Published June 2007

The Dreaded ‘D’ Word

By Mary Shafer (page 94)

Tighter restrictions are forcing pumpers across the nation to face disposal dilemmas

Whether you’re pumping out residential and commercial septic systems, portable restrooms, restaurant grease traps or industrial waste pits, all pumpers have to deal with the issue of disposal. Between burgeoning development and tighter environmental regulation, land application is rapidly becoming a non-option for many contractors. This is especially an issue for more urban contractors, though they usually have the ability to use dumpsites at municipal treatment facilities.

The two pumpers interviewed here are no strangers to the disposal dilemma. Each has found a way to deal with the changing situation.

Name: Mike Beebe

Company: Beebe Septic Service

Location: Naples, Fla.

Employees: 2

Years in Business: 25

Mike Beebe has been in the septic pumping business since 1982, performing on-lot system and grease trap pumping, septic and drainfield inspection, and repairs. Over those 25 years he’s seen big changes in his hometown of Naples, Fla. The seat of Collier County, Naples lies hard along the southwestern coast of the state, on the Gulf of Mexico. At just three feet above sea level, the area has lots of swampy ground that won’t support building. That which does is heavily developed and is becoming more so as the city’s population surges toward 25,000. Just how developed is a fact Beebe knows all too well.

“The growth just took over the area we used to apply on,” he says. “We haven’t been able to land-apply for eight or ten years.”

That left Beebe with the Collier County municipal sewage treatment plant as his only option for disposal. Building development continued, and a direct hit from Hurricane Wilma in 2005 spurred more building and rebuilding. Things went well until last year, when the Collier County plant shut down its dumpsite. It is undergoing major expansion and retrofitting so it can keep up with the constant influx of new residents and businesses. “It’ll be three years until they go back online,” explains Beebe.

In the meantime, he’s left with the profit-killing necessity of driving five hours north to dispose of his waste at the Port Charlotte municipal treatment plant. That makes one full day a week of nothing but driving a waste load. “I figure that trip costs me $75-$100 an hour” in actual costs and lost productivity, Beebe says.

To top it off, the Port Charlotte facility won’t accept grease, so Beebe has been forced to stop his restaurant service until the local treatment plant reopens. He doesn’t offer an estimate of the lost revenue that he may never recover from this blow.

So, how has he coped?

“I stay current on new technology that’ll allow me to offer my septic customers more efficient and effective solutions to failing systems,” he explains. “That keeps me ahead of the curve with my competition.”

Service diversification has also saved his business. “We now concentrate on drainfield repairs to stay profitable.”

Territory ex-pansion has also helped Beebe hold onto his market share. He has a second location on Marco Island to the south, which allows him more territory to service with his temporarily limited offerings.

Name: Herman and Jeremy Clark

Company: Clark’s Excavating & Septic Pumping

Location: Georgetown, Minn.

Employees: 3

Years in Business: 28

Septic system pumping, repair and installation are the mainstays for owner Herman Clark and his son, Jeremy, foreman of Clark’s Excavating & Septic Pumping. Located just north of Moorhead, Minn., and a few miles east of the North Dakota state line, Georgetown is a fairly rural area. The Clarks service both sides of the state line, which is formed by the Red River Valley. They find that Minnesota’s regulations on disposal are stricter than North Dakota’s.

“The regulations have been tight for a long time,” says Jeremy Clark. Having to navigate both states’ regulations has spurred the Clarks to split disposal between land application and dumping at the municipal treatment facility in Moorhead. They own three farms, with a total of 30 acres of application fields, and they’d like to have more.

“But the price of land and availability are a challenge,” says Herman Clark. “If you have the access, land application keeps prices down for our customers, since we don’t have to pay dumping fees.”

“And if you have efficient equipment, like our Terra-Gator,” says Jeremy Clark, “it limits the time you spend on disposal. But because of the regulations, there’s a lot more paperwork, so you lose the time you gained” with land application.

So, it’s a tightrope walk between the two disposal methods for Clark’s to maintain efficiency and profitability.

“The real problem, where profitability is concerned,” says Herman Clark, “is a built-in inequity. We pumpers are held to all the government standards. But every time we get a certain amount of rain, the treatment facilities can’t handle it, and the municipalities just dump right in the river. That one incident is more than we could dump in a year. We need regulations, sure, but it needs to be more equitable. Everyone needs to be held to the same standard.”