Real Estate Agents raise stink over proposed cesspool ban

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by hunterseat

Are septic tanks effective in the rock ground there? I'm sure there are plenty. Seems like "city sewer" would be... wait.. is that what the cesspools are for?

Yeah, cesspools are just holes full of sewage, and the water contents leaks away via cracks in the rock. No treatment, just raw sewage escaping into the ground. And that's why the mandatory EPA checks keep turning up e coli and worse in the groundwater, and in the runoff at the beaches.

Septic tanks, on the other hand, actually process the sewage, using aerobic (air loving) bacteria to digest the sewage and render it safe, and leach fields to let the effluent absorb into the ground.

Because so much of Hawai'i is or has recently been rural and agricultural, a lot of the state is not served by sewage sytems or sewers, so cesspools have been the cheap and easy solution, long popular on ag land, while septic systems are more civilized... bringing us up to technology from the late 1860s...

[hunterseat]

I got to know my septic tank personally when an awesome company came to pump it out. (Mississippi) pretty much Septic Tank 101.

In CA we had a leach line/field that was cool too, since it provided irrigation of sorts.

I understand now why cesspool is such a derogatory term.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by hunterseat

In CA we had a leach line/field that was cool too, since it provided irrigation of sorts.

The late, great suburban humorist Erma Bombeck had a best selling book called "The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank."

[Mark.ca]

The agents are woried that this will reduce their business and i think it will a bit. As a buyer you will look to buy a house that is already upgraded so you don't have to deal with the work and permits. This will reduce the list of showings for the agents and probably sales. However, they need to make this change and clean up. Start with impossing this in the initial building process and work your way up to sales.

[terracore]

Getting rid of the cesspools won't solve the problem.

Unless of course you can train the cattle, goats, pigs dogs, cats, and other introduced animals (that far outnumber humans) to use a toilet hooked to a septic system.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by terracore

Getting rid of the cesspools won't solve the problem.

EPA says it will, which is why there is a push on to stop approving new ones, as the next step in cleaning up our groundwater issues.

Unless of course you can train the cattle, goats, pigs dogs, cats, and other introduced animals (that far outnumber humans) to use a toilet hooked to a septic system.

It's not the same, for several reasons, including the fact that animals don't carry some of the diseases that make human waste such a health hazards for people.

I think the ban on new permits for cesspools is likely to be enacted soon. It's already overdue. Phasing out the old ones is less likely to be enacted soon, and of course could take 100 years or more to be fully carried out.

But finally getting started on this is the legislature's doody.

[Mark.ca]

Originally Posted by terracore

Getting rid of the cesspools won't solve the problem.

Unless of course you can train the cattle, goats, pigs dogs, cats, and other introduced animals (that far outnumber humans) to use a toilet hooked to a septic system.

Somehow you forgot what "natural/organic fertilizer" is in agriculture. Manure is actually beneficial to soil and plants the human waste not that much.