effluent to a standard with small drain field. Adoption of alternatives requires a complete site analysis. Department of Environmental Quality Soil Scientist, Bob Peth. Oregon discontinued use of the percolation test, January 24, 1974, and adopted use of soil morphology for evaluating soils for on-site waste disposal. These rules are based on the fact that soil retains within itself a record of its natural history. Events like the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens have been recorded in the soils of a large part of the state of Oregon. Less spectacular elements of the soil's natural history like the water regime have also been recorded. This enables us to evaluate a soil profile like this during the dry season when we can observe the soil modeling and determine to what height the winter water table comes to. This is not possible using a percolation test. Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality are cooperating in a program to provide instruction and training in introductory soil science, soil morphology, physical geology, and geomorphology so that our sanitarians will be prepared to evaluate sites for on-site waste disposal. Our increased ability to treat wastewater on-site will not necessarily lead to wise land use. Now that development can occur almost anywhere, development and preservation should proceed according to the wisest use of the land. A difficult decision awaits any community considering what can be a confusing array of options. Of all available options, a community must decide what type of system it can afford to install, operate, and maintain. Community leaders, state and local officials, consultants, and the local people all must work together to find a practical solution to their wastewater problems. Management, technology, environment. This film showed a few of the many ways to obtain adequate wastewater treatment. Treatment to protect our health and our water.