Septic tank fix costly idea for county, homeowners
Miami-Dade County has finally unveiled its plan to address its 120,000 septic tanks, the aging (and often failing) concrete boxes that can leak human waste into groundwater and Biscayne
Bay — a problem that sea level rise is making worse.
Nearly two years after it was commissioned, the county late Thursday released a 111-page battle plan with step-by-step guidelines for phasing out tens of thousands of problematic septic tanks and hooking those homes into the county sewage system. It also calls for registering and inspecting each tank, a massive public investment in sewage infrastructure and programs to help property owners finance the pricey swap from septic to sewer.
It won’t be easy — or cheap. County estimates put a $4 billion price tag on the endeavor, and that doesn’t include the cost to homeowners — anywhere from $7,500 to $40,000. The report suggests new or higher taxes may be in order, as well as grants from the state and federal government, to cover the cost.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava met with county agencies on Friday to discuss the septic tank plan and a new environmental assessment of Biscayne Bay, which is suffering from sharply declining water quality caused in large part by pollution from septic tanks and an array of other sources.
Prioritizing will be crucial because fixing the bay’s problems means addressing water quality issues that involve the entire watershed: failing septic and sewer infra
Miami-Dade’s 120,000 septic tanks are at risk of failure as sea levels rise. The county’s new plan to tackle the menace polluting Biscayne Bay involves registering and converting septic tanks.
structure as well as poop and pollution that enter through storm drains and canals that collect water through hundreds of miles before they reach the bay.
“This is not an overnight solution. It’s not something that we can tackle all at once,” Levine Cava said Friday during a Zoom meeting. “We do not want to have analysis paralysis. We know that septic is a critical part of the equation. We see it, it’s visible.”
Since the 1950s, MiamiDade has been warned by environmental agencies and other experts that septic tanks in South Florida’s porous geology were a problem, but the county continues to approve new ones every year. Sea level rise complicates the issue since higher ground water levels are more likely to soak the soil septic tanks rely on to drain waste.
This new report is the most comprehensive plan to dramatically reduce or even eventually rid the county of septic tanks since the federal government forced Miami-Dade to create one in 1973. That one was largely ignored over the decades. Levine Cava said she wants to move fast, starting as soon as next year, but it’s unclear when and if plans that will require County Commission approval could be fully adopted.
The new report also identified a starting place — about 1,900 septic tanks that are most vulnerable to compromise or failure and are next to sewage system pipes. Hooking them into the system would be simpler and make a significant difference.
Those tanks are mostly located in neighborhoods around the north bay basin, where they are more concentrated, and scattered around Homestead, a map on the septic report shows.
North Biscayne Bay is precisely where the county has a double problem: a high concentration of phosphorus and a high concentration of nitrogen. Water and Sewer Department Director Kevin Lynskey said about half of that nutrient load is getting into canals through stormwater, and the other half is related to septic tanks.
Another area that’s “very problematic” is south Miami-Dade, where nitrogen levels are high in the bay, he said. These nutrients have a signature that is used to identify their origin in water monitoring and testing. “The signature in the south is agricultural. The signature in the north is not agriculture, it’s septic and urban,” he said.
Next, the report suggests converting the 10,100 septic tanks that are near sewage infrastructure but haven’t yet connected. Advocates have previously called on the county to enforce a little-known law that forces these septic tank owners to convert, but the report makes no mention of the law.
These 12,000 septic tanks could be converted quickly as long as the county can work out a solution for hookup fees. Lynskey said WASD would be able to cover the public part of the connection work, while homeowners would pay about $7,500, financed over 20 years.
From there, the county could tackle another
11,600 tanks that are vulnerable to failure or compromise by 2040, when sea levels are projected to be about a foot higher. That’s nearly 1 in 5 tanks in the county.
Conversion from septic is a priority in a multiagency effort to restore water quality in Biscayne Bay after thousands of fish turned up dead in northern portions of the bay in August, igniting renewed calls to action. The County Commission vowed to implement recommendations in a Biscayne Bay Task Force report that lists septic conversion as a short-term goal, at the top of the proposed infrastructure projects list.
Along with the septic action plan, Miami-Dade released the first Biscayne Bay Report Card, which uses a green, yellow and red “stoplight” approach to classify the health of the different areas in the bay. No surprises here: The western region of the bay along the shoreline and the northern compartmentalized basins fall in the “poor” to “fair” range when compared to water quality indicators from 20 years ago. Only the eastern half of the south-central bay is in the good range.
The findings of this initial report card confirm what scientists have known for decades: Nutrients and bacteria are documented in canals and tributaries such as the Little River and the Miami River, at concentrations that are high enough to severely affect the bay’s health. The document also acknowledges that the loss of seagrass habitat in northern areas of the bay, which directly receive water from the polluted canals, is a significant contributing factor to the decline in water quality.
The report card’s goal is to help pinpoint priority problem areas as the county starts to mobilize resources for water quality projects, led by a new mayor who has expressed interest in making them happen and who says Biscayne Bay is “the cornerstone of our public healthand economy.”
“This is a top priority for my administration. With Miami-Dade Water and Sewer, a Chief Bay Officer, and key stakeholders in the community, we will move forward with urgency on long-overdue solutions to prevent nutrient pollution, replace our aging water infrastructure, and more,“Levine Cava wrote on Twitter Thursday.
Funding massive sewer and other infrastructure projects and convincing homeowners to pay steep connection fees are among her main challenges, even as conversion from septic appears to have gained momentum after the fish kill and recent reports warning about the risk of the bay’s collapse.
The septic report did lay out grant opportunities from the state and federal government, as well as the potential of raising rates and taxes in the county.
It also highlighted ways to aid property owners who don’t have thousands of dollars of cash on hand for an expensive upgrade.
The report sketched out a plan to put aside $20 million a year in surtax funds to loan low-income families the money to get rid of their tanks at interest rates as low as .001%. The program may be available as soon as early 2021. The county’s water and sewer department is also looking into a financing program with no income cap, according to the report.
THE REPORT LAID OUT GRANT OPPORTUNITIES, THE POTENTIAL OF RAISING RATES AND TAXES, AND WAYS TO AID PROPERTY OWNERS WHO DON’T HAVE THE MONEY FOR AN UPGRADE.