Country Life: Septic Maintenance and Repair

Transcribed by Jerome Kazlauskas

Brett Barry  0:03  
With springtime temps and soft ground, it's time to start digging, but today we're not landscaping with my crudely drawn map, a ruler, and a shovel; I'm looking for treasure? Not exactly. On today's very important "Kaatscast," all about your Catskills septic system: how to keep it running smoothly and how to get reimbursed for the cost. Stay tuned.

Kaatscast is supported by the Mountain Eagle, covering Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie counties, including brands for the local region such as the Windham Weekly, Schoharie News, Cobleskill Herald, and the Catskills Chronicle. For more information, call 518-763-6854 or email: mountaineaglenews@gmail.com. This episode is sponsored by Ulster Savings Bank—a local bank with a long history of serving the community and offering the modern conveniences of online banking. Visit their locations in Phoenicia and Woodstock. Call 866-440-0391 or visit them at ulstersavings.com. Member FDIC Equal Housing Lender.

Unless you're tied into a municipal sewer system, chances are your Catskill Mountain home has its very own septic system, and if that system isn't maintained, well, remember that scene in "Meet the Parents."

[Meet the Parents]  1:31  
What's that smell? That smell, Bob is our [BLEEP]. Focker flushed the toilet in the den so the septic tank is overflowing.

Brett Barry  1:38  
Don't let this happen to you. With occasional maintenance and some beefy financial incentives from the Catskill Watershed Corporation, you'll have a septic system you can be proud to call your own. The CWC recommends a septic tank pump out every three to five years, and in the back of my mind, I knew it was about that time, so out came the shovel and map of the yard and a phone call to a local pumping service.

Orville Smith  2:04  
I am Orville Smith from Titan Drilling Corp., or Titan Septic, whichever you would like to call it. There's a lot to septic—a lot more than I thought there was when we originally started it. Right now, we are running five days a week, most days ... a minimum of 3,000 gallons, up to about 6,000 gallons a day.

Brett Barry  2:31  
What's the average tank of a residential septic?

Orville Smith  2:36  
Residential septic around here in the Catskill Mountains—average is 1,000 gallons. I've pumped up to a 12,000-gallon system, and it's a lot of work.

Brett Barry  2:51  
How much does that truck hold?

Orville Smith  2:52  
3,000.

Brett Barry  2:54  
So you got to make a few trips on that one?

Orville Smith  2:56  
Oh, yeah, and around here, dumping out our sewer plants that are here in this area, you can only dump two of the plants that are 3,000 gallons a day and one plant's 3,750 a day. We can only dump on certain days at certain plants. We use Margaretville, Tannersville, Pine ... Pine Hill, and anything over our 3,000 or 3,750 a day. We wind up going to Oneonta to dump.

Brett Barry  3:36  
So you didn't start out in septic. What have you learned? Is it as bad as one might expect or not that bad, or, you know, what's the ... what's the process?

Orville Smith  3:46  
It's not as bad as everybody thinks. The truck smells more than the ... the septic itself generally does.

Brett Barry  3:55  
Can you tell me a little bit about how a septic works? Like, there's a ... there's a tank that has to be pumped every so often, and that goes out to a leach field, right? So what's the ... what are the signs of a healthy septic system, and how do you know when to pump it out?

Orville Smith  4:09  
According to the CWC, which is the Catskill Watershed Corporation, they should be pumped every three to five years. I have pumps on that ... have went ... 25–30 years. I have pumps on that went ... two years. Every system is different. Every household is different depending on the size of the house and how many people's there, and there's a whole bunch of variables. Most of them ... a 1,000-gallon tank comes into the tank, your solid state in that tank and your liquids go out into your leach field to leach out into the ground, and what we do and what we're going to do today is to pick up the solids and anything that's in the tank as much as we can and clean it up. As best we can to get you back into service.

Brett Barry  5:03  
And in a healthy system, those solids are also broken down, right, and they go out to the leach field like I would, I don't know, imagine that five years of solids accumulate.

Orville Smith  5:12  
Believe it or not, a lot of the solids do accumulate in the tanks, so you wind up pulling a lot of it out. Some tanks actually have a filter on to them that has to be cleaned every six months to a year, so that the heavy silos do not go out to the leach field.

Brett Barry  5:35  
Are there any tell-tale signs that it needs to be pumped from a homeowner's perspective?

