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Situation:
Onsite (decentralized) wastewater treatment systems serve approximately 25 percent of the US population. In rural and urbanizing watersheds of our region, sewers and centralized treatments typically are not available and onsite systems treat domestic wastewater. But, onsite systems often pose risks to environmental and public health due to poor soils and complications with siting, design, installation and maintenance. When systems fail, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and human pathogens enter surface and ground waters, degrading private wells, community drinking water supplies, lakes, rivers, estuaries, shell and fin fishing grounds and coral reef systems.
Approach:
Major advances in innovative and alternative treatment technologies overcome many problems associated with onsite wastewater treatment. Proper selection, installation, use and maintenance of these technologies require new levels of sophistication among homeowners, surveyors, installers, designers and public health officials. Through funding from the New England Regional Water Program, Region 2 EPA and EPA headquarters, the New England Onsite Wastewater Training Program (NEOWTP), housed at URI, became the key regional center that provides training and expertise to these stakeholders. It works closely with a national network of Land/Sea Grant institutions in the Consortium of Institutes for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment (CIDWT) to generate and deliver a state of the science / engineering portfolio of training materials. The NEOWTP will train stakeholders and evaluate appropriate alternative and innovative onsite wastewater systems for conditions throughout the region. We will participate in state/territory based needs assessments fostered by local Extension colleagues. We will work at the regional level with other partners outside of the Land Grant Universities.
Stakeholders:
Soil and site evaluators, engineers, land surveyors, installers, operation and maintenance service providers, environmental health specialists, realtors, homeowners, state and community officials, Extension and government agencies.
News
Multi-state Hatch Project funded in September 2010 - Design, Assessment and Management of Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems: Addressing the Challenges of Climate Change. Eleven states are a part of this new project including the University of Rhode Island and Rutgers University.
Sampling of Programs in the Region:
In this presentation, there is a brief description highlighting accomplishments and tangible changes in
this focus area in 2007.
The New England Onsite Wastewater Training Center (NEOWTC) provides a variety of courses with classroom and hands-on education for professionals, regulators, municipal and state officials, watershed groups, real estate agents and homeowners throughout the region. The OWTC has a demonstration site complete with 22 full-scale above ground systems for hands-on learning about conventional, alternative and innovative septic systems. The Onsite Wastewater Training Program also conducts research on alternative septic systems
New York State Onsite Wastewater Treatment Training Network (OTN) is based at the State University of New York in Delhi, NY (SUNY/Delhi), and in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and SUNY/Delhi, provides on-site wastewater treatment training programs for a wide range of audiences, including engineers, pumpers/haulers, installers, code enforcement officers, and health officials. Cornell Cooperative Extension has been collaborating on training programs with the OTN, facilitated through the Regional Water Quality Project.
Onsite Wastewater Management Training conducted in the US Virgin Islands and in Puerto Rico addressed conventional and advanced treatment technologies, effective operations and maintenance, and management programs. The training incorporated a focus on local issues, conditions and regulatory requirements, based on knowledge gained through site visits and meetings with territorial and commonwealth agencies and other interested stakeholders. Approximately 135 individuals attended the two training sessions, representing: territorial/commonwealth agencies, municipalities, installation and O&M contractors, in-house maintenance personnel, professional engineers and agronomists, and other interested parties.
An early partnership between regions
Even before the merger of EPA Regions 1 and 2 in with the formation of the NESCI Regional Water Program in September of 2008, our regions collaborated on onsite wastewater management issues since Region 2 also had a focus on these issues. The NEOWTC became the key regional center that provides training and expertise to stakeholders. NEOWTP includes an onsite wastewater training center – one of eight regional centers in the nation. In conjunction with instructors from the Consortium of Institutions for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment (CIDWT), led by the Director of the NEOWTP, UVI and UPR offered workshops for homeowners, architects and engineers who are installing onsite wastewater treatment systems on the islands. With that relationship in place, a demonstration alternative onsite wastewater treatment system (OWTS) was constructed and used for training sessions; UPR, UVI and Rutgers are all working on developing OWTS management pilot projects; and approximately $5,000 in mini-grants were secured to develop OWTS tracking databases in New Jersey.
Cross-Cutting activities with other focus areas
Onsite Wastewater Management will be a cross-cutting focus area in the region – this focus area’s leaders will coordinate with the Island Initiative focus area to tailor programs to the stakeholders of the Caribbean Islands. In 2009, the NEOWTP with the CIDWT will complete educational materials and associated curricula to be used throughout the nation. With these programs in place, the use of alternative and innovative systems increased in high risk areas of the region. Stakeholder knowledge gained through these programs influenced regulatory policy decisions related to onsite wastewater.
