Debate grows on sewer treatment on Home Services

Jan

Debate grows on sewer treatment

posted by admin in Sewer Septic

Some environmentalists worry about developmentThe Town of Newport wants to increase its treated wastewater output into the Newport River.To gauge what effect this might have on shellfish waters, state authorities ran a dye test last week, seeing how much farther down the river this additional flow would go. Results of the test are expected sometime this week.”Our closure line is so far down the river that it may not make an impact immediately,” said Wayne Mobley, head of the Shellfish Sanitation and Recreational Water Quality Section of the N.C. Division of Environmental Health.What it will almost certainly do is lead to increased development, which could mean more stormwater runoff and possibly more shellfish water closures when it rains, Mobley said.Shellfish Sanitations official comments on the proposed increased output will most likely bring up these concerns, Mobley said.Nowadays, any debate over sewage treatment, by necessity, must address stormwater runoff issues, said Todd Miller, executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation.And for this reason, sewer systems — once thought to be environmentally superior to those country-style septic tanks — are no longer the darlings of the environmental community.Its a perception that has evolved over the past 20 years, Miller said.In the early 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency released a study on barrier island wastewater treatment that concluded the impacts from related development override any water quality benefits of a sewage treatment plant.Until then, people thought sewer systems were better, believing that many septic tanks were in a state of disrepair and inadequate to protect water quality, Miller said.Today, Shellfish Sanitation routinely conducts shoreline surveys, checking each house at least once every three years.”We find less than 4 percent with failing septic tanks,” Mobley said.What those in the environmental community didnt understand 20 years ago was the amount of water quality damage that would result in the coming years from stormwater runoff, Mobley said.”With sewer systems you can have intense development,” Mobley said.With centralized sewer and county or city water, some zoning laws allow up to five houses per acre, he said. Thats more roofs and more paved roads that cause rain water to flow directly into streams instead of filtering through the ground, he said.Conversely, under state rules governing the placement of septic tanks and water wells, to have both you would need about a half-acre lot, Mobley said. And that lot would have to pass soil evaluation tests, which many will not do.”In coastal North Carolina, theres a lot of land that the only thing its good for is green heads and mosquitoes,” Mobley said.Its not that sewer systems do not have a place, Miller said. There will always be development, but that growth should be well-thought-out, he said.The problem with many sewer systems, especially with county-wide systems, is that the governments have allowed the developers to decide where the lines go, Miller said. Sheer economics will drive developers to only service new developments, he said.”No developer is going to go back and retrofit a development thats already been sold,” Miller said.Even in places like Atlantic Beach, where there is virtually no room to grow, there is always the possibility of redevelopment, which should be planned too, Miller said. Rick Shiver, head of DWQs Wilmington regional office, said it is division policy to encourage regional sewer systems as opposed to small package plants because they are often not well maintained.”Weve seen some good ones, weve seen some bad ones, but we see a lot of bad ones,” Shiver said.Shiver said DWQ has no policy stand on sewer systems versus septic tanks.Sometimes, he said, DWQ gets permit requests for wastewater treatment systems where there are problems with failing septic systems. And too, DWQ sometimes receives permit requests for sewer systems for new developments where soil quality or high water tables prevent the use of septic tanks, Shiver said.