Orville Smith  5:40  
There can be if you hear gurgling or, you know, you notice your toilets are flushing slow or something along that line. Yes, that's a good indication that you're going to need to pump your septic.

Brett Barry  5:53  
And if it doesn't get pumped in, it needs to get pumped. What's ... what happens? What's the ... what's the worst thing that can happen?

Orville Smith  5:57  
The absolute worst thing is a backup into the house.

Brett Barry  6:03  
Anything that homeowners can do to keep it running smoothly?

Orville Smith  6:07  
No. Be foolish about it. Toilet paper is fine. Do not flush wipes. Watch your kids; don't let them flush their matchbox cars or candy papers or anything along that line down there because that will not disintegrate, and actually, it is a pain in my truck.

Everyone  6:28  
[LAUGHTER]

Brett Barry  6:31  
And when you pump it out, you pump everything out right down to the bottom?

Orville Smith  6:34  
We try to get as much as possible. You usually wind up leaving a little water and maybe a little tiny skim of sludge in the bottom and spots, but we try to get as much as possible out of it.

Brett Barry  6:48  
Once you pump this out, can you give me a report?

Orville Smith  6:50  
Sure.

Brett Barry  6:51  
Alright, this is exciting.

Everyone  6:53  
[LAUGHTER]

Orville Smith  6:56  
Add just another day of work.

Audio  7:02  
[MACHINE SOUND]

Brett Barry  7:02  
At this point, Orville pulls a heavy concrete hatch off the septic tank and attaches what looks like a giant vacuum hose to the back of his truck. Remember, I'd already mapped out and located this tank, but it's not always that straightforward. I asked Orville, "What happens if a homeowner is unaware of their tank's location?"

Orville Smith  7:24  
Generally, if it's not plugged up, we have a little blue locator that we flushed down, and we'll chase it with a magnetic detector. If it's plugged up, then you start with just checking the ground out, and sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't, so you just guess, and my golly. I had one. I looked for the other day. People just bought the house. No idea where the tank is. I couldn't find it, and it may be so close to the house. It's under the deck. It's hard to tell, so we got to go back with an excavator and actually tried to locate it.

Brett Barry  8:11  
I guess that gets expensive.

Orville Smith  8:13  
Oh yes, it can get very expensive very quickly. Just for a regular pump like this, you're talking $500 plus tax by the time you get a machine involved and trying to find it, and if you can find it, do a riser onto it. If it's deep, so they don't have to have a machine every time, you can talk up to a couple thousand dollars fairly quickly.

Brett Barry  8:40  
Okay, but here's the good news. If you're in the Catskill's New York City watershed, those pump-outs are subsidized, and failing septic systems can be replaced with a dollar-for-dollar reimbursement, and those new systems can run tens of thousands of dollars. For details on the program, I met up with Eric Lane and Mitchell Hull at the Catskill Watershed Corporation Offices in Arkville, New York.

Eric Lane  9:07  
I'm Eric Lane, here at the Catskill Watershed Corporation. I'm the septic maintenance program manager.

Mitchell Hull  9:12  
And I'm Mitchell Hull with the Catskill Watershed Corporation, and I am the septic program manager.

Brett Barry  9:19  
Give me a ... just a ... broad strokes. What's the CWC?

Eric Lane  9:23  
Sure, so we're an organization here. We're just to ... help offset some of the cost of living in the Catskills ... living by additional regulations here that we have to abide by in order to live in the New York City watershed.

Mitchell Hull  9:35  
DEP gives us so much money, and then we allocate that to different programs to help homeowners, property owners with inside the watershed.

Brett Barry  9:44  
And so part of that is the septic program, so why our septic systems of focus for the CWC, and how many staff are assigned to that program?

Mitchell Hull  9:55  
Yeah, it's a focus because sewage failing on the surface can eventually discharged down into water bodies and streams and eventually ends up inside the New York City's drinking water, so fixing those and making sure that there's no failing septic that definitely impacts the water quality inside the watershed.

Brett Barry  10:18  
And how big is the program here that's dedicated to septic systems?

Mitchell Hull  10:21  
So we have five staff members in the septic program, and then Eric, who does the septic maintenance program. Roughly every year, we ... we sign up about 300 or so homeowners and then try to replace around 300 septics as well. In total, we've replaced over 6,000 septics since the program started in '97.

