'A difficult situation' 



( Continued from page 1 ) 



acres of the state's shellfishing waters. 



Here and there on the coast, crisis points have 

 already begun to spring up. In the Surf City area, 

 according to Mike Bell, regional engineer for the 

 state Commission for Health Services, the uncon- 

 trolled installation of septic tanks and the location 

 of septic tanks too near the water's edge have 

 allowed wastewater to seep into the sound without 

 natural treatment. 



David Stick, vice chairman of the Coastal Re- 

 sources Commission, adds to the problem areas 

 "almost any place on the Outer Banks . . . Bogue 

 Banks." 



It sounds like one of those boring issues that 

 planners and government officials fight over. But 

 as Wallace Beckham, the state's shellfishermen, 

 and the residents of towns like Surf City and Long 

 Beach are discovering, septic tanks can be crucially 

 important. They can affect the quality of the water 

 we drink and the food we take from the sea, not to 

 mention our health. 



A septic tank is a relatively simple apparatus 

 that, once hooked up and buried in somebody's 

 backyard, is supposed to filter out gross wastes and 

 then release liquids to percolate through the soil 

 and eventually back into the ground water. The 

 idea is that during percolation, bacteria will absorb 

 the contaminants. 



To work properly, a septic tank's drainage field 

 must not be too porous or too dense, and it must 

 not be too near drinking water supplies. If the soil 

 is too porous, the liquid rushes through before the 

 pollutants can be absorbed. If the soil is too dense 

 — impervious — then the wastewater may either sit 

 near the surface and not be further absorbed, or 

 move laterally to pollute surface waters and other 

 backyards. If the wastewaters are discharged too 

 near a shallow water table, then the drinking water 

 can be contaminated. 



The soil and water table at the coast make septic 

 tanks a tricky business. The soil is frequently com- 

 pletely sand. The wastewater can just rush 

 through. Or, the soil is pervious fill material dump- 



ed on top of often impervious soil which will not 

 absorb the wastewater properly. Or, the water 

 table is very near the ground's surface and waste- 

 waters don't have far enough to percolate before 

 entering the ground water. In Avon, for example, 

 Beckham says wells need only be sunk seven feet. 

 And septic tank systems are required to be at least 

 two feet above the water table, he adds. 



With high land prices, lots on the coast are often 

 small and land is at a premium. According to A. C. 

 Turnage, coastal district engineer for the Environ- 

 mental Management Commission, "there's a lot of 

 development taking place on the coast that involves 

 filling in on marsh . . . these sites are not suitable 

 for septic tanks." 



Problems with the soil and water table are 

 aggravated by the increasingly dense development 

 on the coast. In fact, the Coastal Resources Com- 

 mission, which is overseeing implementation of the 

 Coastal Area Management Act, has heard testi- 

 mony that almost 90 percent of the soil in the 

 coastal region is unsuitable for conventional septic 

 tanks. 



"The problem is critical now" 



But, of course, much of that land has already 

 been developed. Turnage says "in many of these 

 beach areas, the problem is critical now." Though 

 Dare County hasn't reached the critical levels 

 Carteret County beaches and the Surf City area 

 have, Turnage says, "they (in Dare County) are 

 putting a tremendous amount of septic tank efflu- 

 ent into the ground in a rather restricted area." 

 The drinking water in Dare comes from a thin 

 layer of ground water, Turnage says, and the po- 

 tential for contamination of the water "is quite 

 considerable." 



Turnage says regulatory agencies have already 

 reached the point of having to turn down requests 

 for septic tank or other treatment permits due to 

 the near saturation in some areas. Until munici- 

 palities can begin to put in sewage systems, he 

 adds, "I see a real difficult situation to contend 

 with for the next three or four years" along the 

 coast. 



University of North Carolina 

 Sea Grant Program 

 1235 Burlington Laboratories 

 North Carolina State University 

 Raleigh, N.C. 27607 



Second-class postage paid at Raleigh, 

 N.C. 27611 



