Communtiy Septc System Owners Guide.

This USDA grant funded project, led by the University of Minnesota (UMN), is developing a wastewater decision-making tool for consumers to help to transform rural wastewater management by developing a customizable Community System Owner’s Guide (CSOG). At the time of preparing this paper, the project is at the end of year one of a three year project.

The primary deliverable of this project is a web-interface that allows an individual to produce an expert-driven and locally-customized manual (electronic or hard-copy) CSOG for any cluster soil-based wastewater treatment system in America.  This tool will provide users with fundamental information about the operation and management of various wastewater management systems.  A consultant, engineer, septic professional, facilitator, or even an educated community member will be able to use this tool to develop a management plan for either a new or existing community onsite wastewater treatment systems OWTS.  The developer of any given CSOG will be able to assemble a professionally designed guide by selecting situation-specific boilerplate language and graphics and inserting customized content to integrate system-specific permit and ordinance requirements.  Key partnerships in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina, along with the US EPA, will be utilized to assure this grant will deliver a nationally relevant and locally customizable interface tool to facilitate the development of Community System Owner’s Guides.