Septic: Tanks - Village Magazine

34September/October 2015

N , the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

established the National Inspection Plan for Domestic

Waste Water Treatment Systems. The National Inspec-

tion Plan (NIP) sought to encourage the correct

management of domestic wastewater treatment sys-

tems (DWWTSs) throughout Ireland by means of an annual

allocation of septic tank system inspections in areas acutely

vulnerable to contamination, and an extensive citizen-en-

gagement strategy. It was proposed by the EPA that the plan’s

instigation would help minimise the potential for environ-

mental and health impacts stemming from defective

DWWTSs.

The NIP has now been in place for over two years and

recently entered its second cycle (-). However, the

progress made by the plan thus far is believed by close

observers to be insuﬃcient. Only slightly over half of the

septic tank systems inspected under the plan in the ﬁrst year

achieved a pass grade and there is evidence to suggest that

any wider shift in attitudes and behavioural change among

DWWTS users has been marginal at best.

Although the onus is on the relevant public to adhere to

their responsibilities and demonstrate good practice, their

failure to do evidences several inherent ﬂaws of the NIP that

require urgent remediation – in particular, its citizen-en-

gagement strategy.

The ramiﬁcations of exposure to untreated domestic

wastewater are well documented – especially where eﬄuent

is allowed to enter drinking water supplies (e.g., private wells

and group water schemes) and public waterways. The result-

ing contamination of ground- and surface water can engender

outcomes such as pronounced environmental degradation,

widespread odour disturbance and proliferation of water-

borne diseases such as VTEC (a pathogenic strain of E. coli)

and cryptosporidium. The appropriate installation and main-

tenance of DWWTSs is thus vital.

Given the sheer number and volume of DWWTS in Ireland,

the risk of contamination is high.

There are currently over , DWWTSs (predomi-

nantly septic tanks) located across Ireland, the majority of

which are concentrated in rural Ireland due to its largely dis-

persed pattern of settlement.

Furthermore, over % of Irish households in rural areas

treat and dispose of wastewater on-site (accounting for over

Septic:

Tanks

EPA’s ineﬀective National

Inspection Plan gave

only half of the systems

inspected in the ﬁrst year

a pass grade.

By Simon Mooney

The failure

on the part of

EPA and local

authorities

to encourage

a signiﬁcant

shift in the

behaviour of

our 500,000-

odd septic-

tank owners

living in the

areas most

predisposed to

contamination

was a

disappointing

blow

“

POLITICS Septic Tanks

most septic tanks do

not work properly

September/October 2015 35

one third of the national population)

with a similarly high percentage also

availing an of onsite groundwater

source for drinking water. These ﬁgures

conﬁrm that rural households are

potentially a formidable source and

receptor of water contamination and

underscore the importance of the NIP

in potentially reducing this threat.

However, despite the NIP’s question-

able performance and the ensuing

repercussions, the plan’s implementa-

tion has received limited media

attention and criticism since its instiga-

tion. This can largely be attributed to

the pervasive perception of DWWTSs as

being a minor, rural-only issue. How-

ever, a mounting body of evidence

suggests that septic tanks are begin-

ning to constitute a principal cause of

water contamination in rural Ireland

and play a signiﬁcant role in the rising

number of VTEC cases documented

throughout the country.

In order to fully identify and aﬃrm

the NIP’s shortcomings, it is necessary

to recount the origins and development

of the plan.

The NIP was ﬁrst put forward by the

Irish government in  in response

to the ruling of the European Court of

Justice (ECJ) over Ireland’s longstanding

circumvention of its obligation, under

the  EU Waste Framework Direc-

tive, to properly regulate domestic

wastewater generated in unsewered

(primarily rural) areas. Ireland had

previously been rebuked by the ECJ for

the breach in  but the govern-

ment’s slow pace in initiating an

appropriate registration and inspection

system for DWWTSs resulted in a

second, harsher ruling to which the NIP

responded. The inception of the NIP

was evidently reactive rather than

proactive.

