Letters

There are good reasons for banning septic systems

This letter is intended to clarify a number of misconceptions in recent letters published by the Saratoga News concerning the city's requirement that homeowners located within 200 feet of city sewer lines must connect to those sewers and abandon their septic systems. This is a topic with which I have some familiarity. I served as the chair of the Urban Creek Assessment Project (UCAP), the group appointed to oversee the investigation into the causes of pollution in Saratoga Creek and its subsequent cleanup. I am also former chair of the Saratoga Planning Commission and now the Director of the Environmental Law Program at Stanford Law School.

There are good reasons that other Bay Area communities outlawed septic systems many years ago. Septic systems may be appropriate in some sparsely populated rural areas, but they have no place in the densely populated metropolitan landscape of the Bay Area. Unfortunately, in Saratoga, raw sewage ends up in our ground water or in the creeks that our children play in 12 months a year. The effluence from septic systems has to go somewhere.

Natural springs in the Village area demonstrate that ground water is close to the surface in parts of our city, rendering natural filtration ineffective. Septic systems can overflow (especially poorly maintained systems), individual leach lines can break, earth movement can cause cracks in septic tanks, and they fail in other ways.

Septic systems, similar to the one found on our property years ago, were frequently made of brick or even wood. These systems, old and new, can appear to be working properly when a portion of their sewage is flowing directly to other properties or to surface or ground water. As long as effluent drains away from the owner's property without backing up, a septic system seems to be functioning fine from the point of view of the owner.

A central misconception is that it is easy to "track back" biological pollution and find which septic system is causing the problem. In reality, it is extremely difficult to do that. When dangerous concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria are found in a creek, there is no "yellow brick road" (no pun intended) leading one back to the responsible septic system.

With regard to sewer hook-up costs, two clarifications are in order. First, some of the cost estimates that have been suggested are unrealistically high. Second, while there is no question that homeowners affected by this city requirement do face substantial costs, these costs can be amortized over five to seven years through special programs available through both the city and the sanitation district. The ordinance also gives homeowners the option of paying nothing for the work until they sell their house at which time the cost is discharged as a lien against the property.

The city's requirement is a necessary health protection for our residents. It is also an important step in cleaning up our environment.

Meg Caldwell
La Paloma Avenue

Sheriff's Report

Commentary: City Council member Evan Baker believes septic ordinance is not a financial burden

Local home sale listings

Obituaries

Saratoga Sampler

Sports Briefs

High school football

High school cross country running

Courtside Tennis