Once it goes down a drain, you don’t need to worry about your wastewater, right?
In Brown County, you probably do.
More than 80 percent of homes here use individual septic systems to contain and filter their wastewater, like in many rural communities. The only areas of Brown County that have central sanitary sewers are Nashville, Gnaw Bone and Helmsburg — but it’s not a guarantee that every home in those areas is hooked up.
For instance, Town Hill Road, which one would assume to be in the town of Nashville, is not in town limits, and 99 percent of the homes in it have septics and not sewer hookups, even though the treatment plant is right across the highway from that neighborhood.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“People move here and buy a house, and if they don’t really think about it and nobody tells them, how do you think they’re supposed to find out that they have something that they have to maintain?” said Clint Studabaker, who moderated and organized a countywide Septic Summit on Sept. 3.
About 100 people spent the evening browsing through a septic equipment show outside at the Brown County Fairgrounds commercial pavilion, eating a “septic special” meal prepared by the Lick Creek Love Bugs inside, and asking questions of a panel of state and local experts on septic systems.
Panelists were:
Angela Brown, chief of the watershed planning and restoration section of the Office of Water Quality at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management;
Alice Quinn, manager of the on-site septic system division of the Indiana State Department of Health;
Ernie Reed, an environmental health specialist with the Brown County Health Department who formerly ran Reed’s Septic Service;
Kara Hammes, the Brown County Purdue Extension educator over agriculture and natural resources who’s also a member of the Brown County Board of Health’s septic ordinance rewrite committee; and
John Bowen, a soil scientist and president of Chestnut Ridge Consulting Inc.
As a reward for those who stayed until the end — which most of the crowd did — the Brown County Soil and Water Conservation District sponsored a drawing to award 20 $100 vouchers to residents to get their septic systems cleaned. Five, 2-gallon compost buckets also were given away that were filled with septic-friendly products.
Sept. 16-20 was SepticSmart week, designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as a time to get smarter about your septic system and check into how it is functioning.
Studabaker gave a report at the Sept. 17 Brown County Board of Health meeting about how the summit went.
“I think it was the kind of atmosphere that I was really hoping would happen, where it would be informative and fun, and dealing with septics, that’s kind of a little bit of a messy (subject),” he said.
“A lot of people came up to me at the summit and said, ‘I didn’t know anything about this,’ or ‘I didn’t even know I had a septic until 10 years after I lived here; I just flushed the toilet. … So people are starting to learn that septics are something you have to manage … but if you take care of them, they’ll take care of you. That’s what I think the Septic Summit got across.”
Studabaker said he hopes the Brown County Purdue Extension picks up this event to offer on a regular basis.
These were some of the questions asked and answered at the summit (paraphrased for space and clarity):
Q: Why is Bean Blossom Creek considered “impaired,” and what is a TMDL?
Angela Brown: TMDL means “total maximum daily load.” It’s a calculation of the amount of pollution a body of water can assimilate without actually being “polluted” and still meeting water quality standards. Bean Blossom Creek has been “impaired” because of E.coli since 1998, which is evidence that there’s some kind of fecal pollution there.
Q: Aren’t animals a lot more to blame for contamination?
Brown: We actually don’t know. We do know that livestock in streams direct-deposit into streams, so that certainly can cause a problem. Best-management practices for livestock would be to fence cattle out of waterways. There are tests for caffeine in water because there is no animal that drinks caffeine besides people. There’s also source tracking, but that is very expensive. You have to know what genetic markers of each of target species look like, gather their poop and figure out what the DNA looks like, and then compare it to what you’re getting out the stream.
Alice Quinn: The ISDH is working on a pharmaceuticals and personal care test. It is very rigorous.
Clint Studabaker (moderator): We’ve had a bit of that work done in testing Brown County water samples, and it’s showing trace amounts here and there. It’s still being refined.
Quinn: It’s definitely being refined. It’s not something we can 100 percent rely on at this time.
Q: Is there evidence that water from improperly functioning septics is causing diseases?
