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Have you ever had to design a small/utility type sewage solution/system that doesn't require the capacity of a normal home septic system? I didn't see a system listed in your pressure system CD list or gravity drainfield CD thumbnails that I could recognize as a small one. I'm asking in the context of adding a small bathroom to my barn which seems too far away (400 ft.) from the house to include in its septic system. Since it will have very little use at all, it seems to me that it would fall well below the one bedroom, two person, 120 gallons a day basic sizing formula -- but that may just be an incorrect assumption on my part due to my lack of understanding septic system basics -- maybe a small septic system just isn't feasible or practical to scale down to. Everything I ever learned about sewage treatment was from my architecture course on large municpal treatment systems in Europe that are on a different scale than a homeowner's system would be here in the U.S. I'd really like something better than an outhouse with a pit or a porta-potty solution, but don't know what would make sense to do -- both economically and in terms of environmental impact. Given the amount of surface fecal matter and urine that is already present in the barn area from the horses, what is the prevailing wisdom with regard to human impact in a barn area?

The topic came to me via my personal email so I am forwarding it to the forum for response: from John - no state

John, You did not say in which state your property was in - and your question would be answered differently depending on state rules.

In my state, Washington, the last rule change enforced for the first time in 2005 in the Central and Eastern regions a new minimum system size of 240 Gallons per day (enough system for a 2 bedroom house.) Washington State now does not allow a small commercial or other minimal sized system. There is no explanation for this rule change or for a multitude of new restrictions.

It is as if the authority for these odd cases has been taken from the local designers and health officials and handed to state regulators. A small office or factory with a single toilet and sink used to require 15 gallons per person per shift. A small business with 4 employees (and there are hundreds of commercial properties in our area that used to qualify for this minimal rate) are no longer allowed to have a typical small system. These small systems now need a drainfield of four times larger than will ever be used. These small systems had no measurable impact on anything compared with almost any existing environmental issue involving real threats to human health.

There is no official explanation or science coming from the state when they send down these types of increased restrictions and they are often hidden in new rule sets that contain hundreds of new changes and “upgrades.”

The impact of this kind of [color=#004000]arbitrary rule falls on the start-up and other small and large businesses. One of the reasons that Boeing will set up its new Dreamliner assembly plant in South Carolina instead of here in Washington is due to the burden of meeting the staggering rules and regulations of Washington State Law.[/color]
I would welcome a rebuttal from a brave septic qualified official to come forward and defend these new arbitrary rules that seem to sprout up like weeds to create disproportional hardship on small and start-up business. The Duck