Training The Tourists

Rob Davis advocates for better care of septic systems in Canada’s environmentally sensitive lake and wetlands areas.
Training The Tourists
Contact Rob Davis at 888/ 436-3996.

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For about two decades, Rob Davis has been talking about septic systems to “cottagers,” the Canadian term for people with seasonal vacation homes. But he is not just a roaming advocate for better use of septic systems. He has a personal stake in this talk because he has history in Haliburton County in Ontario, Canada.

Hundreds of lakes are scattered across this swath of land just outside the most heavily populated section of Ontario. Haliburton is about three hours from Toronto, perfect driving distance for getting away from the city without undertaking a major trip. As a boy, Davis went to a camp in Haliburton and paddled the area’s lakes and rivers. His family also had a cottage in the county. “Pretty much every weekend during the summer we were up at the lake. In winter we were skiing,” he says.

Septic system knowledge came early because his father was a civil engineer who designed wastewater treatment systems for mining companies and more than 50 municipal systems in Canada. Davis now lives in Sunderland, halfway between Toronto and Haliburton. There he heads EcoEthic Inc., which produces a bacterial septic tank additive and other environmentally friendly products.

Pumper: You worked as a shoreline advisor?

Davis: I took it on because I spend a lot of time in the county during the summer. This is a provincial government program, and each volunteer advisor is assigned to a lake to help the local property owners. We receive a lot of training from university staff in ecology, shoreline erosion and other subjects. People sign up for a visit, and I walk the property with them and provide advice such as adding as much vegetation as possible between a drainfield and a lake to get the maximum absorption of water from the septic system.

Pumper: Why did you start giving septic talks?

Davis: It started from my knowledge of what the general public knows – which is pretty much zero – and from what I saw in my business. We were called in to help a number of recreational vehicle parks that had problems with their systems.

In Haliburton County, there isn’t more than [about a third of a mile] between water sources in any direction. You’re going to hit a swamp, a wetland, a stream, a river, a lake. As you go north from there, there is even less soil on top of the underlying granite. The ability of the soil to hold nutrients is essentially zero, and any water coming out of a drainfield heads straight for the nearest lake. Lakes with larger populations have water-quality problems in general, and some lakes have the algae blooms that indicate major problems.

I began with the RV trade shows. That was about 17 or 18 years ago. There was also the big Cottage Life show in Toronto. It’s everything about cottages – boats, docks, arts and crafts, building products – and it draws thousands of people.

For about the last 10 or 12 years I’ve been talking to [property owners’ groups] at specific lakes. Haliburton County has more than 50 lakes, and each lake has between 100 and 700 property owners. Only about 10 percent of those are permanent residents. The county population is about 5,000 in the winter and about 100,000 during the summer. The problem is that people want to spend time at their cottages, not sitting in a meeting. If there are 600 owners on a lake, I’m lucky to see 100 or 250 at a meeting where I speak.

I’ve had more luck with associations that hold annual meetings in the city during the winter. People come to the meeting to see neighbors whom they haven’t seen since the summer, and the weather keeps them inside.

Pumper: What do you cover in your talk?

Davis: The core message is care and maintenance. I talk about how a basic system works; about how people can cause system failures by putting the wrong stuff down their drains; about concrete deterioration, the failure of baffles and how this can allow solids into the drainfield; and about the indicators of failure such as strips of green grass on top of the drainfield.

I talk about some of the myths of septic care, such as the one that says to put a piece of roadkill into your system each spring to rejuvenate it. Along the way I tell personal stories about some of the problems I’ve seen. Septic systems don’t come with an owner’s manual. That’s what I’m trying to provide.

Whether I’m speaking to cottagers or an industry group, the one common issue is the water quality of the lake. I say, this is what we’re trying to preserve and improve, and this is your role.

Pumper: What advice would you give to pumpers who want to do public education speaking?

Davis: Keep it simple, and remove the facts and figures because people won’t care. Regulators who speak to the public tend to give very technical presentations that are not meaningful to people without a science background. And all the detail conceals the core message.

Also, know your audience. If you’re talking to regulators, you need to be more technical. For real estate agents I talk about what they should look for when evaluating a property, such as sellers who say the tank hasn’t been pumped in 20 years or the strips of bright green grass over a drainfield.

Pumper: How often do you change your material?

Davis: I’m always tweaking. A few years ago Health Canada issued a warning about antibacterial soaps and the harm they can do, so I put that in for a while. If I know of a lake with recent blue-green algae problems I’ll put that in when talking to people who know the lake, but that will be pertinent for only a year or two.

I pick up myths about septic systems from talking to the public, such as the idea that septic tanks never need to be pumped.

Pumper: How much time do you allow for people to ask questions?

Davis: It’s about 20 minutes because event organizers typically schedule time in one-hour blocks. For a group of property owners, 20 minutes is about the right amount of time. But I always invite people to stay afterward if they want to talk more, and often they do. At trade shows I sometimes take a whole crowd of people to a corner of the room.

At groups where I’ve never spoken before, the organizers don’t always understand the importance of allowing enough time for questions. Once they see how curious and involved an audience is, they sometimes say the topic should have a whole day.

Pumper: What sort of audience do you face these days?

Davis: We are now moving into the next generation. People like my dad are retiring, and their cottages are being handed down to their children. People from the last couple of generations were very respectful and were careful about the quantity of water they used. They understood the connection between the health of their natural environment and sewage. Now you have a whole new group of people, raised in cities, who have this septic system they don’t know anything about.

And they have old septic systems, which may need replacing. In the meantime, the provincial government is talking a lot about preventing nutrient pollution, and people are looking at the expense. These properties, at the low end, may be worth $400,000, and many owners are shocked when they learn a new system will cost $50,000. Suddenly they think seriously about how to keep the current system functioning as long as possible. And I have talked to property owners who say, “You actually need to pump it out?”

I know I’ve done my job if, the week after I speak, local septic companies are swamped with calls from people worried about the health of their systems.

Pumper: How can speaking improve business?

Davis: There is a large disconnect between the majority of pumpers and the public. The more information pumpers give their customers, the better the systems work and the better the pumpers look. Just by passing on a bit of information, pumpers can improve a customer’s system and the perceived quality of service. A lot of the industry misses the boat on this. 



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