{"id":16563,"date":"2022-06-21T09:14:09","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T13:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=16563"},"modified":"2024-08-20T11:32:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T15:32:25","slug":"the-new-pioneers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/the-new-pioneers\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Pioneers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Communities along the coastal Carolinas are taking steps to ensure residents have functioning septic systems and other types of onsite wastewater treatment \u2014 as groundwater rises and storms intensify.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jane Harrison is North Carolina Sea Grant’s coastal economics specialist. In collaboration with university and community partners, she heads a team looking at climate change and onsite wastewater treatment systems. The project will help coastal communities to implement climate adaptation plans. She recently sat down with <\/em>Coastwatch‘s Julie Leibach to discuss the threats that climate change poses and how some wastewater managers are addressing current and future challenges. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What do we know about how onsite wastewater treatment systems are working along the coast?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s difficult to assess. Unless you have an obvious bad smell, visual evidence of sewage, or water rising up in your yard, you don\u2019t necessarily know that your system isn\u2019t working. System owners are likely to assume everything\u2019s okay. But it\u2019s not necessarily okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A research team I work with monitors water quality near septic systems along the coast. Charlie Humphrey and Mike O\u2019Driscoll at East Carolina University evaluate inland coastal systems and systems on the barrier islands for treatment efficiency \u2014 and now our project allows them to monitor more sites in the town of Nags Head and, in South Carolina, the city of Folly Beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can\u2019t monitor every septic system in Nags Head and Folly Beach, so we\u2019ve chosen different kinds of septic systems and other types of onsite wastewater treatment \u2014 like packaged plants, which are cluster systems built to serve multiple households or a small housing development. We\u2019re also evaluating treatment efficiency at centralized wastewater treatment facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our intent is to gain a better understanding of how on-site and centralized methods impact water quality: in particular, how different types of wastewater treatment systems reduce concentrations of potentially harmful nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and fecal coliform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n