Brett Barry  10:48  
So that's an expensive proposition to replace a septic system. You replace them for free, or you reimburse the homeowner, so that ... basically, it doesn't cost anything, right?

Mitchell Hull  11:01  
It's a reimbursement program, so we'll make the check out to the homeowner, and whoever does the work that way, there's no money out of pocket because some of these septics can cost around seventy to eighty thousand dollars.

Brett Barry  11:14  
Wow!

Mitchell Hull  11:14  
So yeah, most homeowners can just lay that money out to a contractor and wait to get reimbursed.

Brett Barry  11:20  
Do you know what percentage of homes in this area are reliant on a private septic system?

Mitchell Hull  11:26  
It's over like 23,000 homes inside the watershed. Residential on-site septics ... I'm not sure, but besides, like the major communities, like if you're talking Margaretville or Delhi, like somewhere that has is hooked to a wastewater treatment facility. Every other home is on a residential on-site septic, so it's probably over 65 to 70 percent of ... of homeowners are on an on-site septic.

Brett Barry  11:56  
Without getting into the weeds, how does the septic system work?

Mitchell Hull  12:00  
So there's a septic tank. The solids go into the tank and settle, and then the effluent, which is all the water and that goes out to your leach field. There's a whole bunch of different kinds of leach fields that you can have, but the main thing is that the water goes out there and then disperses. It ... it gets treated in the leach field, and that's what makes the water clean.

Brett Barry  12:27  
Just through filtration through the dirt ...

Mitchell Hull  12:29  
Yes, exactly filtration.

Brett Barry  12:31  
And that's not just water; that's, I guess, brown water had stuff that's coming out of your dish?

Mitchell Hull  12:35  
Yeah, so it's dirty, dirty water, yeah.

Brett Barry  12:36  
Your dishwasher and your laundry machines and your toilets and your showers?

Mitchell Hull  12:40  
Yeah, exactly.

Brett Barry  12:41  
So everything that you use in that system is also going: detergents and things like that. Is their other recommendations for things to stay away from because of all that stuff going in?

Eric Lane  12:52  
Yeah, so I mean, you don't want to like dump a lot of cleaners down your toilet or anything or down your sink. I mean, your standard amount, like if dish soap and stuff like that, it's not really going to hurt anything. The systems are designed to handle all that. You get into issues sometimes when you're, you know, flushing things down the toilet are supposed to be down in the system, like wipe some ... anything that's, you know, large. You get clogged pipes or ...

Mitchell Hull  13:15  
So that can't break down.

Eric Lane  13:16  
Right.

Mitchell Hull  13:16  
Stores will sell flushable wipes, it says they're flushable.

Eric Lane  13:20  
Right.

Mitchell Hull  13:20  
They are not flushable; they do not break down the septic tank. We see a lot of issues with that.

Brett Barry  13:25  
And they mat up, right? They'll attach to each other and create a barrier?

Mitchell Hull  13:30  
Yeah, right, yeah, and that's where a lot of problems occur with septics and backs up into the house.

Brett Barry  13:35  
So stay away from the flushable wipes, take some toilet paper. Any types of toilet paper or problem, or they're all fine?

Mitchell Hull  13:42  
I haven't seen any issues with toilet paper; mainly, stay away from ... I don't flush paper towels; something that's real thick and heavy.

Brett Barry  13:50  
So toilet paper and what we're calling solids number two—that goes to the bottom or ... or to the top?

Mitchell Hull  13:59  
Some will settle out, some ... then there'll be like a scum layer on top, and then the rest is ... is a liquid, and then it also catches hairs and fats, oils, greases that all go into the septic tank. That's to hold everything in all the solids and in the tank, and you only want the water going out because if ... if the solids start migrating out to leach field, that's what causes it to fail. Typically, there should be around 12 inches of solids on the bottom and then on the top. There'll be a scum layer, which is around three to four inches.

Brett Barry  14:34  
That scum layer does not go into the leach field?

Mitchell Hull  14:36  
Nope, that won't go into the leach field, so septic tanks nowadays have an effluent filter on them. The filter is to catch all the solids, greases, hairs, anything that might migrate out to your leach field.

Brett Barry  14:51  
And does that stuff break down over time, or does it just accumulate over the years?

