The success of its video contest on the importance of onsite system maintenance has the New Hampshire Estuaries Project in Durham, N.H., looking for financing to do it again, possibly on a nationwide level.
After airing the resulting 30-minute Academy Awards takeoff on community access television in 2006, NHEP posted it on the popular video site, YouTube.com. On the World Wide Web, the “Septic Scenes Awards Show” continues to attract inquiries. The agency also created public service announcements based on the videos and plans to package them in a short DVD for local stations.
Five submissions, judged by the NHEP Public Outreach and Education advisory group, competed for three cash prizes and one honorable mention. The University of New Hampshire Video Production Depart-ment assembled the show. Readers can obtain a copy by contacting project coordinator Dave Kellam.
Pumper:
How did you develop this educational campaign?
Kellam:
Water monitoring indicates that our estuaries receive excessive nitrogen, but wastewater treatment plants contribute only about 30 percent. The remainder comes from nonpoint source pollution. One source is assumed to be failing onsite systems, and our management plan directs us to reduce the number of failing systems.
Consequently, our outreach advisory group recommended that we produce a video explaining onsite maintenance and air it on local community access television. I wasn’t excited about turning out a stale instructional video, and the cost of producing a standard video was beyond our budget.
I watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and thought that if we offered prizes, we could tap the creative energy in our area, turning the videos people submitted into a show for a fraction of what a commercial production costs. We promoted the Septic Scenes Video Contest through the University of New Hampshire Video Production Department, community access stations, and local artistic groups, inviting residents in the state’s coastal watershed to submit five-minute videos that approached the subject in a unique way.
Entries had to include the state Department of Environmental Services recommendations for onsite system maintenance: inspection once a year, pumping every three to five years, and no dumping of harmful products. Information on how onsite systems work and what effect their failure has on the environment were mandatory.
Pumper:
Who won first place?
Kellam:
Videographer John Shore and partner Dina Sutin won first place with “Your Septic System, Your Friend.” It includes an original song, “Don’t flush your responsibility to the environment,” an animated scuba diver touring a septic tank, and a parody based on the 60 Minutes ambush interview exposing an onsite system abuser. Their company, Nut Allergy Productions, won $1,000 and the Golden Plunger Award.
Pumper:
Who won second and third place?
Kellam:
Tim Gaudreau won second and $500 for his animated “Fish Gone Bad” video that followed the strange evolution of a fish living in a pond contaminated by a malfunctioning onsite system. He is an environmental artist who experimented with video as a medium. Terry Picard won third place and $250 with “Your Septic System,” which compares its operation to the human digestive tract.
Pumper:
Who funded the prizes?
Kellam:
We’re part of the U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency National Estuaries Programs, and funding came from it. We’re very sensitive about spending taxpayers’ money efficiently, and that’s one reason why this contest approach was so appealing. A professionally produced 30-minute video costs $30,000. Our expense, including promotion, production, and prizes, was $4,500.
Not only was it cheaper, but talking about the quirky concept of a variety show on onsite systems achieved a greater awareness of the subject than the video. Every time I did a radio or television interview, I reiterated the state’s onsite maintenance recommendations, which was our ultimate goal.
Pumper:
How did you produce your first Septic Scenes Awards Show?
Kellam:
Production kudos must go to the UNH video department. The editors there fell in love with the wacky project and donated much of their time. They even designed the video in various formats, enabling us to extract segments and run them separately.
The show opens like the Academy Awards. The hosts are Jay Baas, an onsite inspector with New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, and Amanda Stone, a UNH cooperative extension agent. The video department shot the studio scenes and created the Golden Plunger Award to simulate an Oscar. They also turned an EPA publication into several public service announcements and inserted them into the show. We plan to package a short DVD of them for local stations.
Pumper:
Have you had any nibbles from PBS or cable stations to pick up the show?
Kellam:
No, but after posting the video on YouTube, inquiries arrive all the time from outreach people and government agencies in other states trying to encourage homeowners to maintain their onsite systems.
One spinoff was a mitigation project where a pumper in our state was convicted of illegal dumping. Part of his fine was to produce a video for residents in his community. He worked with UNH, and some of our segments made it onto that tape.
Pumper:
What was the public’s response to the Septic Scenes Awards Show?
Kellam:
We didn’t have the funds to evaluate how many people watched or responded by having their systems inspected or pumped. This was a general awareness campaign built on the belief that if you disseminate the information in a memorable way, it should help improve the situation.
Pumper:
What lessons did you learn from the venture?
Kellam:
First, our effort would have benefited greatly had we coordinated it with the onsite community. For the most part, homeowners don’t understand how their onsite systems work. NHEP wants to get the information out there. Pumpers interact daily with customers and want to promote service contracts. I see our pilot project evolving into a closer relationship with the onsite community through promotion and reporting results. I also want pumpers involved in shooting videos. They must see wonderful examples of onsite system abuse.
Second, the contest was a little ahead of technology. Many more people have video software now and more areas have community access stations. Today, we can burn DVDs at minimal cost and pumpers could distribute them to their customers. DVDs are cheap when compared with the hundreds or thousands of dollars it costs to produce a brochure.
Lastly, the video should be structured to be timeless. We can extract elements, repackage them, and send the product to different media, thereby increasing the video’s education mileage.
We want to offer another contest in the future and, with enough funding, we could take it nationwide. The pilot was fun and achieved many goals. For the little money spent, we enjoyed a robust media splash.
Pumper:
How can pumpers and associations obtain a copy of the video for their community access networks and customers?
Kellam:
Contact me and I’ll hook them up with a copy. Snippets of the show are at www. nhep.unh.edu/resources/septic_video.htm. It also is a clip resource for folks putting maintenance programs together or wanting 30-second public service announcements. Much of the basic information on onsite system maintenance is the same throughout the country.
Dave Kellam may be reached at 603/862-3403 or dave.kellam@unh.edu.
