I will give some background on what I have have heard about saving your septic tank prior to this meeting and then I'll report what I heard on that topic from the lateral contractor. It isn't at all what I expected to hear.
The thrust from the "Enviro" people and the County has been to repurpose your septic tank when possible. Use it to direct rainwater off the roof, into a downspout and into ground via your tank - if holes are punched the bottom or if no holes, via your leach field. Or save it for later, just clean and seal. They have also said that is not always possible to save if the tank is in some strange place or is damaged. (Yes, there have been, in the lateral diggings, actual redwood septic tanks found. These will NOT be suitable for re-purposing!) All the details can be found in this online booklet, and there are a lot of details:
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/WC+Septic+System+Decommissioning+and+Reuse+Plan.pdf
Most tanks however, are reinforced concrete tanks of varying ages. Sewer followers, do you remember back in the day when Ripley first surfaced as a possible Step/Steg contractor for the entire PZ? He recommended that ALL tanks be replaced! (100%!!!) And then of course, as he tried to make the project cheaper and cheaper, that percentage went down and down and down. But I digress. Concrete tanks last on average 25-30 years. The last houses in the PZ part of town were built in 1987, making the youngest ORIGINAL tanks from that era 29 years old! So....this is where the information that I had never heard before comes in.
A lot of tanks are on their last legs. Water will rust the steel reinforcement of your concrete tank. Sulfuric acid and sewer gas will degrade the concrete. Concrete tanks as young as 5 years old can begin to crumble. A man was walking in his yard a few blocks from my house stepped on top of the tank and FELL IN, the top gave way. The contractor said on the repurposing, that it wasn't a question of IF the lid will cave, but WHEN it will cave. The permit you have for your tank is no longer the same as it is no longer a septic tank, just a tank to hold water and that the County will not inspect these for safety or compliance of anything. The agreement on decommissioning the tank is between you and the contractor, and he or she will be responsible. So now I see what the contractor reluctance has been to re-purpose the tank and the preference is to fill it with approved material. There is then no danger of your falling into the tank if the thing decomposes.
Because the legality of letting a homeowner get use of any of the recycled water from the plant is tied up in some state level "policy discussion," unchanging that law could take years. I have no faith in any time soon being able to fill our septic tank with that recycled water to keep things alive by watering our plants much as the septic tank does now, or by putting a pump down there to use that water via electrical pumping means. Our downspout goes into a pipe in the ground already to some unknown leach field.
If you do not repurpose, legally, the contractor is supposed to bring in a compactor and compact the material placed into the tank. The tank top will be cut off and will fall into the bottom - the top is to be left open. If the bottom is good and not punched with holes, the tank will hold moisture in the sandy stuff in there (when it rains.....OK, IF it rains....), and eventually tree roots will find their way in. I really don't want my lemon tree that I have never watered to croak, so I will have to water it for a few years to keep it going until it finds that pot of moist sand to quench its thirst. It has been sucking up septage I guess, as I sure don't water it. Lots of lemons year 'round too. Yes I eat them. I'm not sure what gets transmitted to lemons via transpiration, but far I have not come down with:
- Campylobacteriosis
- Giardia
- Solmonella
- Cryptosporidium
- E. Coli
- Hepatitis A
- Shigella
Here is a fun link I forgot to find on the County's lateral page to see your tank location. We have two! I wonder what that means?
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