Mitchell Hull  14:56  
It just accumulates; that's why we push the maintenance you have to get yourself to pump because you have to periodically pump those solids out to make room in the septic tank.

Brett Barry  15:05  
What happens when a septic system doesn't work, and how would a homeowner have any idea that it was failing?

Mitchell Hull  15:14  
The biggest one is ... if your toilet doesn't flush, there's probably a good chance that your ... your septic is failing. You could also have a clog in the line or the septic tank might just need to be pumped because there's too many solids in it, but a lot of times, if the leach field isn't draining properly, everything will start backing up into the house. You might also see sewage surfacing on the ground out in the leach field area. If the ... if the soil just can't take that water load anymore, it will start coming to the surface, and that's pretty much the two common issues that we see with septics.

Brett Barry  15:48  
And that's bad for the homeowner, and it's bad for the environment.

Eric Lane  15:53  
Exactly, yeah.

Brett Barry  15:54  
And not to say that you don't care about the homeowner, but your primary concern is for a septic system not to get to a point where it's now leaching into the outside environment: streams, creeks, surface water—that type of thing?

Mitchell Hull  16:06  
Yes, exactly.

Eric Lane  16:08  
Yeah, New York City has the largest unfiltered water supply in the world, and that's where all the streams and everything run for them are in the watershed, so that's why they implemented the program to try to keep their water clean and make sure that they don't have to put in some sort of filtration system, which would be billions and billions of dollars.

Brett Barry  16:29  
So even with all the money that goes into these programs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to having to build something downstream and better for everybody because it keeps everything clean right up the line.

Mitchell Hull  16:39  
It benefits everybody that lives inside the watershed.

Brett Barry  16:42  
Any anecdotal stories about the bad things that can happen if you don't maintain your septic system? What are some of the worst cases that you've seen in terms of backing up or getting into the environment?

Mitchell Hull  16:56  
We've seen a lot over the years, and we've seen all sorts of septic tanks. I mean your most common ones from the older days are either cesspools with laid stone or metal tanks, but we've also seen cars as a septic tank, so or one time we saw a refrigerator that was using ... being used as a septic tank. Sometimes we see a pipe from the house directly into a stream.

Brett Barry  17:20  
Oh, wow!

Mitchell Hull  17:21  
Yeah, we've just seen massive blowouts of a leach field with sewage spewing all over the place or ... or running right down in somebody's driveway into the street, and not maintaining it is a big factor. Some of these sites just have poor, poor soil conditions, and back in the day, when they installed all these, they did all in ground systems. Nowadays, when we design them, you have to look at how much usable soil you have, so you have to have four feet of usable soil, and if you don't have that, you have to bring in that material, so somewhere that had none but still get an in-ground system back in the day, where now they're they're bringing in four feet of material to take on the load of all that water coming in, so ...

Brett Barry  18:04  
When you say none, what is it, just rock?

Mitchell Hull  18:06  
It's usually clay.

Brett Barry  18:08  
... which is not ...

Mitchell Hull  18:09  
Not perkable, yeah, it's not perkable.

Brett Barry  18:11  
Perkable meaning pervious.

Mitchell Hull  18:13  
Yeah, pervious, yeah.

Brett Barry  18:14  
Okay, so there's a few different programs here. There's the CWC's Residential Rehabilitation Replacement Program for residential owners located anywhere in the West-of-Hudson New York City Watershed with a household tank and treating less than 1,000 gallons per day, and that includes reimbursement of 100% for full-time residents and 60% for part-time residents for designing, repairing, replacing a failed septic system that's at least 20 years old, and that's where the big expense comes if you have to replace it.

Mitchell Hull  18:48  
Yeah.

Brett Barry  18:48  
If you're the person who has the refrigerator, find out if you have the refrigerator for a septic tank; you probably want to get that replaced.

Mitchell Hull  18:54  
Yes.

Brett Barry  18:55  
How do people know what they have? I would imagine ... in a lot of cases, they don't.

Mitchell Hull  18:59  
Yeah, so the first step. Usually, when a homeowner calls, we tell them you have to contact somebody to locate, uncover, and pump out your septic, so we can determine what it is, so we can either deem it likely to fail or failing, so a homeowner will look up pumpers in their area and contact them first to come out and get everything exposed, so that we can do our inspection.

