Garfield County: Septage disposal is a problem for county pumpers

From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (John Colson):

Garfield County and from Pitkin and Eagle counties and the tiny hamlet of Marble, which is in Gunnison County but located at the upper end of the Crystal River valley south of Carbondale. In recent months, Maynard continued, South Canyon has been reducing the amount of septage it will accept…

Garfield County normally operates three treatment ponds at the county landfill near Rifle, where trucks could regularly deliver material gathered from residential and commercial septic systems. But two of those treatment ponds were recently shut down at the state’s request, due to concerns that the ponds were leaking into the soils surrounding the county landfill site. The one pond still in operation has filled up and can no longer accommodate further deliveries of septage, according to Garfield County public works director Betsy Suerth. That means septic tank service companies must truck tons of the stuff to landfill locations as far away as Delta County or Denver, according to Warren and Maynard.

Trucking septage loads to distant facilities is a hassle and expensive, said Maynard. She said it can involve trip costs of up to $150 per hour that must be passed on to the customer. “That’s more than some of them will pay to have their septic pumped,” she noted. “That makes it very expensive to pump out a septic tank,” said Warren. “When some people get problems, they just pump it out themselves, onto a field or something.”[…]

He said unincorporated areas of Garfield County have some 5,000 septic systems in operation, as well as 20 or more drilling rigs with associated septic tanks and innumerable portable toilets in a variety of locations, all being regularly pumped out. Rada estimated that Pitkin County has as many as 3,000 septic systems, the waste from which comes to Garfield County facilities.

More wastewater coverage here.