EHWA lays out goals for Comprehensive Watershed Plan

Eight Rivers Safe Development commends and supports the Elk Headwaters Watershed Association and Downstream Strategies in their leadership role in developing a stakeholder based Comprehensive Watershed Plan.

Eight Rivers supports the EWHA in their request to the PSD, Thrasher Engineering and other state agencies to put the sewage treatment plant on hold until the CWP is completed in mid-2009 so that this plan can be used to define a comprehensive, cost effective and environmental friendly solution for the Linwood / Slatyfork communities and the Big Spring Fork valley.

Eight Rivers has advocated this stakeholder-based approach and the use of decentralized treatment for the valley communities and a centralized membrane plant on Cheat Mountain to serve the Snowshoe and Silver Creek communities.

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Thursday January 29, 2009
EHWA lays out goals for Comprehensive Watershed Plan
Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer

Members of the Elk Headwaters Weatershed Association were inspired by the presentation given by guest speaker Craig Maines of the National Environmental Services Center last Thursday at the second in a series of four meetings.

Maines, an engineering scientist, shared his expertise on decentralized wastewater alternatives with a short slide presentation.

“I work at the NESC which is funded by a combination of grants from EPA and USDA to work with wastewater and water treatment issues in small communities,” Maines explained, sharing his credentials.

“I want to talk about decentralized wastewater systems by starting with a standard definition. It is a system that treats and transports water to be reused or disposed at or near its point of generation,” Maines said.

Decentralized wastewater systems can be individual home or building systems as well as cluster systems which treat wastewater from groups of two or more houses.

“I want to focus mainly on the cluster systems because I think most people have some familiarity with individual onsite systems,” Maines said. “They (cluster systems) bridge the extremes of individual systems and the big municipal systems.

“I highlighted this because I think when you start to look at the advantages of cluster systems, a lot of times one of the big advantages is that they use small-diameter pipes,” Maines continued.

Maines explained the advantages of small-diameter sewers including, less expense, easier to install, less subject to infiltration, can be pressurized or vacuumed to overcome topographic variability, pipe can be routed around obstructions and the use of less expensive exponents.

“If you actually cost it out and compare, a lot of times you find that savings from the small diameter pipes kind of swamp the savings that you get from the centralized treatment aspect,” Maines said.

Focusing on the types of sewers used in cluster systems, Maines described the differences in small-diameter gravity sewers, septic tank effluent pump (STEP) pressure sewers, grinder pump system pressure sewers and vacuum collection system.

“To summarize some of the advantages of decentralized systems, they’re often more affordable in small communities, they achieve high removal rates for most pollutants, less hydrologic impact, can be integrated into a flexible wastewater system and can be used as a tool to manage development,” Maines concluded.

Maines took questions after the presentation.

“Is there anywhere in the nation or any industry that is showing good examples of cluster systems in use?” EHWA President George Bell asked.

“It seems like a lot of the progressive states where they’ve identified a critical water resource that they wanted to protect, like the Chesapeake Bay and the Puget Sound in Washington state,” Maines replied.

Bell also asked if it is common for a public service district to get involved in maintaining a decentralized system or if the care would be left up to the homeowner’s association.

“I don’t personally think [a] homeowner’s association is the best way to do it, but it is done that way sometimes,” Maines said.

“I would just like to add that these are not new technologies, they’ve been used for decades in Australia, at least on the collection part and as well with the community drain fields,” Maines said. “There’s a history of effectiveness.”

Led by Downstream Strategies President Evan Hansen, the collective brainstormed about their common vision for the future. The group focused on ideas for the Comprehensive Watershed Plan.

“To me, a big part of the CWP should provide an inventory of what is in the watershed, with respect to not only quantity of water, but unique features,” Bell said. “Why do we love it around here, why do we all choose to live here? I would like to be able to have an inventory of all that and somehow describe it so that at the end of the day, we know what we’re trying to protect and preserve.”

Gil Willis, owner of Elk River Touring and Elk River Inn and Restaurant added his perspective to the conversation.

“Clean water is an amenity and super clean water is even a better amenity,” Willis said. “I personally would like to see an inventory of all of our recreational attributes here in the valley above and beyond what the resort offers. There’s a lot of things here that we need to inventory.”

Added to the list were: hunting, fishing, public lands, handicapped access, hiking, skiing, birding, caving, the National forest, underground river and waterfall in Sharp’s Cave and the abandoned railroad grade.

“There’s been some interest in another study that we could also piggy back on and benefit from the information,” Tom Shipley, owner of Sharp Store interjected. “There’s a program called Wild and Scenic Rivers and there’s an effort on the table to study the Upper Elk River for consideration to include it as part of the program.

“From what I understand, the river would be studied in great detail by many different agencies and the information that we would glean from that, I can imagine that it would be extremely valuable to our watershed process and understanding of the watershed,” Shipley continued.

County Commissioner David Fleming, the new commission representative on the Water Resources Task Force, discussed how the organizations should work together.

“As I understand it, the WRTF is looking at a county wide plan for meeting the water resources potential,” Fleming said. “I think we should work together definitely.”

“I’ve gone to a few meetings and it’s a pretty exciting opportunity for us,” Shipley added. “They’re going to primarily study quantity or flow because the federal government is interested in water as a scarce resource now. Pocahontas County is taking an initiative to be one of the first to get their study done.”

Fleming, changing from his commissioner’s hat to his web master’s hat, requested that everyone sign up for the EHWA forum to get updates and also participate in threads. The website is www.elkheadwaters.org/signup

Bell reminded everyone that the organization needs to find more funding for the program.

“We’ve gotten some good funding and we’re grateful for it, but we’ve only got about a third of what we need,” he said.

The third meeting in the series is March 3 at 7 p.m. at the Slaty Fork Community Building.