Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Experience with community sanitary systems

[Thomas Lofft (tlofft]

RE: Experience with community sanitary systems? (Craig Herb) | *919.368.3973* 
*Wake Cohousing (Raleigh, NC)*

Wondering if anyone out there has had experience with community sanitary 
systems/micro sewer systems (some call them Small Community Wastewater Cluster 
Systems.)

At Liberty Village, MD, in 1997, we could have developed our 27 acres for 6 new 
homesites with private wells and septic systems. We elected to connect to a 
public community water system nearby by extending our water line under the 
state highway and building a 20,000-gallon storage tank for the nearby 
community system which was at that time operating for 30 homes on only a 
1,000-gallon pressure storage tank and three wells. We got the benefit of their 
three wells and they got our capital and engineering to upgrade the system with 
a new tank that served us all jointly.

This was a typical win-win strategy which we evolved in almost everything we 
developed.

We were below grades necessary for gravity sewer flow to the closest county 
sewer line. We engineered and built a grinder pump and lift station to collect 
sewage locally by 8" sewers and push it through a 2" diameter PVC force main to 
get it up to grade to drop into a county manhole for gravity flow from there. 
The county's gain was that they got to connect a restroom facility for the 
neighboring park to our lift station instead of a pump-out holding tank at the 
park. The county owns the system and manages it daily. That's a huge management 
headache off our shoulders, but we pay for it every quarter. Incidentally, the 
win-win aspect of it all was that we got zoning approval for 38 new homesites 
instead of 6. If you're interested, we have 18 homes built and are open to 
settlers who want to join us in building 20 more new homes in the low $300K 
range.
http://www.libertyvillage.com<http://www.libertyvillage.com/>

As for out-of-the-box sewer systems, look to Hundredfold Farm Cohousing in PA. 
They have developed a greenhouse waste water treatment and management system 
that provides waste management as well as year-round greenhouse facilities for 
community gardening. Extraordinarily creative! 
http://www.hundredfoldfarm.org<http://www.hundredfoldfarm.org/>
Hundredfold Farm | "the old fashioned community with a green 
future"<http://www.hundredfoldfarm.org/>
Welcome to Hundredfold Farm. The Hundredfold Farm Cohousing Community is an 
effort of several families to create a 15-household rural cohousing community 
in the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania area.
www.hundredfoldfarm.org
Tom Lofft, Liberty Village, MD