Anthony and Diane Tirio began having issues with their septic system about two years ago.
Their house on Olympic Heights Drive in Penn Hills was built on a hilltop, with a septic system and no tie-ins to sanitary sewers.
“We knew there was a finite life to a septic system, which tends to connect the sewage up and then use a leach bed to put the water back into the soil,” Anthony Tirio said.
They were experiencing backups in the system. They have been in the house for 40 years and raised two daughters there.
“The septic system has been well used by our family. It started backing up, and we knew that something had to be done,” Anthony Tirio said.
But everything stopped the weekend of Thanksgiving, when they were having company over for a large dinner.
Fast forward to March, and the couple is installing a mini sewage treatment plant under their house.
Richard Minsterman, engineer for Penn Hills, said the Tirios are required by the state environmental laws to get a self-contained sewer treatment system.
The treatment system will be on a mini lot, and the homeowners pay for the installation and all of the inspections. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Southwest Regional Office already has looked at the system and approved it.
“Usually, this is a last resort measure,” Minsterman said at the March council meeting. Their septic tank scenario came up at the meeting as an agenda item, requesting approval for the project and a plan revision. The installation is considered a new land development.
“For the homeowner, the process they go through to connect to the Penn Hills sewage system is more than 1,000 feet away,” he said.
This is a unique situation and normally approved by the DEP only when no other reasonable alternatives are available, according to Minsterman.
“Property owners will need an individual sewer treatment system if no public sewer is available and they intend to develop or build on the property. In those cases, they must apply for an on-lot sewage disposal system,” said Mike Moskorisin, program manager for Water Pollution Control and Solid Waste Management with the Allegheny County Health Department.
It also is about water pollution control.
To the surprise of the Tirios and council, 20 other residential properties in the municipality have this type of system, according to Minsterman. Council is working with the Penn Hills Water Pollution Control Department to find those locations.
When November’s “crisis” occurred, Anthony Tirio called Andrasko & Brant Inc., a company that specializes in septic tanks. They discovered something catastrophic happening between the tanks and the leach bed.
In December, the distribution box was dug up. The box, which is about the size of a 2-foot cube, brings in water on one side and distributes it out the other three sides through pipes.
“It collapsed … just degraded over the years,” Tirio said.
While installing another distribution box, an inspection of the lines around it revealed they were not functioning.
“At that point, we knew we had to do something,” Anthony Tirio said.
“The system was still working. It wasn’t backing up into our basement,” Diane Tirio said. “We never had those issues, but there was potential for them, like when a sewer line is clogged.”
The septic system worked as it was supposed to, but parts of it were just breaking.
Now, they are getting a multistage domestic sewage treatment system. The company advised them of the next steps, which included contacting the Allegheny County Health Department and a sewage enforcement officer to inspect the property.
The Tirios’ property is a half an acre, with the house and driveway taking up the majority of the space.
“There is not much room for a leach bed,” Anthony Tirio said.
According to Diane Tirio, the county Health Department has very stringent rules about how the leach bed must be placed and the type of soil it can be in.
The placement of a leach bed depends on factors such as soil type, slope, and property size. These criteria determine whether an on-lot sewage system can function properly, Moskorisin said.
The soil was tested and came back acceptable, then considering the size of their lot it was recommended they go with a different system.
“Since we couldn’t hook up with the Penn Hills sanitary source, the self-contained system was recommended … and it is pretty clever — it has three tanks,” she said.
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It is multistage system. The first stage is like a traditional septic tank, it is an anerobic treatment system, meaning there is no oxygen.
The sewage comes in from the house and sits for about a day for the bacteria to digest the solids.
What leaves that tank moves to the next tank, which has aerobic features, oxygen is introduced into the liquid. The third tank has more bacteria in it, that bacteria and filter clean the water for discharge.
In accordance with Allegheny County rules, the water passes through ultraviolet light to make sure there are no pathogens left. The water is then described as agricultural quality. It is not drinkable; however, it can be used to water plants or crops. That water is released into the stormwater system and carried to stormwater creeks that flow to Turtle Creek and eventually the Monongahela River.
The replacements are much more expensive and complex, requiring monitoring by a consultant, and Allegheny County requires annual samples. The installation can range from $5,000 to $20,000.
“This is like repairing the house. This is like our sewer line. We have to fix it, and I don’t have a problem with that,” Anthony Tirio said.