Follow These Strategies to Adapt Treatment Solutions for Dispersive Soils

We have received questions about dispersive soils and the problems they present for onsite sewage treatment systems. Some of these soils are found in western Minnesota. They present problems in siting, design, installation and maintenance — so basically all aspects of a system. What are these soils, how can we identify them, and most important, what are some treatment solutions? A dispersive soil is structurally unstable. Its soil aggregates — peds — collapse when the soil gets wet because the individual clay particles disperse into solution. This collapse of structure causes the soil to slump, lose porosity and become denser. All