Brown: I’m assuming we’re taking about effluent that flows through the tank and into a soil absorption field. Yes, the evidence is very strong that that wastewater contains many pathenogenic organisms including E.coli, bacterias and viruses.
Quinn: E.coli bacteria is prevalent everwhere. It lives in your gut, in your skin, in soil. There’s a huge class of E.coli and only a few of them are actually detrimental to your health. It really depends on your immune system as to what will affect you. E.coli is simple and cheap to test for, so when we test water from a puddle in your yard, etc., if we find E.coli, then we go on to test for coliform bacteria. Coliform is another large group of which E.coli is a part. Coliform bacteria comes from the guts of warm-blooded animals: humans, domestic animals, farm animals like cattle, and wildlife. To prove whether that is coming from humans or animals, we can do other tests. Chances are if you’ve had diarrhea and you haven’t linked it with something you’ve eaten, it’s been caused by some sort of contamination in a food or water source, like not washing your hands after using the bathroom or changing a diaper.
Q: So, ingestion is one mechanism to get bad material in you. What about if you have a cut and you’re in contaminated water?
Quinn: Ingestion is the most common, but if you have exposure to blood and you get bacteria in that, it gets into your bloodstream, and that’s where it does the most harm.
Kara Hammes: The whole point of a septic system is that the untreated water goes into the septic tank, biological processes occur, and then that effluent is distributed into the soil. If the system is working correctly, by the time the effluent reaches the water table again, it is no longer pathenogenic. The risk comes when the effluent is reaching the surface of the ground or the water table or surface water without being appropriately treated.
Q: Is it true that some medicines can pass into your septic and get into the water supply?
Brown: Yes. The soil will absorb some of those things and beneficial bacteria will get rid of those, but if your soil pores are clogged from driving over your septic field, or if there is septic water sitting on top of your yard and then it rains and gets washed off, those are ways that contaminants, including medications, could get into surface water.
Quinn: It’s estimated that only about 20 percent of medicines are retained by the body and 80 percent are excreted into wastewater. Some medicines also can actually impair the function of your septic. Those on chemo or certain antibiotics have to have their tanks maintained much more frequently because it disrupts the balance in the tank. Also, please don’t ever flush your unusued medications, whether you’re on sanitary sewer or septic. Take them to a medication disposal day.
Studabaker: You can do that at the sheriff’s department.
Brown: Don’t burn them, either.
Q: How long can a septic system last?
Ernie Reed: How often do you change the oil in your car? Your septic system needs maintenance, also. If the solids are allowed to build up, in five years, a 1,000-gallon tank might turn into a 750-gallon tank, and the solids have increased in strength. Every year you do not clean it, you’re pushing more of the stuff out of your tank into your drainage field. I have seen septics last for 25 to 30 years, and some fail in six, seven, eight years.
Quinn: I’ve seen them fail in one year.
Reed: The soil is a factor, also. I’ve seen soils with a load rating of 0.25, which is 1 foot of water absorbed every two hours. If the wrong type or size of system is put in the soil, it will go into failure very quickly.
John Bowen: The first step in making sure system is properly installed is that a soil scientist comes out and he does the work right in describing the soil properly.
Q: Is there a proper type of soil that septic systems should have?
Bowen: Soils are going to be what they’re going to be. It would be great to have sandy soils all the way down to 4 feet, but you don’t have a whole lot of that in this county. What you’re dealing with most times in Brown County is silty, to clay, to underlaid by bedrock.
Quinn: The biggest thing is having healthy soils that harbor beneficial aerobic bacteria that do the bulk of our work. Bacteria that normally live in soil require oxygen. If we cut off the flow of oxygen to those bacteria, then the system will not function. Compacted soil doesn’t move water. You’ve just built a dam. If it doesn’t move water, it also doesn’t move air. Some people ask why we build septic systems at a certain depth. We know that most soil microorganisms live in the upper 16 inches. Once you get beyond 16 inches, we cut down on the aerobic bacteria activity and cut down on the treatment of those pathgens in the wastewater. Soil filters wastewater, but aerobic bacteria kill the pathogens.
