MAY 1 9 1976 



Doc. 



NORTH CAROLINA STATE LIBRARY 



APRIL, 1976 



1235 Burlington Laboratories 

 NCSU, Raleigh, N.C. 27607 Tel: (919) 737-2454 



ptic tanks: 



The consequences of growth 



Wallace Beckham gets downright upset when he 

 starts talking about the water system he wants for 

 his community. One of the reasons Beckham gets 

 so exercised, he says, is that in places crowding 

 development in Avon is outpacing the ground's 

 ability to process wastewater from septic tanks be- 

 fore returning it to the water table and people's 

 wells. Some wells, Beckham says, have been tested 

 and found contaminated in his Outer Banks com- 

 munity. 



"The more septic tanks get in, the more pollution 

 we're going to get. . . They're waiting for us to have 

 an epidemic out here," Beckham says. And he isn't 

 the only person in coastal North Carolina who's 

 worried about septic tanks. 



Mrs. Rosetta Short, head of the Long Beach 

 planning commission, says the rapid development 

 of her town has created a "serious problem and 

 possible pollution of drinking water and the 

 estuary." Townspeople, she says, "don't realize it. 

 They see all these lots that are undeveloped . . . but 

 we've got to see five to ten years" into the future. 



To begin to deal with the potential crowding of 

 septic tanks and their drainage fields, Mrs. Short 

 is recommending increasing the square footage 

 required on each lot, because, she says, "the carry- 

 ing capacity of the land cannot tolerate 7,500 

 square feet." (Square footage requirements vary 

 from county to county.) 



Some of the larger communities in coastal North 

 Carolina have waste treatment plants, but smaller 

 communities, isolated homes and most of the 

 houses along the coast use septic tanks for disposal 

 and wells for water. Septic tank overflow and in- 

 adequately treated sewage have been blamed for 

 much of the pollution contaminating over 600,000 



(See "A difficult," page 4) 



