May, 26, 1998
City Farms treatment plant source of concern
By Jodi Billerman
Staff Writer
If there were a burgeoning health concern in Seneca County &emdash; especially right at the corporation limit of Tiffin &emdash; presumably the Board of Health would be watching closely, right?
Maybe not.
Adjacent to the city limits on the southwest side of town is a neighborhood commonly known as ''City Farms.'' Sewage treatment problems there may be affecting Tiffin's ground and surface water.
Asked if the area is a problem, Mayor Bernie Hohman said yes. ''That's based on what people tell me, what I've seen and even a 30-year-old report that (now Director of Finance) Larry Clausing turned in when he was working part time with the Board of Health.''
City Administrator Wayne Stephens agreed.
''That area is creating a ground water pollution problem,'' he said.
Stephens said that, for some time, ''The consensus with the Board of Health has been that this is an area that would be better served by sanitary sewers. Someone from the EPA has said that, and I've heard the same thing from people who live and work out there. I think that's just common knowledge.''
But the area, part of Hopewell Township, is outside city limits and therefore not legally within the scope of the city's Community Block Development Grant program. Nor can the city use its idle Revolving Loan Fund money to extend sewer lines to the area.
Reportedly, City Farms was originally publicly-owned land, divided into small plots to be used as World War I ''victory gardens'' for city residents. The area also is called ''Mud Sock'' by some because of the long-standing drainage problems there.
Storm water drainage is largely corrected since installation of storm sewers by the county. Still, the neighborhood historically also has been identified as a ground water pollution concern, with individual septic systems &emdash; many 20 to 30 years old &emdash; serving modest homes on small lots.
Hohman said, ''The most difficult thing is that there's not enough room for proper leaching,'' meaning that sewage could be draining, but may not be sufficiently filtered before outletting.
One local official, who wished to remain anonymous, postulated that sewage from failing systems might be traveling through the storm sewers and into the Sandusky River or other surface waters.
''Unfortunately,'' said environmental health specialist Scott Rabuns, with the county Board of Health, ''there's probably some truth to that. At our end, we don't want to see that, but the only way you're going to find that out is to go out and inspect the systems individually, or to take samples from the main outlet.''
Even inspection of the main outlet wouldn't pinpoint the source of pollution, he said.
Many of the homes' antiquated septic systems are undoubtedly teetering on the edge of needing replacement. Before installation of the storm sewers, many of those systems were not functioning properly. Better drainage may have alleviated some problems, but cannot undo the damage done by years of less-than-optimal conditions.
Rabuns said, ''If everything went well, you can probably get 20 to 25 years out of a system. But, so many other factors go into it,'' including past drainage problems.
Sanitarian Marianne Miller said, ''We haven't done a survey of sewage systemsout there. We totally respond on a complaint basis.''
But drainage problems may have done damage to the systems in the decades before the storm sewer's installation.
Miller said, ''The way I understand it, there is still a drainage problem there, the lots are small, and the homes are older. All those things are factors in how well the system does.''
The health department doesn't routinely inspect systems, Miller said. ''We don't have the authority to go door-to-door and check systems unless there's a reasonable cause to do it.''
Rabuns, a specialist in environmental health for the board, said, ''I'm kind of at a disadvantage out there,'' because he has served this area only a few months.
''I don't have my staff working on it. And we don't have a plan of any kind to go out and survey it,'' he added.
The Board of Health has a number of other pressing concerns slated first, including serious problems with sewage treatment and draining in the Flat Rock area, so tackling the City Farms issue might be impossible for the time being.
''As much as I'd like to, we just don't have the resources,'' he explained, ''but it's probably something that should be addressed.''
Even once the issue is studied, he said, ''You have to have a solution for people, too.''