SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Sewer District proves to be an important local issue and for good reason. The wrong decision on this issue can put Seeley Lake in a situation of unaffordable debt service on a centralized sewage processing system (CSPS) when our community is better served by individual septic systems.
Septics suffer from image problems. Many people still think of them as undependable, old fashioned or as a temporary solution until a centralized system is built. Part of the blame for this can be traced to the popularity of installing CSPS in the 1960s and early 1970s when ample government funding was available to install and maintain large, complex systems. Many communities weren’t informed about possible alternatives and therefore, didn’t consider more cost effective or appropriate technologies like septic systems.
Additionally, septic image problems come from old, failed systems with poor design or properly installed systems with steel tanks that have rusted out. Current systems are of reinforced concrete or fiberglass construction that, when properly installed and maintained, will provide long, problem free life.
The advantages of properly functioning septic systems are that they are simple and effective wastewater treatment, less disruptive to the environment to install and maintain, less expensive to operate and can help replenish groundwater.
On the other hand, CSPS do not suffer from the same image problem, yet they are NOT a guaranteed cure. Other small communities in Montana have centralized systems that are now failing and the EPA is demanding the communities finance repairs to systems that will more than likely continue to be problematic.
Lincoln has just rebuilt its systems lift pumps for approximately $300,000.
Belt has a system failure that is putting affluent into Belt Creek.
Big Sky’s system has failed.
Polson, Fairfield and Brady are all in need of expensive repairs.
To add to the problem, many small towns are shrinking, leaving the burden of repair to fewer residents.
An unaffordable centralized system would do major environmental disruption during installation and give our dollars to non-local corporations. Septic are much less disruptive requiring only repair or replacement of faulty systems. This business would most likely go to local contractors.
Yes, we need some method to insure homeowners have adequate systems and maintain them properly. I’m sure this has to be less than the $78/household we are already paying – which has done nothing to solve the problem and is guaranteed to increase exponentially if the CSPS is installed.
Our well meaning, hard working sewer committee is, in my opinion, caught up in the idea that the expensive hi-tech solution is the proper solution for the sewage problems of this small community.
Don’t impose big city solutions when a proven, small community solution exists. Don’t burden the community for the foreseeable future with debt from building and maintaining a system that it doesn’t need.
(Sources: Great Falls Tribune, University of West Virginia “Pipeline” Summer 1995 Vol. 6, No. 3, EPA Septic Smart website, and other internet sources)
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