Brett Barry  19:28  
And then, if it needs to be replaced, a design is drawn up and ...

Mitchell Hull  19:32  
Yep, so we meet with the homeowners; we go over our program with them. We'll do a data collection sheet on the house, and then we will tell them, "Okay, now your next step is to hire an engineer." That engineer will come out and do soil testing per test to figure out where your new leach field is going to go, and then they'll go back, do up a design, submit that to the DEP to get their approval on it, and then once it's approved now, you got to hire a contractor to submit a bid to us.

Brett Barry  20:05  
So there's engineering costs, contracting costs, the actual apparatus ...

Mitchell Hull  20:11  
Yeah.

Brett Barry  20:11  
... the tank, all that's covered?

Mitchell Hull  20:13  
Yep, that's all covered. We have a schedule of values that we go by just to make sure everything is reasonable, but yeah, pretty much everything is covered as long as it fits within our rules in the schedule values.

Brett Barry  20:26  
Okay, so then let's say, "We have a septic system that's functional or new-ish, then we deal with septic maintenance," and septic maintenance is also a program that's covered 50%. Regular scheduled pump-outs are reimbursed at a rate of 50%.

Eric Lane  20:42  
Right, yes, we can reimburse for those every three years, and we suggest doing it every three to five years depending on usage. If it's a three-bedroom home, and there's six people living in it, you may want to do closer to three years, but if it's a three-bedroom home, and only one or two people living there, you can probably go closer to the five.

Brett Barry  21:00  
And I would imagine there are cases on both sides, so ...

Eric Lane  21:02  
Absolutely.

Brett Barry  21:03  
... there are some due to soil conditions or usage that every year they pump, and then others; maybe a decade goes by and ...

Eric Lane  21:10  
Right.

Brett Barry  21:10  
... everything's fine.

Eric Lane  21:11  
Right, and you can talk to your pumper when they come, and they can give you a pretty good idea that whether you're pushing it too much, and you need to have a pump sooner or whether you can go a little bit longer in that.

Brett Barry  21:22  
And then what about properties that don't qualify as residential? Do you have programs for small businesses and ...

Mitchell Hull  21:28  
Yeah, so we have a ... it's fairly new within, like probably the last five years. We have a small business programmed or expanded septic, which covers municipalities, not for profit, small businesses. The small businesses have to have 100 or less employees. Those are also funded at 100% of reasonable cost, so ...

Brett Barry  21:56  
For maintenance or replacement?

Mitchell Hull  21:57  
... for replacement of the septic, and then they are also eligible for maintenance pump-outs every three years ...

Brett Barry  22:04  
At 50 percent?

Mitchell Hull  22:05  
... at 50 percent.

Brett Barry  22:06  
What's the average cost or [a] ballpark to replace a system?

Mitchell Hull  22:10  
Ballpark is somewhere around I think this year, it's forty, so say forty-two to forty-five thousand that incorporates your pumping engineer and installation of a septic.

Brett Barry  22:26  
Is anyone replacing a system for a figure like that and not realizing that it can be reimbursed?

Mitchell Hull  22:31  
It took a while, but the word has spread pretty much throughout the watershed now that you know that we're helping fund the septics. Some people still get a sour taste in their mouth when they hear the city's name, and they don't want to participate, but 99% of people will participate in the program, and it's great—these contractors, engineers, pumpers—it's all been by word of mouth, and they just say, "Call the CWC and they'll help you out," so ...

Brett Barry  23:00  
You've got to really have a grudge not to take that $40,000 reimbursement.

Everyone  23:03  
Absolutely, I know.

Mitchell Hull  23:04  
I couldn't afford that.

Brett Barry  23:06  
And then ... same with the septic maintenance. What's the average cost for that? Was there a pump-out?

Eric Lane  23:13  
The average cost for a pump-out is usually between four and four fifty, but we also can reimburse for half the cost of locating, uncovering the pumping, and then if you don't have risers on the system, we can reimburse for that as well; half the cost. There's quite a bit. They can be covered to that program, and some of these costs are now for people who have never had their system pumped or located for it. It can be upwards of, like, $1,500, so it's ... it gets pricey.

Brett Barry  23:39  
Wow, once the truck comes and pumps out your tank, where does that go?

