Wet Land Lagoon

[Phil]

Getting ready to retire in a couple of weeks and move back to the farm.
Will build a new house on the old homestead (family homesteaded in 1875).
A builder I am talking to suggested a wet land lagoon instead of a drain field for the septic system.
Does anybody have plans for the lagoon or a web site?

I understand you place a septic tank and then run a line to a lagoon filled with creek gravel or two inch rock. The overflow (if any) supposedly comes out clear.

You can plant over it and not worry about livestock or people getting into it. Seems to be the newest thing in my area (Missouri Ozarks) if you have enough land to make it work.

Any info appreciated.

Phil

[Dormer_man]

You probably have already seen this, since it was so easy to find.

A google seach on "sewage lagoon" produced this web page:

http://muextension.missouri.edu/explore/envqual/wq0402.htm

[Phil]

Thanks.

This is good information on size of septic tank and lagoon. I printed it out for my files.
The system I am looking to build is evidently a quite new design and is filled with creek gravel or two inch rock and doesn't need to be fenced. The lagoon sewage water is below the top of the gravel. I understand you can even plant over it or walk on it. We don't have any codes yet in Phelps county but I understand this new lagoon system is accepted where codes are quite stict.

Thanks for the info -- Phil

[VALENT]

I never knew it was called this- but I do know a person who renovated two old septic fields in this way. The only problems I foresee are 1 rainwater and groundwater saturating your lagoon 2 there is a smell with this system 3 the outflow area is going to oversaturate with a mat that always grows on the outflow and, with a lagoon, that outflow is going to be a very small area. In reality, I guess this system is pretty much the same as the old cesspools.

[Phil]

According to the builder I was thinking about using, the advantage of this is that there isn't any smell.
He said in our area the clay soil has a tendency to saturate the drain field in a conventional system when heavily used and the water comes to the surface, especially if you have extra use like visitors and then you have a smell.
Like I said, I don't know much about this, since I have a jet areation system now.
I hate the idea of having to dig up the drain field at a later date. With this you run a solid pipe through the septic tank and then into the gravel field lagoon(s). The runoff if any is an overflow pipe below the level of the gravel and can go into another lagoon. and it is supposed to be clear. I heard this about my jet areation system also, but don't really believe it.
I plan on putting the lagoons a long ways from the house, out of site. I think the problem is that most people can't get the lagoons far enough away from the house, but since I am building in the middle of 240 acres, I shouldn't have this problem.

[Dormer_man]

I have seen a sewage lagoon at the Colter Bay Cabin complex in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, which services hundreds of people per day.

Their system had a couple of fountains installed to aerate the water, maybe to help the biodegrade process.