Intergovernmental responsibilities for water supply and sewage disposal in metropolitan areas. Page: 25
135 p., [24] p. ; 26 cm.View a full description of this book.
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The very patterns of development induced by reliance on
individual systems make an economic changeover to community
systems difficult. The relatively large lots required by suburban
governments to provide adequate drainage fields for septic
tanks makes community utility development, particularly for
sewers, extremely expensive. Nashville's planners underscored
the situation in their metropolitan area:
The requirement of larger residential lots
because of the area need for private sewage disposal
facilities reduces population density and
adds tremendously to the cost of providing utilities
and other facilities....At present construction rates,
several million dollars of additional costs must be
borne annually by the community as an indirect result
of dependence upon septic tank systems. 24/
Individual systems have caused problems in almost every
area where they have been employed. About 25 percent of all municipal
water is from ground sources; most of this is consumed in the
suburbs. Ground water depletion caused .by an excess of withdrawal
over recharge has caused wells to dry up in a number of suburban
areas. Chicago's suburbs, for example, have been extracting 20
percent more ground water than is being replaced through natural
processes. Septic tanks have been installed where lot sizes or
soil conditions insure that they will fail in a relatively short
period of time. In suburban Lake County, in the Chicago metropolitan
area, there is a heavy reliance on septic tanks although 75 percent
of the soil in the county is unsuitable for individual sewage disposal
systems. When septic tanks fail they can pollute the shallow
ground water sources tapped by individual wells. Since 80 percent
of all ground water is used without treatment, this can and does-in
New York's Nassau County, the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.,
and the outlying portions of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, to
name a few--cause well pollution and serious public health problems.
On-site sewage disposal under excessive population densities or inadequate
soil conditions also poses threats to water tables tapped
by the deeper wells of public and private community systems in suburban
areas.
24/ Nashville and Davidson County Planning Commission, Plan of Metropolitan
Government for Nashville and Davidson County (October,
1956), p. 5.
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United States. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Intergovernmental responsibilities for water supply and sewage disposal in metropolitan areas., book, October 1962; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1424/m1/37/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.