The average three-person family uses 150,000 gallons of water per year. A family of five can use as much as 326,000 gallons a year. About one-half is used indoors.
The principle contaminant in waste water is microbiological, meaning it’s composed of bacteria and viruses. Metals – lead, arsenic, iron, tin, zinc, copper and cadmium – pose interesting problems, too. Organic contaminants, such as solvents, cleaners, degreasers and pesticides, move with water through the soil and into groundwater.
Everything that Goes Down the Drain Passes into the Septic Tank
This means that 200 to 400 gallons of water, including waste, goes into the average septic tank every day. If the tank cannot accommodate these flows, the sewage cannot be treated before it flows into the leach field. What if the leach field is in soil that cannot absorb that level of flow? What if the soil does not retain it long enough for additional decomposition to occur?
The environmental movement in the United States helped create the pressure that resulted in the Clean Water Act of 1977. Great sums of money were allocated exclusively for the laying of sewer pipes and the construction of treatment plants. The Clean Water Act funded virtually no on-site, site specific, decentralized systems--either for remediation or for new construction.
Too Many Small Communities Aren't in Compliance with the Clean Water Act
Furthermore, the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that small, under-served communities (those with 100,000 or fewer residents) still “need $13 billion to comply with the Clean Water Act.” The EPA is now focusing on these small communities because more than one million of their housing units still use outhouses or privies for sewage disposal, and 19 million more still use septic tanks or cesspools as the primary source of treatment.
Even communities with drinking water systems in place face increasing challenges as infrastructure ages and regulations increase. The EPA estimates it will take more than $150 billion over the next 20 years to ensure the safety of our existing community water systems.
Crumbling Infrastructure Causes Sewage Pollution
On February 20, 2004, the Environmental News Service reported, “The United States has a million mile network of sewage collection pipes designed to carry some 50 trillion gallons of raw sewage daily to some 20,000 treatment plants. But parts of this complex and aging infrastructure are crumbling, environmentalists warn, posing a health risk to communities across the nation . . . sewage pollution costs Americans billions of dollars every year in medical treatment, lost productivity and property damage.”
Swimming in Sewage
"We have a looming public health crisis on our hands that will take billions of dollars to fix," Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's (Natural Resources Defense Council) Clean Water Project, says. In fact, it may cost even more. The Association of Metropolitan Sewage Agencies, the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accounting Office, and the EPA all agree there is a national funding gap estimated to be as high as $1 trillion for water infrastructure.
The report includes seven case studies from around the country that illustrate how exposure to sewage pollution has killed or seriously injured people and harmed local economies.The EPA estimates that 1.8 million to 3.5 million individuals get sick each year from swimming in waters contaminated by sanitary sewage overflows.
Many older municipalities, especially in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, have sewage collection systems designed to carry both sewage and storm water runoff, according to the EPA, which estimates that some 1.3 trillion gallons of raw sewage are dumped each year by these combined sewer overflows.
References:
- United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Watershed News”, March 2007.
- The Family Handyman Magazine, “How a House Works – What Happens After the Flush”, by Spike Carlson, March 1997.
- “Water Encyclopedia”, Published by John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
John Anderson - John Anderson has worked as a journalist, editor, advertising executive, Internet pioneer, and he has authored four books.
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