Earlier this year, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services released a group of short videos tailored to homeowners, haulers and municipalities, respectively, to give quick lessons on septage management questions.
The videos are upbeat and entertaining. The homeowners’ video is accessible to general audiences and offers an overview of how septic systems work and appropriate cautions on care and maintenance.
The hauler’s video is a short motivational piece that focuses on the basics of running a pumping business and a quick rundown of basic regulations, such as state-required record-keeping and cleaning up a septage spill. While many of the rules and guidelines it offers — things like dressing professionally, properly storing hoses and keeping septage off the homeowner’s lawn — may seem elementary, it is likely to appeal to pumpers as a basic orientation and training program for new employees.
The state DES has made copies of the programs on DVD and distributed them to septic haulers to share with their customers. The department also has posted the videos on the Web so visitors can watch them online. (The homeowner video is at http://des.nh.gov/organization/ divisions/water/wweb/homeowner_video.htm. The hauler video is at http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wweb/professional_ video.htm.)
Pumper spoke with Ray Gordon, septage coordinator for the DES Wastewater Engineering Bureau, about the project, focusing on the video directed to homeowners.
Pumper:
How did this video project get started, and why?
Gordon:
It got started through a Supplemental Environmental Project. When someone violates the law — in this case someone was illegally dumping septage where they shouldn’t — they negotiate an agreement, and instead of paying the full fine in monetary terms, the department often looks for ways to get the offender to pay back the environment.
In this case they came up with an agreement for the offender to pay some of the fine in money, but then to create these three videos — one for the homeowner, one for municipal officials, and one for the haulers. We wanted to educate everybody on different aspects of septage.
It’s not the topic a lot of people really want to talk about. But those of us in the business need to figure out how to get the message out. We thought these little videos — real short, to the point, professionally done — would help get our message to those groups.
Pumper:
How much response have you gotten from haulers, both to the video that is specifically directed at them, but also in distributing the video that is oriented for the homeowner?
Gordon:
We presented it to the New Hampshire Association of Septage Haulers. And they’ve linked from their Web site to us and made it known to all of their members about the videos. It was my idea that they could make copies of them and give them to customers. I’m not sure that anyone’s actually doing that yet. The biggest thing is that people have been either showing the video at a home show or they link to it from their Web sites. I’ve had a couple of responses back from people that showed it to homeowners. Another person inspecting systems shows it on their laptop at septic system inspections.
Pumper:
It’s quick and easy to view?
Gordon:
We thought we’d keep it as short as possible because the homeowners really don’t care — if you say it’s going to take a little bit of time, they’ll be willing to invest maybe 10 minutes, whereas a 20-minute or half-hour show, forget it. We’re also working on distributing the videos through other channels, too. I gave stacks to our septic inspectors and whenever a new septic system goes in, ask them to pass them out when they inspect those systems. We got it on local cable-access TV here in Concord and they said that they would try to get it to the other TV stations around the state.
Pumper:
Tell about the distribution when inspecting a new system.
Gordon:
I’m in the septage group here in the wastewater bureau. Our main goal is disposal of septage, and we were on that issue. But we’ve got another group that regulates the designers, the installers, and regulates every new installation of septic tanks. They’re going to link to us on our internal Web site. And we also gave a stack of DVD videos to them to leave with each new septic system that goes in. I’m working with the state Department of Education to make more copies.
Pumper:
Has anybody tried to figure out if through this video word is getting out to homeowners and they’re changing behavior in certain ways?
Gordon:
We’re not set up with any kind of measurement system after the fact. We brought it to the association of septage haulers, and we’re hoping that they would take it and run with it. The feedback has been a couple of members here and there that I mentioned. But we don’t have anything en masse saying that this was done or that was done. Now the association also has a link to our videos on its Web site as well. That’s probably the cheapest way to get them out.
Pumper:
Is this the wave of the future for communicating with homeowners or taxpayers or other audiences about certain important regulatory issues?
Gordon:
You look at the world today, where are we? The age of YouTube and Twitter and MySpace — the popularity of YouTube with short videos is just amazing. People may be turning to these new, alternative forms of media. It’s so cheap to make videos these days, any college kid can make videos.
This is just a great opportunity for haulers and others in the industry to try to educate people using the new media. And anyone can take it and duplicate the videos at very low cost. I’m trying to get that point across to the haulers. It’s a minor investment to help educate your customers. And maybe your customer will be more willing to call you back because you educated them and they understand and have an appreciation for their system.
Pumper:
Do you have a favorite element or aspect of the homeowner video?
Gordon:
I like the graphical representation. We try to get the word out many different ways. We’ve got fact sheets and brochures. But to actually see a graphical representation of the water backing up and into your home — it sticks in your mind more. You don’t want these systems to fail; you want the homeowners to take care of them before there’s a failure. There’s certainly a good environmental reason why we want (homeowners) to maintain their systems properly. And it saves them the headache of a system backing up and causing further problems or higher costs of replacement.
