How difficult is it for you to obtain customers’ septic system records when you’re called out for a real estate inspection or pumping job? Luckily, the process for requesting and receiving mandated service records and as-built drawings locating all system components is getting easier for many pumpers. And for proactive health departments, digitizing records from way back is really making your detective efforts go smoothly.

Consider sprawling Summit County, Ohio, which stretches from the Cleveland suburbs to the north and south beyond Akron, and the work its health department has done to improve recordkeeping. The county would be huge by most standards, with a population of about 540,000 and area of about 420,000 square miles, much of it served by septic systems for wastewater disposal.

To encourage maintenance of existing systems — many likely operating beyond their typical replacement date — Summit County recently activated an online portal to give homeowners and buyers, real estate agents and service providers like pumping companies easier access to records. The move fits Ohio’s objectives to protect groundwater and public health as the state updated its wastewater regulations over the past decade or so.

The new reporting systems should save pumping contractors time and headaches. All they have to do is go to the county’s web portal, input a parcel number or address and everything pops up, according to officials who spoke to Ideastream Public Media in Cleveland.

“All of the requests are public record. So prior to that if people wanted access to those records, they’d have to submit a request, call in, send a letter,” Ali Rogalski, the county’s water quality manager, told the news outlet. “At certain times of the year we could receive hundreds of requests in a week and it was a lot of time for staff to look all those up, send them to people and then there’s a delay too.”

60 YEARS OF RECORDS

Developing the portal was a tall task. For the past seven years, county workers scanned all paper and microfilm files for water and wastewater systems built between 1959 and 1999 (more than 100,000 files) before digital records were kept.

“We’re glad that it’s done and we’re glad that the public is using it,” Rogalski said. “We have a lot of data already that shows that most people are getting in there and having successful searches, and it significantly reduced our requested records that goes through staff, so we feel like it’s a success.”

Certainly this north-central Ohio county isn’t the first to digitize its septic system records; this is just a recent example of how organizing this old and new property data will significantly benefit homeowners, contractors who serve them and the environment. And now that it’s easier to access, I can envision a few other valuable ways pumpers can use the information to better serve customers and broaden the customer base.

For instance, what if you are having a difficult time finding the source of surfacing wastewater in your customer’s backyard — perhaps groundwater contamination is threatening a well water source? The portal will make it easy to search addresses of all of your customers’ adjacent property owners to determine where there may be one or more failing drainfields or septic tanks that have been neglected. 

Or the portal could help you target market your pumping and maintenance service. For example, let’s say you have a service call to a distant subdivision in a few weeks and you’d like to line up more jobs in the area to justify the fuel cost and technician travel expense. You can easily search for other homeowners in the neighborhood who have aging systems or tanks that haven’t been pumping in several years. Send out cards or call a dozen nearby homeowners to maximize your profits.

It’s a slow process, but hopefully one day all septic system records will be online and easily searchable. If your county is behind the times, clip this article and give it to your health department to show that with some effort, it can be done.

In other news and notes:

Now we have to worry about PFAS in toilet paper?

Scientists have been sounding an alarm over per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or forever chemicals — which have been found in many places and products. This phenomenon has affected pumpers who land-apply septage. The toxic, synthetic PFAS chemicals have been identified in sewage in Vermont and perhaps other places, prompting a call to stop land-spreading for disposal.

So it is ironic that a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters has now identified the presence of PFAS in 21 brands of toilet paper manufactured in North America, western Europe and elsewhere around the world. The study conducted by University of Florida researchers, did not share the brand names of the bathroom tissue containing these chemicals.

According to a recent story in The Guardian, PFAS has also been found in rainwater and tap water. Jake Thompson, the lead author of the study, told the newspaper:

“I’m not rushing to change my toilet paper and I’m not saying that people should stop using or reduce the amount of toilet paper they use. The issue is that we’re identifying another source of PFAS, and it highlights that the chemicals are ubiquitous.”

The study explains toilet paper may be a major source of PFAS in wastewater treatment systems. So if the chemicals are found in rain and toilet paper, maybe land-spreading septage isn’t the problem in the first place.

When done with the goal of preserving a clean environment, land application of septic waste has played an important role in wastewater disposal. Though the greater percentage of septage goes to municipal treatment plants, land application has effectively taken pressure off of treatment plants, many at or near their capacity to handle waste.

At a time when more pumpers are being turned away at municipal plants or face frequent price hikes for dumping, maybe the toilet paper manufacturers should be forced to remove PFAS from their products before pumpers are asked to stop land-spreading septage.

Remove the “flushable” label from wipes packages

Massachusetts lawmakers recently introduced legislation to stop what they’re calling misleading labeling on so-called “flushable wipes” packaging. This is good news for pumpers who continue to encounter huge wads of the dreaded premoistened wipes when they crack open septic tanks. I’m sure it’s frustrating for your technicians — who wrestle with and have to bag and dispose of wipes every week — thinking nobody is doing anything to stop this false advertising.

A recent story in The Gardner News said State Rep. Sean Garballey, D-Arlington, introduced a bill that requires labels stating the popular wipes should not be flushed down the toilet and calls for a public education campaign to change user habits.

A public health official reported that hundreds of hours of labor are expended to remove wipes from the local municipal sewer system. He explained that replacing a grinder pump damaged by wipes costs $80,000, pump repairs start at $5,000 and sewer line repairs can cost $7,000. And local Massachusetts pumper Ronald Spraske of American Sewerage and Septic weighed in.

“About 90% of the clogs I deal with are caused by an overabundance of wipes around the incoming pipes,” he said. “The scum layer gets so thick; it has no time to work on the solids and pushes undigested solids into the leech field causing the field to die.”

I’m sure you can all relate to Spraske’s experience.

A reader says bidet use can extend pumping intervals

Jim Schoonhoven, of Schoonhoven’s Septic Pumping, Aylesford, Nova Scotia, Canada, responded to an item in my March column about the impact of bidet usage on a septic system. With the rising popularity of these devices that replace toilet paper with cleaning jets of water, a recent article stated bidets can reduce toilet paper usage by 80%. In his note to me, Schoonhoven reports even better results:

In response to your bidet article, I have been using a toilet seat bidet for eight years. It has reduced my paper usage 100%, not 80%. It uses 1 litre of water per wash, and has a blow dryer. The water will not run unless you are sitting on the seat. It has an inline heater so power is only used to heat the water when you are washing. I tell my customers they can increase pumping interval to 10 years.

The customers that have bought a bidet tell me they love it and wished they had it earlier, and when I pump their tank I find no scum layer on top, and these are people who in the past have had a thick mat of paper on the top part of the tank. You have to keep in mind how much water is used in the production of toilet paper. Also you are much cleaner when you use a bidet, toilet paper just smears it around.

If you or your customers have had experience with bidets, you can share your opinions at editor@pumper.com. Thanks for your insights, Jim.