Sewage Project
Purpose: To repair our existing, out-dated septic system for the Lodge, Nest, Gym and A-frame.
Objective: Planning and completing a sewage system that incorporates a Biofilter that will treat the wastewater in a greenhouse.
Tasks that still need to be completed for Conceptual Design:
- Inspection of existing septic field for use as a disposal of treated wastewater. [This task is dependent on whether or not the existing bed is needed for disposal of effuent from the new system.]
- Preliminary drawings of complete system for review by the DEP
Next Step - Determine if soil conditions are sufficient for putting the new staff house on a separate sand mound system.
January 2009 - A permit application was submitted to DEP for work to progress on project design and submission for permit approval.
January 9, 2008 - Our engineer, Mike Zavoda, visited the camp and took measurements of the newly expanded drip irrigation field. Mr. Zavoda will now add to the previous design work completed in 2002 and formulate a maximum drip capacity for our field. With this information he will be able to create and submit a conceptual design.
November 13, 2007 - Soil tests completed on the extension of our previous drip irrigation drain field. The soil was found to be good. This now enables us discharge more effluent into the drip field.
May 30, 2007 - Harrisburg, PA, Mike Zavoda and Todd Donaldson travelled to DEP Harrisburg to discuss our plans to use a biofilter to treat wastewater with officals there. It was information sharing meeting, from which a plan of action was taken. Several items were discussed, water reuse, waterless toilets, grants available, and contacts for permitting and soil testing. The next step is to complete a conceptual design with all the components of the new house, biofilter, and drip irrigation disposal field.
March 8, 2007 - New Life Bible Camp, Meeting with Mike Zavoda, New Life's engineer, Dean Shuller, of Bedford Sanitary Corp, Clarence Anderson, New Life board member, Juls Wood, interested friend of the camp, and Todd Donaldson, Director of New Life Bible Camp. During this meeting discussion centered around how the biofilter works, what areas of the property could be used for disposal, and what the next steps were.
PICTURES
A Description of our biofilter at New Life.
A Map of our proposed waste water treatment system.
LINKS
View a biofilter at Penn State University.
Project TIMELINE
2006 - Idea for Biofilter system with discharge into a Drip Irrigation field (see more info on reverse) discussed. Design for this project is currently underway.
2005 - Plan to place Sand Mound system on adjacent property. Design submitted, but property owner changed his mind and denied easement.
2003 - Drip system designed, submitted, and permit approved! Unfortunately during design, the engineer failed to label the pond - Permit revoked!
2002 - Camp’s soil determined not to be adequate for RSF system. A Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) meeting held at camp determined that a Drip Irrigation System would be suitable.
2001 - Discussion regarding the plans for a Recirculating Sand Filter (RSF) system.
2000 - Chemical treatment system was determined not applicable to our needs and we are not able to “stream discharge”.
1998 - Proposal for a chemical waste treatment system discussed. Began raising funds for the project.