Q: Why can’t I drive over my septic field?
Quinn: Compaction is a bad word. Even one pass over soils that are even slighty wet is bad. The depth of compaction isn’t just in the upper few inches. Even a very thin layer of compacted soils is going to cut off water movement and airflow.
Q: What material should not go into the septic system in the first place?
Reed: Certain soaps, like Dawn dishwasher soap; liquid hot greases; baby wipes, even if they say they are septic-safe. They are not. Even some toilet papers don’t work well in septic systems. To test yours, take a quart jar, take a sheet of TP and put it in the jar, put a lid on it and shake it. It should break up. If it stays in one piece, it will stay that way in your septic tank. There are three layers in your tank: floating solids, like fats, greases, things that won’t sink; the clear zone that goes out to your septic field; and then the sludge layer. The top layer is as bad as the sludge layer in the bottom. When those things build up, you’re losing tank capacity. If you don’t service it, it’s going to fail quickly. If you open your tank and look inside, you should see a thin, pink layer of fats and greases. If you’ve developed more than 2 or 3 inches, you’re probably putting stuff you don’t want to put down it.
Q: How do I know if I have a problem in the first place before it actually fails?
Quinn: If you have a wet yard over your septic tank, that’s a problem, or if you have striping in your yard, that is some of your grass sucking up more nutrients than it needs to be getting.
Brown: Gurgling in drains is another huge issue.
Q: Does it matter the type of plants you plant over your septic field?
Brown: Don’t plant trees over your drain field.
Quinn: We prefer a maintained lawn. Tree roots could clog your septic lines.
Q: If a septic sytem has failed and the homeowner knows that and doesn’t do anything, what’s going on in that soil?
Quinn: State law defines failure as one of three things: a backup in your home, effluent coming to the surface or contaminating the surface, or contamination of potable water or groudwater. There can be many other things wrong with a system that indicate that failure is eminent, but you’re not necessarily in failure. If your system consists of a tank and absorption field and those aren’t working, maybe nothing is going on in your soil. Also, if you have coarse sand or gravel soil, water flows through that too rapidly for treatment to happen, so while we do have water movement and bacteria, it’s passing through too rapidly to get treatment and it enters the groundwater like that. If you’ve not maintained your tank, biomat can build up. If you’ve had some compaction, you’ve lost the aerobic nature of your soil. You could have a plug in the line. If that occurs prior to or after the septic tank, you could have a backup in the home.
Q: What part of a septic system wears out first?
Hammes: I’d say your tank could fail, but that’s an easier fix. You can get that cleaned or unclog it. It’s more worrisome if your absorption field fails. You can’t do much if the soil is compated or clogged with too many solids. It may not fail first, but once that fails, you have a much bigger problem.
Reed: Older distribution boxes are not butyl-lined, so the gases in it will eat up the box and the box will deteriorate and collapse. Even if one line is tanking, it’s going to go into failure.
Quinn: I feel like I’m a typical homeowner. Last summer I was mowing my yard and found a divot in the yard where I think the d-box is. It kept getting bigger. Mowing season ended and I still didn’t look into it. Then it was Christmas, and I had my entire family over, and my son flushed, and the toilet gurgled in not a normal way. So the day after Christmas I took my husband to the yard, and that little divot was now a big divot, and there used to be a d-box there. We ended up having to replace the d-box. It was an older concrete one and it literally looked like oatmeal, and none of the lines were taking effluent at the time. Remember how I said it was really good to have a maintained lawn over your system? That way, you’re going to be checking regularly. If you’re starting to get divots in your yard, or if you have an area that does not grow grass, maybe it stays wetter than other areas, be proactive and get somebody to pop open your system and take a look. It’s a lot cheaper to fix a problem than to have your system go into complete failure. Don’t just keep mowing over it like I did.
Q: Why does “grey water” from my washing machine or laundry sink have to go to my septic tank? Can it go to a separate tank?
