A communal septic system planned for Marshall would
reduce by two-thirds the cost for some homeowners of upgrading their
septic tanks to comply with new state regulations.
Marshall residents, led by the East Shore Planning
Group, are planning to build a 5,000-foot pipe linking 38 homes in downtown
Marshall – from Hog Island Oyster Co. in the north to the Marshall
Boatworks in the south – to a leachfield in a pasture on the Barinaga-Goodman
Ranch, behind the Marshall Post Office.
An additional 60 homes could be linked to the leachfield
in future phases of construction, or tied into a separate cluster with
its own disposal site north of downtown. The system might also be expanded
to include businesses.
The cost to individual homeowners will be between
$16,000 and $20,000, East Shore Planning Group member Tom Flynn said.
This represents significant savings: the cost of replacing
a faulty septic system can run to $60,000. A recent study of a sample
of Marshall homes found that 40 percent had septic systems needing replacement
or repairs.
Additionally, new state septic-system regulations
expected to be finalized later this year require that all septic systems
within 600 feet of Tomales Bay or its tributaries be upgraded to prevent
pollution.
United Marshall stands
By banding together, Marshall residents have been
able to tap into government funding for community projects, alleviating
the burden of septic upgrades for individuals. To date, the Planning
Group has secured $1.2 million in grant money for the cluster system.
Environmental review of the project, along with engineering
and permitting costs, will cost $500,000, Flynn said. The estimated
construction cost is $1.2 million, according to engineer Norm Hantzsche
of Questa Engineering, the firm retained to design and build the system.
Marshall residents began talking about new ways to
dispose of sewage after septic systems on the east shore of Tomales
Bay came under scrutiny from state health officials in the late 90s.
In 1998, 171 people became ill after eating oysters grown in the bay.
Health inspectors believed that the virus came from human feces.
"It’s been questionable whether there really
are problems with our septic systems," Flynn said. "But why
don’t we take a preventative, proactive tack about this, so that
we are assuring that our systems aren’t a problem?"
New agency
A wastewater management district would be created
to handle the system, assessing a yearly tax on townspeople, who might
be asked to vote the agency into existence as early as next November,
East Shore Planning Group president Paul Elmore said.
Known as a cluster system, the proposed sewage circuit
would be one of the few of its kind in West Marin. Others exist at the
French Ranch subdivision in the San Geronimo Valley, where 31 homes
feed their wastewater into a communal leachfield, and at the EAH Affordable
Housing Project in Point Reyes Station, where two apartment complexes
use cluster systems.
Many of the narrow lots between Highway 1 and Tomales
Bay on which shoreline homes are sandwiched don’t offer ample space
for individual leachfields; the earth on these lots, moreover –
often shallow, sandy, and strewn with broken rock – isn’t
hospitable to leachlines, which require several feet of buffering soil
above and below.
"The conditions along the shoreline are less
than ideal for septic systems," said county Environmental Health
Chief Phil Smith. "By moving the dispersal field inland, we can
obtain very good soil for treatment."
Regulations loom
Some 40 percent of homes in West Marin fall within
600 feet of Tomales Bay or its tributaries, Environmental Health Chief
Smith said. Under the new state regulations, septic tanks on these properties
would need to be replaced with expensive new systems.
Smith said that cluster systems are "a promising
line of inquiry" for other West Marin communities seeking to bring
their septic tanks into compliance with state regulations without breaking
the bank.
Flynn agreed: "Where there’s groups of homes
that are relatively close together, this kind of community system approach
may have potential, and it may be fairly economic," he said, though
systems "will probably need to be tailored to each individual area."
The Planning Group hopes the system will be completed
and operational sometime in 2007, Elmore said. County planners are now
preparing an environmental study on the plans. The system will need
permits from both Marin’s Department of Environmental Health and
the California Coastal Commission.
A scoping meeting on the proposed Marshall cluster
septic system will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, at the Dance
Palace. Those wishing to submit comments to the county on specific environmental-review
issues with the project can do so in writing by Feb. 10, 2006. Comments
can be mailed to the Marin Community Development Agency, 3501 Civic
Center Drive, Room 308, San Rafael, CA 94903. Plans for the project
can be seen at the agency’s office.