Strategies for Rural Development in Areas with Limited Public Infrastructure: Alternative Septic Systems
Genl Management - Decentralized Water Systems
Communities also have multiple strategies to consider for the extraction, purification (if needed), and distribution of potable water to serve new development in growth areas that are not served by public water lines. These strategies can be easily categorized using the same terms that were applied earlier to wastewater treatment systems:
- Onsite water supplies may consist of springs, shallow or dug wells, or drilled wells that supply drinking water to a single home or business on the property where the well is located.
- Clustered (also known as multi-user, community, or shared) water supplies, serve multiple homes and businesses within close enough proximity to share a water supply and distribution network. The well may be located on one of the private property lots, on public property, or on land that is held in common by the homeowners association or other entity that manages the system.
- Centralized water supply systems often store large reserve volumes of drinking water in public water towers and replenish them from multiple sources, which can include local surface waters. These systems usually contain a centralized plant or plants that purify the drinking water before it is distributed via a pipe network to a large number of homes and businesses. As with centralized sewer systems, centralized water service entails a very high infrastructure cost, so it is typically available only in densely developed areas.
- Decentralized water supply systems are actually centralized in the sense that they have a central coordinated administration or management structure, but they may contain individual onsite wells, small clustered water supplies, and centralized water supply systems, usually depending on which alternative is the best solution for each property in the larger decentralized system.
The Maine State Planning Office’s Technical Assistance Bulletin #1, “Groundwater,” gives a good overview of groundwater resource issues, and offers policies and strategies for incorporating groundwater and drinking water concerns into comprehensive planning processes. Some of the important considerations for selecting an appropriate management model include the environmental sensitivity of water resources in the community, potential public health risks, soil characteristics and site conditions in the management area that may determine both the size of leach fields and the need for additional pre-treatment technologies, and the desired density within the management area.
Related Work Plan Components
- Climate Change and Infrastructure Resilience
- Modernizing Communications/Electric Utility Infrastructure
Workgroup Contacts
In Aroostook County: Jay Kamm, Ken Murchison, Joella Theriault
In Washington County: Judy East
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