Sam Niu ’15: After years of a pump-and-haul sewage system, Episcopal Academy is now in the process of building an underground pipeline connecting EA to the township’s public system. This project began with the planning of the new campus in 2005, and since that time has been through numerous iterations and approvals at local and state levels.
Currently, Episcopal has “two above ground tanks, which hold nearly 30,000 gallons in capacity and as those tanks [get]…full, trucks come and haul the waste off to one of their disposal facilities…The trucks come as frequently as three times a day,” said Mark Notaro, Director of Operations. The pump-and-haul system was “generally considered temporary,” according to Notaro. Episcopal had originally “proposed to the township to make [its] own on-site sewage treatment plant as part of the whole development plan of this campus,” he continued. “At that point, the township felt that they would be far enough in their design for their own system…that they felt that by the time we finished our construction, they’d have their whole township-wide plan approved by the state and that would enable us to tie in, but that didn’t happen, obviously.”
Photo courtesy of Sammi Ciardi ’15
EA’s current plan coordinates construction plans with the nearby Liseter housing development that is currently on the pump-and-haul system as well. “Once we get our system complete, we’ll tie into their system and when their system goes live, then they’ll pump their sewer directly to a man hole that then goes to a sewage treatment plant,” said Notaro. After construction, “There will be a short period of testing, and the design was [such] that there would never be a period where we would neither be able to use pump-and-haul or the piping.” According to Notaro, the new sewer system should be fully operational sometime in October.
Concerning the effects that this change will have on the school and community, Joe Bayer, Grounds Superintendent, said the “main effect will be monetary.” Bayer continued, “There is a cost for moving the waste off the property,” which would no longer be a factor with the underground pipeline. Furthermore, using underground pipes will prevent the time and space that tanks take up, especially when they overflow. He added, “Sometimes there’s a smell when the trucks are emptying the tanks and transporting them to the holding tanks… so once that’s all underground, the smell will be gone.” Notaro added, “When the tank overflowed… there would be raw sewage and the smell would be out there, so that will go away because this will be an entirely self-contained system, with all the pipes underground.”
“Overall,” Notaro stated, “from a cost point of view, this will drop our operating costs pretty significantly.” Environmentally, “[We will be] disposing the sewage in a way that is much cleaner. We won’t have trucks driving back and forth, adding to the cost and wear-and-tear on our roadways [or to] pollution, with the exhaust from the trucks driving up and down all the time.”