Published August 2007

Lending a Hand

By Doug Day (page 18)

Volunteers roll up their sleeves and grab shovels to provide healthy septic systems for people in Southern Appalachia.

When was the last time you installed a septic system by hand? Ask Rich Holder. He might be doing it today.

As technical assistance coordinator for the North Carolina Rural Communities Assistance Project Inc. (NCRCAP), he works with volunteers from across the nation to install septic systems for those in need of financial assistance in the Southern Appalachia Region of North Carolina every summer.

Despite improving economic conditions in the area, it still has many poor, rural families who use systems that pipe home sewage directly into streams. Some homes still do without indoor bathrooms. NCRCAP has another program in which students in the Central Carolina Community College home building course construct 8- by 12-foot bathroom additions to homes in two rural counties.

Not affordable

Between 10 and 30 percent of existing septic systems fail, according to statewide statistics from the North Carolina Nonpoint Source Management Program. Many of those were installed with funding assistance, and now the families can’t afford to repair or replace them. Due to the soil and terrain, a system can cost up to $8,000.

Based in Pittsboro, NCRCAP is a statewide, non-profit organization and one of many programs and agencies focused on wastewater problems in North Carolina. Holder covers the Western Region. For the past two summers, he has worked with a small group of volunteers from Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Asheville to install free septic systems. The church provides workers through its 26-year-old Servant Event program.

Despite all the hours of hard labor, only three septic systems have been completed in the last two years. Holder says it takes a group of 10 to 15 volunteers from five to seven days, working eight to ten hours a day, to finish one system. “I ran into this group a few years ago installing a septic system and helped make sure they got it cor­rect,” he says. “I just got the idea that maybe I could get more volunteer groups to come here.”

New resources

This year, Holder arranged for more help from ReCreation Experiences, a faith-based, not-for-profit program in Weaverville that repairs homes and provides education and other assistance to fight poverty and sub-standard housing in the Appalachian Region.

He has ambitious goals for those volunteers, who pay their own way for the privilege of doing backbreaking labor for hours on end. “I have ten different groups, and we’re planning to do ten septic systems this summer,” he says.

He’s not sure exactly how many failed septic systems or straight pipes need repair, but he’s willing to do what he can, one home at a time. “There are hundreds. Maybe more than hundreds,” he says. “I’m getting the ones fixed that I can get fixed.”

State officials report that the 1990 Census found 50,000 homes in North Carolina that had neither municipal sewage service nor adequate septic systems. A 1999 study in just one county found that out of 10,000 homes, 945 (20 percent) had noncompliant sewage systems. Most were straight-piping black water (258) or graywater (535). Another 116 had failing septic systems, and 36 had only outhouses.

Welcome donations

Holder says NCRCAP wouldn’t be able to help the volunteers without the many organizations and businesses that donate pumps, alternating valves, tanks, aggregate, PVC pipe, filters, and other materials — or the cash to pay for it. He’s always looking for more. “We don’t have all the materials we need to do all the systems,” he says. “We’ll just have to see how far we can get.” And then there’s always next year — when they’ll do it all over again.