page_title: Onsite sewage facility
section_title: Improving treatment through performance requirements
hierarchical_section_title: Onsite sewage facility / Improving treatment through performance requirements
caption_attribution_description: English: The drain field component of a residential septic system is being put in place
context_page_description: Onsite sewage facilities, also called septic systems, are wastewater systems designed to treat and dispose of effluent on the same property that produces the wastewater, in areas not served by public sewage infrastructure.
  A septic tank and drainfield combination is a fairly common type of on-site sewage facility in the Western world. OSSFs account for approximately 25% of all domestic wastewater treatment in the US. Onsite sewage facilities may also be based on small-scale aerobic and biofilter units, membrane bioreactors or sequencing batch reactors. These can be thought of as scaled down versions of municipal sewage treatment plants, and are also known as "package plants."
context_section_description: Most onsite wastewater treatment systems are of the conventional type, consisting of a septic tank and a subsurface wastewater infiltration system (SWIS). Site limitations and more stringent performance requirements have led to significant improvements in the design of wastewater treatment systems and how they are managed. Over the past 20 years the onsite wastewater treatment system (OWTS) industry has developed many new treatment technologies that can achieve high performance levels on sites with size, soil, ground water, and landscape limitations that might preclude installing conventional systems. New technologies and improvements to existing technologies are based on defining the performance requirements of the system, characterizing wastewater flow and pollutant loads, evaluating site conditions, defining performance and design boundaries, and selecting a system design that addresses these factors.
  Performance requirements can be expressed as numeric criteria (e.g., pollutant concentration or mass loading limits) or narrative criteria (e.g., no odors or visible sheen) and are based on the assimilative capacity of regional ground water or surface waters, water quality objectives, and public health goals. Wastewater flow and pollutant content help define system design and size and can be estimated by comparing the size and type of facility with measured effluent outputs from similar, existing facilities. Site evaluations integrate detailed analyses of regional hydrology, geology, and water resources with site specific characterization of soils, slopes, structures, property lines, and other site features to further define system design requirements and determine the physical placement of system components.
  Most of the alternative treatment technologies applied today treat wastes after they exit the septic tank; the tank retains settleable solids, grease, and oils and provides an environment for partial digestion of settled organic wastes. Post-tank treatment can include aerobic (with oxygen) or anaerobic (with no or low oxygen) biological treatment in suspended or fixed-film reactors, physical/chemical treatment, soil infiltration, fixed-media filtration, and/or disinfection. The application and sizing of treatment units based on these technologies are defined by performance requirements, wastewater characteristics, and site conditions.
caption: After solid matters are retained in the tank, liquid wastes are moved through these pierced PVC pipes to be evenly evacuated onto the gravel layer.
exif: {"Image Software": "Google"}