What to do with all the poop – county considers septage disposal

by Michael Howell

There seems to be no question that after decades of population growth and development, mostly in the rural areas of the valley, Ravalli County is facing a serious crunch over the issue of wastewater disposal. This county is not the only one facing the crunch. It is a problem all across Western Montana and it is actually the city of Missoula’s and Missoula County’s efforts to address the issue that has suddenly brought the problem home to roost for Ravalli County’s residents. 

While federal funding has heavily subsidized the development of wastewater treatment facilities in the cities and towns across the state, most of the population growth has moved into the rural areas where the waste is disposed of primarily through individual septic systems. The problem is that municipal wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to treat the “septage” generated by ordinary septic systems. Although they can handle it to some degree by modifying their systems, the fact is that Missoula’s wastewater treatment facility found itself being overwhelmed by septage being shipped in from other counties to the point that it has drastically reduced the amount it will accept from outside its own county boundaries, spelling the end of Ravalli County’s overflow valve.  

Darby is currently racing to upgrade its lagoon treatment system. Stevensville has worked consistently on upgrading its wastewater treatment system over the last several years. The City of Hamilton is currently planning a major upgrade to its system. But none of these involve installing the modifications to be able to accept septage from surrounding rural septic systems.

As a result, the Ravalli County Commissioners and the Ravalli County Board of Health have recently formed a Wastewater Treatment Working Group that has begun looking for strategies to address the issue. Besides the Commission and members of the Board of Health, the working group includes Julie Foster from the Ravalli County Economic Development Authority (RCEDA), County Environmental Health Director John Palacio, City of Hamilton Public Works Director Donny Ramer, some local septic pumping companies, and ordinary citizens. According to County Commissioner Jeff Burrows, the working group is open to anyone who has an interest and wants to participate. The only thing for certain, at this point, is that there is a problem, it’s a serious problem, and there is no simple solution to the problem.

The working group has begun accumulating data and information to get a handle on the extent of the problem, but the effort is in its nascent stages and the numbers involved are preliminary at best, but the initial figures are already alarming. 

About 10,500 people are estimated to live in the municipalities and districts where sewer services are provided, out of an estimated county population of over 45,000. Doing a little math, that means there are an estimated 14,000 septic tanks in the county that need to be regularly pumped. The amount of septage being produced annually is about 3 million gallons and about half of that, that is about 1.5 million gallons, has been going into the Missoula wastewater treatment plant.

One alternative solution the working group is considering is a county owned and operated septage dumping facility. According to Julie Foster at RCEDA, there are federal funds available for such a project and she is investigating the possibility of those and other potential grants.

But Commissioner Burrows, at a recent meeting, was quick to caution that building a facility with federal grants does not necessarily solve the whole problem. He said the city of Kalispell recently received a $22 million grant to build a septage dumping and treatment facility but was currently re-thinking the issue. One big issue not addressed by the grant was the estimated $2 million needed annually to operate the facility. Not only are there maintenance and operational costs, there are also the inevitable replacement costs. Add to this the cost of dealing with the solid residue produced by septage treatment, which involves a landfill and/or a composting operation, and you are looking at a lot more expense than just building a treatment facility.

“We might have to look at a levy to operate the facility,” said Burrows. He went on to say that even if a facility was built and operation and maintenance and solid waste disposal costs were all covered, the end result might not be economically feasible. He said some septic pumpers were already hauling their septage to the municipal wastewater treatment facility in Helena, which is still accepting it.

“Without any ability to regulate where they are taking their waste,” he said, “we might build a facility that has to charge $1 per gallon for dumping and they could go to Helena and get it done for 80 cents per gallon. We could have a facility sitting there and no one dumping in it.”

Burrows said that he is going to consult with the county commissioners in Kalispell on what they are looking at doing at this point. 

Another option worth exploring would be working with local municipalities to help install the pre-treatment infrastructure necessary to treat septage here. Hamilton’s current plan for upgrades does not currently include that option. But here again, a cost benefit analysis would have to be done and it may or may not be cost effective. 

Increasing the amount of land application of septage would be another possibility but the reality there is that the county continues to expand the number of homes in rural areas of the county, eating up available land while adding about 500 new septic systems annually.

Roger DeHaan, an engineer who designs septic systems, a member of the Board of Health and participant in the working group, said, “One of the most important things is that Ravalli County needs to know it’s got a problem and it won’t work to ignore it and hope it will go away.”