Eric Lane  23:45  
So that'll go to a water treatment plant somewhere; there's several city plants in the watershed that do take some of that, but they're all like a slot limit. You're only allowed so much per week per pumper, so every pumper kind of has their time to take it, and you know they only have so much that they're allowed to do, so if those slots aren't available, they have to take it outside of the watershed up near, like Albany's one area. I think Oneonta. Take some as well; I believe there's one that's out of Pennsylvania that actually comes and does some of the pumping. It's down near Grahamsville and Neversink, and they take it back to Pennsylvania with them.

Brett Barry  24:19  
And then, at those facilities, it's processed to a ... to a point where it can be released back into the environment?

Eric Lane  24:25  
Right, it's processed to like a cake usually, and then they take it to like a landfill somewhere ...

Brett Barry  24:30  
Wow!

Eric Lane  24:30  
... they're able to landfill that.

Brett Barry  24:33  
Not the nice kind of cake.

Everyone  24:35  
[LAUGHTER]

Brett Barry  24:39  
Are there other ways that homeowners should be maintaining their systems between pump-outs?

Eric Lane  24:44  
Absolutely, yeah. Typically, the pump-outs are every three to five years; on an annual basis, it's good to clean out your tank filter if you do have the effluent filter on the tank, and that can be as simple as digging up the lid, or if you have a riser, you can open the lid and just take out the filter and hose it down over the tank, so it all goes back into the tank, and that just keeps that filter from getting clogged, and that'll help prevent from backing up in the house.

Brett Barry  25:08  
And you don't recommend any kind of enzymes or treatments like that?

Eric Lane  25:11  
Absolutely not. Yeah, we ...

Brett Barry  25:14  
That used to be a thing, right?

Eric Lane  25:14  
Yes, and it's ... it's marketed ...

Audio  25:16  
[BLEEP]

Eric Lane  25:16  
... X in different companies, markets, and things like that—that, you know, supposedly help you to avoid a pump-out, but what they do is they cause the solids to break down in the tank, and they can actually migrate into a leach field and cause a failure—an expensive failure at that.

Brett Barry  25:32  
So you don't want to break them down; you want to keep them in the tank.

Eric Lane  25:34  
Right, you want to keep them in the tank and just have them pumped routinely.

Brett Barry  25:37  
Wow, so if I have a relatively new system, how long is that expected to last, and what ... what fails?

Mitchell Hull  25:45  
That's the million-dollar question: how long is it going to last? Like, some of the cesspools from 1850 are still working and no issues at all, and then ... some systems that we've replaced, that are five to ten years old are failing again, so I believe I saw a study one time that said, "The average septic should last about 25 years," but right now we're going back and replacing septics from 1900 up into 1980, so it's really hard to say how long it lasts. If you have better soil, it's going to last longer. If you maintain it, it's going to last longer, and then if you have poor soil that ... that isn't perkable and can't take on that water load, it's not gonna last as long.

Brett Barry  26:34  
What goes, not the tank?

Mitchell Hull  26:36  
It's typically ... it's the leach field that goes. The older systems, like a cesspool, could collapse, or a metal tank eventually deteriorates and breaks, and that will collapse as well, but the main thing that goes is the leach field, eventually the pores in the soil clog up, and it just stops taking on water. Then, you have to put in a new leach field in a different location, and it's hard inside the watershed. These are all existing properties, and it's not new construction, so we have to work to the extent possible with the septics, so a lot of times we're working on postage stamps—lots with terrible soil and trees, and access is poor, yeah, so it can be a challenge sometimes.

Brett Barry  27:18  
Anything else that I missed that you want to impart?

Mitchell Hull  27:20  
I would say, "We have a second-time repair program now," so after ten years, if a homeowner shows proof of maintenance on their septic, we'll go back and replace the system a second time for them or components of that system ...

Brett Barry  27:35  
If you maintain it.

Mitchell Hull  27:35  
... if you maintain it. Yeah, if you abuse it, sorry, you're on your own, and there's a lot of things that can be considered abuse, like if you put livestock on your field or if you put ... if you start driving over it with heavy machinery or your car putting a deck on there.

Eric Lane  27:55  
Or have a bonfire on the leach field that's also in that kind of system.

Mitchell Hull  27:58  
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of don'ts with a leach field.