The purpose of the NIP was outlined

in the government’s  Water Serv-

ices (Amendment) Act, which satisﬁed

the ECJ’s criteria. The NIP’s core aspects

would be informed by the guidelines set

out in the act and the EPA would be

given the job of preparing and expand-

ing the plan. In most cases the

guidelines were ﬁrm and incisive, yet in

others they were markedly lenient,

neglecting to mention any binding pro-

vision for correct DWWTS design and

construction or consistent metrics for

the NIP. As a result, these facets were

given little attention in the ﬁnalized

plan.

The delivery of the bulk of the NIP

was assigned to local authorities, with

the EPA acting in a primarily supervi-

sory role. Local authorities would be

held responsible for initiating a register

of DWWTS, administering the annual

septic-tank inspections and overseeing

citizen engagement at the local level

while the EPA would direct and super-

vise local authorities, nominate and

train inspectors and help instigate citi-

zen engagement at the national level.

The government would meanwhile

play a smaller, albeit signiﬁcant, part by

providing funding for the plan, enforc-

ing policy and administering a grant

scheme for septic tank repairs for

homeowners chosen for local authority

inspections.

It was decided by the EPA that a mini-

mum target of , septic tank

inspections would be undertaken each

year. The EPA availed of the S-P-R

(Source-Pathway-Receptor) model and

GIS maps to establish the areas most

vulnerable to septic-tank-contamina-

tion and subsequently apportioned

inspections to each county accordingly.

As to the NIP’s engagement strategy,

following a period of consultation with

a number of representatives from envi-

ronmental, farming and rural

organisations, the EPA elected to centre

citizen engagement on a public infor-

mation campaign stressing the

importance of clean water. To this eﬀect

a variety of engagement mechanisms

would be used – ranging from informa-

tive television segments on a national

scale to radio advertisements and

school visits at a local level.

The NIP’s engagement strategy was

rolled out in early  with inspec-

tions beginning on  July. Given that the

inspections would be situated in high-

risk areas, the results of ﬁrst full year of

inspections would act as a useful

barometer to gauge the overall progress

of the NIP.

Unfortunately, out of the  inspec-

tions completed between  July 

and  June , only  (%) of

septic tanks passed. The failure on the

part of EPA and local authorities to

encourage a signiﬁcant shift in the

behaviour of septic-tank owners living

in the areas most predisposed to con-

tamination represented a disappointing

blow and posed worrying connotations

as to the broader, national level of

behavioural change attained.

The inspection results can be attrib-

uted to several questionable policies.

For instance: the grant scheme for

system repairs only catered for sep-

tic-tank owners who had registered

as a DWWTS user before 1 February

In 2011 there

was a sharp

surge in VTEC

cases in

Ireland, with

37% linked to

exposure to a

private well

“

one-off housing,

Gweedore (no

impropriety implied)

36September/October 2015

2013 and consequently would have greatly reduced the

inclination for septic-tank owners who had not registered

by that date to properly maintain or remediate their

septic tank on their own initiative. However, the NIP’s

citizen engagement strategy must ultimately shoulder the

bulk of the blame as it has patently failed to adequately

communicate the degree of risk and provide adequate

information regarding septic-tank maintenance.

When formulating a citizen engagement strategy and

appended public information campaign, it is imperative to

take account current public attitudes and knowledge gaps. By

discerning the proclivities of the target public a baseline can

be established, providing scope for how the requisite infor-

mation might or might not be best communicated. If this

information is subsequently transmitted to the audience in a

manner sympathetic towards or conscious of their stance, the

likelihood of compliance will be maximised. In the case of the

NIP’s ﬁrst cycle (-), there is scant indication that the

EPA gave any concerted thought to the existing knowledge

gaps and attitudes among ordinary DWWTS users – despite

having access to recently accumulated data on the subject.

Shortly before the start of the NIP’s engagement strategy,

the EPA became aware of an academic study involving the

circulation of survey questionnaires to DWWTS homeowners

to ascertain their views regarding all aspects of DWWTS. The

survey served as a useful insight into the current attitudes of

DWWTS users and pinpointed issues such as: a lack of con-

sistency concerning desludging, a lack of information

outlining system maintenance and a belief that recent

DWWTS legislation was motivated by EU compliance and

government revenue rather than protection of human

health and the environment. The study was published

online in  and funded by the EPA which commissioned

the authors to devise and disseminate a further set of similar

questionnaires midway through the ﬁrst year of the NIP’s

instigation.

