Sewage ejector basin - groundwater leak?
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14 years ago
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Comments (7)At my only possible pond location, I had groundwater within 1" of the surface during the high water season. I didn't want to go above ground and I couldn't accept on faith that I could control the pressure of all that water. I was fortunate enough to have an existing drain to the municipal stormwater system and chose to drain the pond location with a buried pipe system. This limited the depth of my pond (2') because the existing drain was fairly shallow and I still had to trench 75' to get the drain pipe and existing pipe to the same levels for flow. While I wish I could have gone deeper, but never planned on fish anyway, I just drained my pond for fall cleaning (drained through an overflow to the same system) and left it empty for a few days, without a worry. Surprisingly, for all the groundwater moving around on my property, I rarely see any trickle going to the municipal catch basin. Despite all the advice I got about a drainage system being unnecessary, I am a firm believer. A flat lot such as yours requires a different approach but it is doable with some effort and money. Dry well, cistern, small filter pond come to mind. That said, it seems your groundwater is relatively deep and the solution of raising and allowing water pressure in the pond to counteract it should prevent serious problems down the road. But, water never stops doing what it does over the short or long term and I recommend you think about a simple system to remove a bit of it. Then again, I tend to over-think and over-design about everything at my age as once was more than enough to do my pond. Just my opinion and circumstances. This topic comes up time to time, so search the forum archives for more opinions. Best of luck. Mike...See MoreAnswered questions on Lake Okeechobee
Comments (19)REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS THEIR ANSWER TO THE LOW LAKE?????? LAKE OKEECHOBEE BACKPUMPING FACT SHEET Lake Okeechobee has a surface area of 730 square miles and is the second largest freshwater lake wholly within the United States.  The Lake has been classified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as a Class I Drinking Water source, which requires strict standards allowing only small amounts of pollution.  The Lake is the sole source of drinking water for several small towns on the south rim of the Lake and one of the sources of drinking water for West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, and the entire Lower East Coast metropolitan area.  The region south of the Lake, known as the Everglades Agricultural Area ("EAA"), contains over a half million acres of former Everglades that have been diked and drained to make them suitable for urban and agricultural development. Most of the land is in sugar cane cultivation.  Three companies own 87% of the land within the EAA. One of those companies is the United States Sugar Corporation which owns 104,000 acres in the EAA, much of it in the area directly south of Lake Okeechobee.  Polluted water is pumped off the sugar cane fields and collected in large District-owned canals.  At the north ends of these canals, the District owns and operates three pumping stations, S-2, S-3, and S-4, which are built into the Herbert Hoover Dike that surrounds Lake Okeechobee.  Each of these pumping stations has either three or four very large pumps each powered by a diesel engine about four times the size of a semi trailer engine. When all the pumps in a pump station are operating, the discharge is equivalent to the flow of a medium size Florida river.  The flow from the pumps creates a highly visible "plume" of dark (sometimes even black) colored water that can reach nine miles out into Lake Okeechobee.  The plume contains high levels of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) and high levels of dissolved organic materials that come from agricultural and urban wastes.  One of the largest pump stations is within 2 and ½ miles of the drinking water intake of South Bay, one of the small towns on the south rim of the Lake that uses the Lake for drinking water.  Earthjustice brought this lawsuit against the South Florida Water Management District in 2002 on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation.  The case is a Clean Water Act "citizen suit" which sought a declaration from the court that the District had to obtain federal Clean Water Act "point source" permits for its pump station discharges.  As "point sources," the discharges from the pumping station must meet pollution limits applicable to Lake Okeechobee.  The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians entered the lawsuit in support of the environmental groups.  The United States Sugar Corporation entered the case in support of the District.  The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entered the case on the side of the polluters - the District and U.S. Sugar - in early 2005. This was the first occasion in the 33 year history of the EPA that it entered a water pollution case on the side of a polluter.  No EPA witness testified at the trial and no EPA witnesses were provided for depositions.  Florida Wildlife Federation argued that when the District collects and then moves water in a way that harms the receiving water body (here Lake Okeechobee) it is responsible for cleaning up the pollution in the same way a city is responsible for cleaning up sewage it collects in its sewage system before it discharges its wastewater.  On average, the S-2, S-3, and S-4 pumping stations discharge 32 billion gallons of water into Lake Okeechobee each year.  Today, on average, the pumps contribute the equivalent of 60,000 one hundred pound bags of phosphorus to the Lake each year.  Because of this excessive fertilization, the Lake now chronically suffers from toxic blue-green algae blooms, including one in 2005 that generated toxin levels in Lake Okeechobee 65 times greater than the World Health OrganizationÂs safe drinking water guidelines.  Blue-green algae toxins can affect the liver, nervous system and skin and have been linked to increases in liver cancer, chronic fatigue illness, skin rashes, abdominal cramps, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, as well as deaths of dogs and cattle. The toxins are not removed by chlorination or boiling and algaecides (which kill the algae) result in the release of the toxins into the environment.  Phosphorus pollution levels in the Lake have risen continuously from about 40 parts per billion in 1960 to 240 parts per billion last year  an all time high. Phosphorus is a main ingredient in fertilizer and is an important component of animal waste and sewage.  