Everyone who has a septic system knows that every so often they need to be cleaned, but how many people actually get a lesson on the process of a septic tank pump out and inspection?  Well, on August 14th the members of the Murderkill Tributary Action team got just that opportunity.  Killens Pond State Park allowed the Murderkill Team to take over their septic system for a brief tutorial on the hows and whys of septic cleaning and inspection.  The owners of Service Energy donated their time and equipment to help educate the Team, while the Kent County Wastewater Treatment Plant allowed the sewage to be dumped at no cost.

The members soon found out that a lot more work goes into pumping than meets the eye.  The employees of the Groundwater Discharges Section of DNREC spent a total of 8 working hours in locating the permit for when the septic was built in 1982.  This permit is essential to the inspection of a septic tank because it gives the location of the tank and the drain field. Eventually, all necessary parts were located and the inspection proceeded without a hitch.

The first step in the inspection was to make sure that the water was coming from the house through the inlet pipe with velocity into the septic tank.  Fortunately, this was the case at Killens.   Then they checked the water level around the outlet pipe in the second compartment of the septic tank, noticing that water was above the outlet pipe and not below it where it should have been.  Paul Hufschmidt of Service Energy said that in the last 6 months they have been finding many of these types of problems due to the high groundwater.  This is happening because of the excessive rainfall is elevating the groundwater into the drain-field.  The employees at Killens Pond mentioned that lately the toilets and sinks had been running slowly.  The inspectors also speculated that a contributing factor may have been a tree root that had grown into the distribution box, clogging the outlets to the drain field.

Next the drain field was inspected by using a soil auger to bore down into the drain field.  There were several reasons for doing so.   One was to see if the field was receiving effluent from the septic tank.  Another was to determine if the field was draining properly.  A drain field that is not operating correctly will have a strong, pungent sour smell and the gravel in the field will be very black.  In this drain field the gravel looked as though it has never received any effluent or that it was working very efficiently.  Since it appeared effluent was flowing from the distribution box back into the septic tank, most likely the drain field was not receiving much effluent.  The auger boring through the drain field also gave them an idea whether groundwater has risen into the drain field or not.

After the inspection was complete, Service Energy then proceeded with the actual pumping of the 1,000 gallon septic tank.  During the pumping Service Energy evaluated sludge built within the tank.  They determined it was not too thick for the park's office, so they did not have to do anything with it.

One of the benefits of watching a septic inspection and cleaning thinking of something that doesn't usually occur to you...what really needs to go down the sink or toilet?  Could that be thrown out or disposed in other ways?  We need to think of these things because what goes into your septic tank, if not cleaned on a regular basis, will eventually go into your ground water.   This can cause high levels of nitrogen and other chemicals in the surrounding ground water.  By pumping your system once every three years you not only maintain your system, but you also remove some nutrients before there is leaching into the surrounding water table.  Routine pumping of your septic tank removes as much as 2.7 lbs of Nitrogen and 1.1 lb of Phosphorus a year.

Although septic systems do have their limitations when it comes to nutrient loading in the aquifer, they are beneficial in other ways.  While sewer systems remove more of the nutrients from the water table they also remove water from the watershed.   Septic systems actually help recharge the aquifer.  So, as long as your system is maintained according to regulations, it has beneficial qualities for your watershed.