Eric Lane  28:02  
Yeah, we've ... we've tried to. We started to compile a list that we're going to start providing the homeowners. We're gonna put it on our website, and stuff that is going to be a list of things to do and not to do with your new system when it goes in—just to help, just because we want to see people maintain these, you know, it's going to keep the water clean, and it helps us from having to go back and replace it in a few years if that is a problem.

Mitchell Hull  28:24  
Check for leaks in your toilets and faucets, and make sure that they're not leaking—because if the system is getting too much water, that will also cause a premature failure—and for homeowners that participate in the program, we offer a rebate to replace their toilets, and we offer water-saving kits for shower heads and faucets as well.

Brett Barry  28:45  
So saving water is ... is always a good thing, but it's also beneficial for the system because it's not having to process so much.

Mitchell Hull  28:52  
It is. The old toilets were five pounds, and the toilets nowadays are like 1.6 on average, so when you reduce the water, it helps extend the life as well.

Eric Lane  29:04  
Along those lines, don't have any sump pumps run into your leach or into your tank into the system because that can also cause it to be getting too much water, and if you have new gutters put on your house, don't have them discharged into your ... anywhere's near your field or your tank as well. Another thing that we see homeowners don't do is they don't tend to keep their engineered plans, and it's important to do because then you can refer back to that in the future, like, "Where are things?" You know, if they want to have it pumped out, they can have that drawing [on] exactly with the measurements of where the tank's located, or if they want to build a garage or a shed or something, they can make sure they avoid their system and don't end up damaging their system.

Mitchell Hull  29:45  
And we highly recommend putting risers on the septic tank, so that it's easy to maintain, and it's kind of a reminder. You know, if it's in the ground, people don't think about it, but if you have a riser there that you see, it makes you think, "Oh yeah, I should probably get this pump sooner."

Brett Barry  29:59  
I've taken detailed measurements, so that I can always find it, and I got to dig down like, you know, 32 feet, I guess.

Eric Lane  30:04  
Yeah, if you ... if you want to have the riser put on, we can reimburse for half that cost for the maintenance program, so.

Brett Barry  30:10  
Yeah, next time.

Mitchell Hull  30:10  
And then, that way, if you ever have an issue in the winter, it's accessible ...

Eric Lane  30:11  
Right.

Mitchell Hull  30:12  
... and you don't have to dig down two feet in the winter.

Brett Barry  30:17  
Yeah, good point. Great, so how can people find out more and ... and sign up for some of these programs?

Mitchell Hull  30:25  
Sure, if anybody has any questions, they can go to our website: cwc online.org, or they could call us at 845-586-1400, and the septic program is not the only program that we offer. We have an economic development program, stormwater, community wastewater, flood hazard mitigation, and public education and outreach, so they can call about any of those.

Brett Barry  30:58  
Thank you both. I appreciate it.

Everyone  30:59  
Yes, thank you.

Brett Barry  31:01  
Back on my property, I checked in with Orville toward the end of the process, and asked whether I could go another eight years till next time.

Orville Smith  31:09  
Eight years for this system, I would say, "It's pretty decent." I wouldn't really want to go much longer.

Audio  31:17  
[MACHINE SOUND]

Brett Barry  31:18  
He filled out my paperwork, which I can submit to the CWC for a 50% reimbursement, and once the tank was closed, I covered it back up with soil, confident that our system should run smoothly until at least 2032, and then back to that hand-drawn yard map and a call to our local pumper. "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast" is a production of Silver Hollow Audio. Production Intern: Juliana Merchant. Transcriptionist: Jerome Kazlauskas, with support from our local sponsors.

This episode is supported by Hanford Mills Museum. Explore the power of the past as knowledgeable staff guide you through the mill with demonstrations of the waterwheel, sawmill, and woodworking machines. For more information about scheduling a tour or about their 2024 exploration days, visit hanfordmills.org; and by Briars & Brambles Books. The go to independent book and gift store in the Catskills, located in Windham, New York, right next to the pharmacy, just steps away from the Windham Path. Open daily. For more information, visit briarsandbramblesbooks.com or call 518-750-8599.

Subscribe wherever you get podcasts, and follow us on Instagram @kaatscast. Lots more at kaatscast.com. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

Campbell Brown  32:43  
Kaatscast is supported by a generous grant from the Nicholas J. Juried Family Foundation and by listeners like you! If you'd like to make a donation, you can do so at kaatscast.com. Thank you!

Audio  32:53  
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