The second set of questionnaires would serve to indicate

the degree of change accomplished by the NIP’s engagement

strategy so far. However, regrettably for the EPA, the ques-

tionnaire results registered only a marginal (%) increase in

support for DWWTS regulations and a similar increase in the

amount of respondents who claimed that they had received

DWWTS maintenance information.

The results also indicated a stasis in attitudes pertaining to

desludging which, tellingly, was the main reason for failure

among septic tank inspections according to the EPA. Further

scepticism of the NIP’s engagement strategy could be accrued

by reading the EPA’s reports on the progress of the plan,

which contain a palpable lack of detail and suggest the incon-

sistent use and application of engagement mechanisms by

local authorities.

To the EPA’s credit, the proposed measures for the second

cycle of the NIP (-) have placed a more considered

focus on citizen engagement.

The EPA has recently established a working group compris-

ing a number of representatives from relevant organisations

such as the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the National

Federation of Group Water Schemes (NFGWS) in attempts to

compose a better-organised, holistic citizen engagement. The

EPA has also introduced a metric that determines compliance

by tracking the collection of DWWTS sludge by waste

collectors.

These recent measures represent a step in the right direc-

tion and a concerted eﬀort to improve the NIP’s eﬃcacy.

However, these steps must by followed by discernible results.

With the Minister of the Department of Environment and

Local Government’s recent announcement that the NIP will

be reviewed at government level in early , it is clear that

the NIP will be thrust into the spotlight again sooner rather

than later. •

POLITICS Septic Tanks

The risk posed by domestic wastewater treatment

systems to human health in Ireland

The ramiﬁcations of exposure to untreated domestic wastewater are well doc-

umented – especially where eﬄuent is allowed to enter drinking water

supplies (e.g., private wells and group water schemes) and public waterways.

The resulting contamination of ground- and surface water can engender out-

comes such as pronounced environmental degradation, widespread odour

disturbance and proliferation of waterborne diseases such as VTEC (a patho-

genic strain of E. coli) and cryptosporidium. The appropriate maintenance

and regulation of domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTSs) is thus

vital.

In the case of Ireland, there is a mounting body of recently conducted

research that suggests that many DWWTSs across the country have been

incorrectly installed or maintained and pose a very real and widely experi-

enced threat to human health.

A 2005 study undertaken by Trinity College, Dublin of

74 randomly located septic-tank systems in Leinster

revealed that only 5% were situated in soil conditions

conducive to adequate wastewater treatment and indi-

cated the likelihood of similar ﬁgures elsewhere in

Ireland. The prevalence of such systems was conﬁrmed

ﬁve years later by the EPA, who discovered that approxi-

mately 25,000 DWWTSs in Ireland posed a risk to

groundwater while approximately 120,000 posed a risk

to surface water.

A study carried out by Trinity College researchers

between 2008 and 2010 analysing the quality of

groundwater in 262 private wells discerned that

DWWTSs posed the greatest contamination hazard for

private wells in rural Ireland. The study identiﬁed septic

tank location as a signiﬁcant factor towards the occurrence of VTEC in private

wells. The brisk exacerbation of this threat could be attributed to a combina-

tion of a longstanding lack of regulatory enforcement regarding private well

and septic-tank siting and a glut of poorly constructed one-oﬀ rural dwellings

built during the 2000s decade.

Tellingly, a year after the completion of the Trinity College study in 2011,

the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) reported a sharp surge in

VTEC cases in Ireland, with 37% linked to exposure to a private well. The

overall national VTEC incidence rate recorded the same year was almost eight

times higher than the EU average and the number of annual cases has since

continued to rise.

It is likely that the increased promulgation of such evidence outlining the

causal link between the growing frequency of episodes of water contamina-

tion and disease and defective DWWTS in Ireland, would result in a more

rigorous scrutiny and media coverage of DWWTS maintenance and regulation

throughout Ireland. Nevertheless, much of this data remains largely

unpublicised.

A 2005 study

revealed that

only 5% of

septic tanks

were situated

in soil

conditions

conducive

to adequate

wastewater

treatment