New Septic tank research
Shannon LeClair – Times Reporter
Septic Pros Buyers Group from Calgary started an ongoing research project at the Global Training Centre last month. On June 14, partners Troy Feick and Dave Perehudoff showed off the duke-o-bore, which Perehudoff had created and gave a demonstration of how they expect it to help them in researching sewage tanks. Some of it has been done before, but hasn’t had proper testing. What Perehudoff has created is basically a device which uses a Dutch auguer to auguer the ground. After drilling a hole in the ground, a vented pipe goes in through that hole, and bentonite chips go on the bottom to stop water from coming in. Then a layer of sand goes through where the vents are on the pipe, which allows fluid to go through it. On top of the sand is more bentonite, which stops any ground water leaking into the chamber and allows the group to test what’s going through the chambers and down below.
“With the new Standard Operating Procedure, a lot of people used to working in the conventional field are confused with the new rules or not up to speed with new technology. There is not a lot of onsite testing, or onsite demonstration and some people learn better that way,” said Feick.
“We are doing a test site. We’re taking our chambers over to the field here and doing different methods of burial, we’re doing one with 12 inches (of soil) over top of it, one at 18 inches and another at 24 inches of soil. What that will do is in the winter, it will tell us what kind treatment we get at different depths and what kind of temperature is maintained underground.”
Mulch is being placed underneath the chamber, which will take the nitrogen out of effluent while it’s in the field.
“We found, in the States they put air in one of the chambers and it takes a lot of their biomass, a lot of their solids out of the tank. What happens is when the effluent gets to the field now it has no carbon source to denitrify the effluent. Hopefully that will effect, taking the nitrogen out of the effluent that way,” said Feick.
The first part of the tank is like a normal septic tank, with anaerobic bugs; they thrive on next to no oxygen. The second chamber has air pumped into it and is where aerobic bugs thrive. Aerobic bugs will take a lot more of the biomass out and break it down before it goes into a third chamber with another large tank, which pumps into the field.
“The reason the third tank is so large is, it will take a whole lot of flow when they’re (the training centre) having a convention and then for the rest of the week it will just kind of dose the field so you’re not saturating,” said Feick.
The project is similar to municipal sewers, just scaled down. Someone from the group will be going to the field about once a month to check it. In the winter they will check it for temperature. There is more cold climate testing available here than in the U.S.