A flooded property on Windmill Point in Lancaster County with a mound septic system, circled in red, in October 2021. (Photo courtesy of John Bateman via Wetlands Watch)
As more intense rainfall has allowed pollution to flow into the James River through Richmond’s overwhelmed city sewer system, the state has introduced draft proposals for septic systems used in more rural areas, to tackle another aspect of climate change that impacts pollution controls: rising sea and groundwater levels.
Last month, Virginia began its early discussion on draft regulations for septic systems, which are a typical method of treating waste in areas not privy to public infrastructure, as part of a 20-year regulatory review that kicked off in 2022 .
At the time of opening up the regulations for review, there were about 1.1 million septic systems in Virginia.
A majority of the systems are conventional, meaning wastewater from a residence is sent to a tank on the property before it is filtered through a distribution box that sends it throughout the property. The waste eventually breaks down as it is dispersed into the environment.
Alternative systems, which include creating mounds that add more dirt for waste to filter through and chemical treatments, also exist.
Currently, pollution protections include setbacks, which require conventional systems be at least 70 feet away from waters with shellfish. Ideally, the setbacks allow flooding to occur without overwhelming the system, so waste doesn’t back up onto properties or immediately feed into larger bodies of water where shellfish are living.
“This is not just a public health problem, it’s an economic problem,” Skip Stiles, former director of environmental nonprofit Wetlands Watch, said in a previous interview with the Mercury, referencing how the spreading of pollutants can harm aquaculture, or the raising of shellfish.
The new proposals call for the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, VIMS, to create a map of a “critical impact area” that is more susceptible to sea level rise and groundwater flooding.
Within those areas, among other setback requirements, conventional systems would have to be 100 feet away from shellfish waters, unless alternative measures can be incorporated to allow for treatment with more flexibility when siting systems on smaller properties.
During last month’s meeting, no member of the subgroup consisting of state, regional and local government employees and environmental groups objected to the proposals.
But, Stiles, speaking on behalf of Wetlands Watch, raised the question of how to identify critical impact areas with rising water tables, which delineates where groundwater begins to pool in deeper parts of the Earth.
In some areas, sea level rise and groundwater flooding cause that water table to rise, but the soil hasn’t formed into conditions to mark out water tables.
“We run into the same problem with wetlands delineation; it requires vegetation inundation of hydric soils ,” Stiles said. “But in some of the newly created wetlands, because of sea level rise, the hydric soils haven’t formed yet. We have some tidal wetlands that are not tidal wetlands, because they are waiting for the hydric soils to form.”
Lance Gregory, director of the Virginia Department of Health’s Division of Onsite Water and Wastewater Services, acknowledged “there’d be a lot of difficulties in making that determination,” but that he was “open to ideas…that could be done consistently.”
The group is expected to meet again Aug. 22 to continue working on the initial ideas.
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