On-Site Monitoring 21 st Century Necessity

We have all heard the statement by citizens my grandfathers septic system was two fifty-five gallon oil drums and fifty feet of pipe and it never failed. Problem:population of world in grandfathers day possibly 2 to 3 billion, today it is 6.8 billion and growing. A study group in London some years ago stated that the optimum population was less than 6 billion due to the arable land available.

Since we are using over 50% of the arable land in North American the soils that we are now building our homes on are the soils that must use an alternative wastewater treatment system to attain the quality of water we must have. Alternative wastewater treatment systems have mechanical parts which must be maintained. Most states dont have rules in place to require perpetual maintenance. Some do and Texas is one of those states, not only does Texas require perpetual maintenance it allows a reduction from three to two maintenance visits a year if remote electronic monitoring is used. There is a very important reason that remote electronic monitoring for on-site wastewater systems came into existence.

Remote monitoring was created to enable regulatory personnel to verify that the State mandated on-going routine maintenance was actually being performed. As in any industry there is always that small percentage of people who will try to cheat the system for their own gain. Some maintenance providers were setting at their kitchen table filling in the Report forms without doing an onsite visit. So the on-site wastewater treatment industry has created and patented an inexpensive solution to this problem. JUST PUSH THE BUTTON!!! A monitoring & tracking system with on-site verification solves the problem by providing a time/date stamp showing when and for how long maintenance was performed on the system. Some systems even monitor their self and provide a heartbeat report and alert if for some reason the on-site monitor is off-line.

Once the problem of verifying maintenance entities being on-site when maintenance is required is solved, then regulatory bodies can also require that maintenance reports be sent via the worldwide web instead of shuffling paper. Shuffling paper requires large amounts of time which eat up tax budgets. Everyone knows budgets are being strained today like never before. This century Federal, State, and Local legislative bodies will be cutting the funding to regulatory agencies tasked with keeping our water clean. We watched regulatory bodies grow in the last century but in the 21rst century remote monitoring of wastewater is a necessity to keep staffing and man hours in check. We want to make sure disease due to improperly treated wastewater is never a problem even though regulatory agencies will without a doubt be smaller and the population they serve larger. This will require that they will have to work more efficiently thus taking advantage of 21rst century electronic remote monitoring technology is becoming a necessity.

When the population grows the smaller regulatory bodies will also have to be able to review and store the large volume of reports required by the maintenance rules. The only way to do this is electronically. Not only will physical size of storage be reduced but the ability to retrieve and use the reports will be able greatly increased. Data can be used to spot trends, identify unqualified maintenance providers, and also system brands that consistently do not meet on-site wastewater treatment standards. The remote monitoring will report also to the maintenance providers enabling them to respond more quickly, and also identify persistent home- homeowner abuse problems. Cell phone notifications used by remote monitoring systems make the maintenance providers much more efficient.

Homeowners can view their maintenance records in real time on the world-wide web, helping them to be confident the required maintenance is being done. It will also help the homeowner become involved in making sure their system meets the required standards of on-site wastewater treatment systems. Maintenance providers will become much more efficient when they are able to communicate electronically with the homeowner and the regulatory agency.

Maintenance entities are able to multi-task without much expense. They are also able to be accountable to their customers and to be REGULATORY COMPLIANT to the rules of Regulatory Agency just by using Web based electronic on-site monitoring

For remote monitoring to be successful regulatory agencies have to implement: 1.On-site wastewater rules that require perpetual maintenance 2.Make electronic on-site monitoring a requirement 3.Make on-site verification part of those requirements Our safety demands that remote electronic monitoring be part of our on-site Wastewater rules as the population grows and our regulatory agencies shrink in the 21rst Century.