IMO, Sewer Politics is a Cesspool

Abut a decade ago, while out on a bicycle ride, I happened to converse with a gentleman who was, at the time, mayor of Archer, Florida. His big goal for the city was a sewer system.

While I'm not a big fan of "collective action" via government, he made a strong case for a sewer system down in the fairly densely populated part of the small town, more for business reasons than due to any residential problems. In particular, he cited the town's only bar/restaurant (at the time), which could only operate about half the week because its septic system couldn't handle the seven-day levels of effluent and apparently couldn't be replaced with a stand-alone system that would. The mayor felt that lack of a sewer system was holding back the town's economic development.

I didn't think much more about that conversation, even after we recently moved to Archer's zip code.

Then, last week, I saw a news story: The town is getting its sewer system.

"Phase 1" of that system will cover the aforementioned densely populated section of the town (population 1,100 or so). They'll be running a main pipe about ten miles to the nearest treatment plant and hooking up that "core" area to it, probably by 2030 at the latest.

"Phase 2," which may implicate my household, is what I'm concerned with -- it does appear to come all the way out to our house.

From what I can tell, it will be mandatory, require the homeowner to pay at least mid-four, and possibly low-five, figures for trenching, septic tank removal, and hookup (either up-front or as a property tax add-on for 20-30 years), and of course come with a monthly bill forever after.

Apart from that initial huge bill, sewer might actually "pay for itself" versus the cost of periodically having the tank pumped out.

But ... that phase doesn't really seem to make much sense otherwise.

The area I live in is most of two miles from any densely populated area, and most of the two miles the sewer main would run to get to this area would just be running through farmland with an even lower population density. We live on a cowpath which terminates at a farm to the east of us, with a tree farm south of us, another regular farm west of us (just past a narrow and poorly-maintained paved road), and a couple of similar cowpaths north of us before yet more farm and high-voltage power-line right of way. The houses out here are all hundreds of yards apart, and (at least according to the testing we had done when buying the house) the water quality is great.

Of course, there's always the possibility of a development explosion and big increase in population density, but most of that, if it happens, will probably start quite a distance from us and take many years to reach us.

It seems like "Phase 2" is more about getting (from federal, state, and county grants) and spending millions of dollars for the sake of getting and spending those millions of dollars than about any "health" or "development" reasons. While the homeowners will pay the costs of trenching from the main to the house, etc., the revenue generated by that main will likely take decades to justify the cost of installing the main in the first place. Having lived in a town ruled by politicians with grand schemes for constantly expanding the things they can be in charge of (is there any other kind?) was a primary motivator for us to get back to living "in the country."

One person I discussed this with wanted to talk all about the environmental damage a leaky septic tank can do to the environment, the aquifer, etc. He suddenly went silent when I asked him whether a leaky septic tank here and there was likely to do as much damage to the environment, the aquifer, etc., as a burst sewer main aggregating the effluent from hundreds or thousands of homes.

Fortunately, "Phase 2" is still "un-funded" and will likely not reach us for several years if it does get the green light. It's one item that will go on the "do we sell and move even further out of town, and if so, when?" list.