Quinn: According to the state, sewage is sewage; doesn’t matter if it’s “grey” or “black” water. It all contains pathogens and contaminants, like phosphates and nitrates.
Q: Can I buy a dye testing kit and test my own system?
Ernie: Dye testing is a part of a septic evaluation, but it’s not THE septic evaluation. Also, you have to know what you’re doing. How wet are your soils? How much water have you used that morning? What kind of soil do you have? What kind of system? I don’t recommend anyone who is not a sewer service professional to do a septic inspection. Basically, dye should be used as a tracer. If you know you’ve got a problem, you can pinpoint it with dye.
Quinn: At the ISDH, we prefer a system to be tested with dye under normal operating conditions. If you do a stress test, we don’t want any more water running through the system than the peak flow the system is sized for.
Q: Why does the number of bedrooms in a home matter?
Quinn: Septic systems are sized based on the number of bedrooms because that’s a really good indicator of how many people can live in the home. In Indiana, they base it upon peak flow and assuming two people per bedroom and 75 gallons per day, per person. They don’t want that much water flowing through it every day, but that’s peak flow.
Q: Do homeowners have to use a certified septic installer?
Reed: In this county, yes.
Quinn: Statewide, no. Minimum state code has to be followed, but the local health departments have jurisdiction to make a local ordinance that’s more stringent. More than half of Indiana’s 92 counties have some form of licensure for their installers.
Q: What alternatives are out there? I’ve read about “TNI.” How do I find out what really works?
Quinn: We have a statewide code that describes five different types of septic systems. Anything beyond that is “TNI,” which is “technology new to Indiana.” That doesn’t mean it’s new to the industry or the United States, it just is not specifically addressed in our rules. Everything that is TNI has to be reviewed and approved by the ISDH for performance and the quality of the effluent.
Hammes: It’s not up to the Brown County Health Department whether a new technology is allowed; it’s up to the state.
Quinn: But if the ISDH does approve something and the local health department says, “Nope, we don’t like that technology,” they do have the authority to not use that technology in their county.
Q: What makes a Presby system so special?
Reed: A Presby, which is a sand-lined system, takes up a smaller footprint to do its job and it works even on sloped areas. It cleans up the effluent really well, and the cleaner the effluent, the better the soils will take it. We have several types of Presbys that have been installed in the county. I don’t know if a Presby is any better or worse than any other sand-lined system; it’s just a brand name, like the “Coca-Cola” of systems.
Bowen: It’s popular in this county because you have areas of bedrock hills that have limited space for a septic and too steep of slopes to get in a smaller system.
Reed: With a traditional infiltrator or gravel-and-pipe, system, 10 inches is our minimum depth we can dig. With a Presby, I can put it on 15-percent slope at a 4-inch depth.
Q: What does it cost to repair or replace a septic system?
Reed: Quite a bit.
Quinn: Much more than it costs to maintain your system.
Q: Since Brown County is looking at allowing smaller homes, is there a consideration at the state level of lowering the minimum size of septic system required to less than two bedrooms?
Quinn: There’s nothing in state regulations that prohibits sizing a system for a single bedroom. However, some of the sand-lined systems are made for a minimum of two bedrooms, and that’s a manufacturer decision. Some communities are allowing tiny homes, so that is probably something we’re going to have to address in the future.
Reed: Our county code says a two-bedroom minimum.
Q: If we want to remodel our house, do we need to worry about our septic system?
Reed: You might be good to go if you won’t increase water usage. If you will be, you need to consider updating your septic.
Quinn: State law says if you’re going to increase the design daily flow, like the number of bedrooms or a bedroom equivalent, like a jetted tub that’s greater than a 125-gallon capacity, you must obtain a permit from the local health department. Hot tubs that stay full all the time do not count. But you also need to consider, where are you adding this new wing and where’s your septic system? There are state requirements on distance, and you don’t want to block access to your system. You have to know where things are even if you’re not expanding the design daily flow of your home.
