Rural Community Assistance Partnership

Practical solutions for improving rural communities

Septic System Basics for Homeowners, Community Leaders, Planners and Realtors

Posted Mon, 2013/06/17 - 4:11pm by RCAP

This resource is a collection of files that will equip a community leader or outside trainer to present a live, classroom-style training on septic system basics for homeowners, community leaders, planners and realtors. It is not necessarily designed for any member of these groups to read as an individual, although that can be done.

GUIDANCE FOR TRAINERS

Learning objectives

After this training, participants should understand:

Why wastewater treatment and septic systems are important
How a septic system works and what each component does
How to take care of a septic system and keep it at proper operating levels
Proper location of a septic system on property and the importance of soil
Variations on septic systems that can be used in challenging locations

Delivery of training

This training module provides all of the necessary files to carry out training on the basics of septic systems.

The main file in this module is a PowerPoint file (PowerPoint 97-2003). This PowerPoint file:

is 36.5 MB
is provided in editable form so the trainer can edit and adapt it to fit particular situations
provides notes with the slides. These notes are not necessarily a script for the trainer to read word-for-word but can provide some prompts to the trainer in order to elaborate on the information in the slides projected to the trainees. The trainer should review the entire file (both the notes and the content of the slides to be projected) before delivering the presentation and print out the notes pages as a guide for delivering the presentation (since speaker notes are not shown when projecting the slide during the training).

There are various points during the delivery of the PowerPoint presentation to stop and hold discussions or carry out exercises, either in small groups or by soliciting input from participants as a whole class. These points and instructions for the discussions are indicated in the PowerPoint slides, and detailed instructions for carrying out the exercises follows below.

Carrying out the exercises

Exercise 1: What are homeowners’ concerns?

5 to 10 minutes

In this exercise, the trainer will read each scenario/question and capture responses from participants on a flipchart as they are called out. The trainer will then project a PowerPoint slide(s) with a summary of concerns that the trainer previously identified. The trainer, with help from participants, matches the comments on the flipchart with the general categories on the slide(s), making note of any that the presentation may not have addressed for later inclusion.

Purpose: Identify questions and concerns that homeowners have. Set the stage for discussion of these concerns.

Exercise 1

Questions and Scenarios

Imagine you are a homeowner in each of the following scenarios. What are your concerns? What do you care about most? What do you think you would want to know or need to know about your septic system? (Read through scenarios one at a time, capturing responses from participants on a flipchart.)

You are building a new home with a septic system and a well. The lot is not very large, and you also want to build a big deck and put in a pool. What do you care about?

[You can “seed” the exercise with your own responses if participants are not getting into it. For example:

Where should the system be placed? Is it going to interfere with where I want to put the house, pool, deck, well?
Is it far enough away from my well?
How much will it cost?]

You live in a home with a septic system, but the water in the home is backing up sometimes. What are your concerns? [Possible responses:
1. What is wrong?
2. Whose fault is it?
3. Who’s going to fix it?
4. How much will it cost?]
You are moving from the city where you have lived all your life and where you were on a sewer system to a country home with a septic system. You got a flier from your realtor about how to take care of your septic system. What are your concerns? [Possible responses:
1. What’s a septic system?
2. Why can’t I put whatever I want down the drain like I did in the city?
3. What do you mean I have to maintain it?
4. Do I get a sewer bill?
5. How much will it cost?]

Example of previously identified homeowner concerns (see slide 11 in the PowerPoint file):

Want system to work properly
Want neighbors’ systems to work properly
Want to keep costs low - affordable for installation, annual operation, and repair
Want system to coincide with property plans
Want to be able to put our house where we want to
Want to be able to have a swimming pool and a shed, etc.
Want system to be nonintrusive, aesthetics
Want to protect drinking water
Want to protect the environment
Others

Exercise 2 (group activity): Septic System Impacts

15 minutes

This exercise gets participants thinking about the concerns of different groups relative to the impacts from septic systems.

Break participants into groups (3 to 5 people each), and assign each group a stakeholder position, i.e., one group is property owners, another is realtors…local leaders, contractors, regulators (health department, DEC), aquatic life, community as a whole, service provider, engineers/design professionals, etc.

Give the groups a few minutes to discuss and identify the concerns of the stakeholder group assigned to them. Collect and list responses on a flipchart. Give groups no more than 15 minutes to compile and share impacts/concerns.

Also, if there is enough time, the trainer can invite participants to share one or two septic-system “horror stories.”

Some examples of concerns:

Property owners: cost, inconvenience, health, property plans
Local leaders: angry residents/community disruption; money; property values; recreational value
Contractors: loss of money and reputation, liability, stress
Regulators: health concerns, neighbor complaints, enforce upgrades, ability to fine, could contaminate entire community’s water supply
Aquatic life: low oxygen, nutrients (N&P) pollution
Community: odor (aesthetics), recreational value, impacts on businesses, financial implications of a municipal solution
Service providers: more work, regulatory interaction, competition, alternate technologies, education
Engineers: small commercial, keep up with changes in regulations and innovations in design, time constraints (regulatory fines), upgrades can be a challenge for a number of reasons, need waivers for upgrades

Pre- and post-tests

There is an accompanying file (download it at a link below) for the pre- and post-test. The file has the answers included. The trainer should photocopy the appropriate parts of each file before the training; do not distribute the answers or the answer page to participants.

Handouts (in addition to pre- and post-tests)

Contact information of the trainer
Printout of the PowerPoint presentation (namely the slides only, printed 9 slides per page, for example)

Original content and modules created by RCAP Solutions, the Northeast RCAP (www.rcapsolutions.org; 800/488-1969) on behalf of the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, Inc. © RCAP, Inc. 2013