Rising Sea Levels Are Going To Make Things Much Shittier - Literally - For VA Coastal Residents
As sea level rise accelerates along the Chesapeake coast, an old threat to Virginia’s water quality may be rearing its head. Failing septic systems have been a perennial problem in the commonwealth — one that led a soil scientist working on the Middle Peninsula to once christen Virginia the “septic repair capital of the East Coast.” And when septic systems fail, pollution follows. Leaks can send sewage into groundwater and surface water, creating risks for human health and pollution in the Bay and its rivers.
Now, with sea level rising and land continuing to subside, the historical threat has taken on new urgency, particularly in the Middle Peninsula, Northern Neck and Eastern Shore of Virginia. Largely rural and separated by both land and water from the state’s metropolises, all of these regions rely heavily on septic systems to meet their residents’ sewage disposal needs — and they will be some of the first to see the impacts of rising waters.
“These systems were not built to be able to withstand flooding,” said Del. Keith Hodges, R-98, who since 2012 has represented much of the Middle Peninsula in the General Assembly. “It will increase the number of failures that are out there, or it decreases the life expectancy of the system.”
Hodges’ belief is backed up by both research institutions and state agencies. The Virginia Coastal Policy Center found that because septic systems become less efficient in water-saturated soils, failures “will only increase as Virginia confronts imminent sea level rise,” and flooding may “compound the issues that already exist.” And at the Virginia Department of Health, the state’s primary septic regulator, the issue is being discussed by an internal Climate Change Committee formed this January.
EDIT
https://www.bayjournal.com/article/septic_system_failures_expected_to_increase_in_coastal_va