The state and EPA have recently determined that the maximum allowable level of phosphorus pollution is 40 parts per billion.  In 1976, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection contended that backpumping into Lake Okeechobee from the pumping stations should be stopped. At trial, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reversed position and sided with the District in contending that no Clean Water Act permit was necessary.  After the trial was completed but before a decision was issued, EPA proposed an administrative rule that would exempt all water transfers from permitting under the Clean Water Act. The South Florida Water Management District  the defendant in the backpumping case  explained that the rule is "expressly designed" for the backpumping lawsuit.  Thirteen states and the Canadian province of Manitoba filed comments in opposition to the proposed EPA rule as did over 50 national conservation organizations.  Earthjustice will take the EPA to court to challenge the legality of the new water transfers exemption rule when it is adopted by EPA. The theory of the case will be that EPA may not legally exempt any polluters from the Clean Water ActÂs permitting requirements....See Morelot needs a sanitation grinder pump
Comments (15)The last house I lived in had such a setup, known as a sewage ejector system. Sewage ejector systems allow builders to put houses in spots that are below the sewer inlet line. Here's what I learned: Basically, the system consists of a tank, a pump, some floats, and optionally, pump controls. Everything from your house that goes town the drain or toilet goes into the tank, and gets pumped out to the sewer. The tank is usually buried, and can range in size from a small stainless steel 100 gallon tank, to a large concrete 500 gallon pit. The pump can be a plain pump or a grinder pump, but it must have sufficient power to push the sewage slush uphill to the sewer line. Grinder pumps are usually more efficient, being able to push a load farther. The diameter of the discharge pipe, the distance to the sewer and the amount of "uphill head" are all significant. There is usually a check-valve in the discharge line - this is a one way valve that prevents everything in the pipe from sliding back into the tank once the pump shuts off. This saves money and time and pump wear-and-tear, since the pump has already worked to get the sewage into the line. Some systems use a single pump - called a simplex system, while others use 2 pumps in a duplex system. Duplex systems alternate the use of 2 pumps to prolong pump life - some specialists feel that a duplex system will last longer than buying and wearing out 2 pumps consecutively. The tank contains at least 2 floats. The high-level on float triggers the pump to turn on. The pump remains on until the low-level off float is satisfied, at which time the pump stops. Systems usually have an alarm float as well. The alarm float is set higher than the on float and usually rings a buzzer or gives some warning if the level of the tank gets that high - meaning that the pump has failed to turn on. Finally, good systems have some control box to manage on-off, alarm, pump start-up and stop and overheating. Duplex pump controls also manage the alternate starting of the pumps. In my personal situation, our house was a 3200 sqf house, occupied by 3 people, with an 80 gal water heater, at least one large bathtub, 3 toilets, clothes washer, dishwasher - all the usual things that dump water and sewage into the drain. We had a 500 gallon buried tank. My neighbor, on the other hand, had a similar sized house and used a 100 gallon stainless tank - so tank size may be more related to how often you want to be running the pump. Our tank was located 400 ft from the sewer inlet, and about 18ft below it. The sewage ejector pipe was buried under our driveway, and had clean-outs every 50ft, as required by our township. Most ejector experts agree that these systems are self-cleaning, and do not require clean-outs, but the townships seem to think otherwise. Clean-outs can crack and leak, so I suspect that's why some pump plumbers don't like them. When we first moved in, our house had a single, 110v pump with an integrated float and no electronics. When this failed, we replaced it with a 220v single grinder pump with a pump-control box (which was located in the garage). Ejector systems are great when they work - you just forget about them. In large tanks, big pieces of waxy grease start to collect in the tank, and some suggest using a thinning product from time to time. We used to flush "drain care" powder down the toilets when we knew we were going on vacation - that way the stuff would sit in the tank and dissolve the wax. The most common problem for us was that the clamps that were used to hold the floats (made of plastic) would eventually dissolve every 3 or so years, causing the floats to get tangled and stop the pump from working - or worse - leave the pump on even though the tank was empty. When we'd come home and hear the buzzer float on, we'd get that sinking feeling. If you get one of these systems, find a good plumber who specializes in pump systems and treat him nicely! Good pump people are hard to find. If you do need to call your plumber in for float adjustment, they will require you to have an empty tank - and that means paying to have a truck come and pump it out. Our tank had a very heavy lid that required two people to pull it off, and then it had a built-in steel ladder where you could descend into the pit - yuk. Another thing I remember is power outages. Our house lost power often - for most that means no hot water. For sewage ejector owners without a generator, it means your flushes are numbered! Without electricity to turn on the pump, the pit will just fill up, and you really have no way to know how full it is until it leaks out the top. We never had any issue with worrying about what we put into the drains or toilets - and our plumber said that having sink grinders just made it easier for the ejector pump. I hope this helps....See MoreEjector pit Q and new pump install Q
Comments (1)Yes. If this is a sanitary sump this should be sealed, What type of seal is there around the pipe drains into this sump. You could be pumping ground water into the sanitary. Not good. Note you would like this pit full if you are not using or it will push up....See Morechris_davis
14 years agolazypup
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14 years agoJamesDe
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