Many seepage pits in Lenwood remain unfilled

LENWOOD • Three and a half years after the county finished hooking Lenwood’s houses up to Barstow’s sewer system, as many as 200 unused seepage pits may remain as gaping holes buried a few feet underground.

The county finished hooking up the sewer lines in April of 2005, but the project ate up its entire budget before the county could complete the process of filling in and sealing the pits, said San Bernardino County engineering and construction division manager Jim Oravetz.
Out of an estimated 420 pits, 220 were filled by the county, he said. Of the remaining 200, some homeowners may have paid about $1,200 to have the pit filled in and sealed.

Lenwood resident Mike Blaisdell was left to deal with his own pit. Rather than hiring a contractor, Blaisdell said he simply filled the pit with pea gravel himself. He was unsure how many of his neighbors might have taken the same initiative but speculated that many did not.
“There is a lot of them up there that aren’t filled in,” said Don Brown, owner of Don’s Backhoe Service, who was contracted by the county to work on the sewer project.

The pits are supposed to be covered by a concrete lid, but over time, Brown said, moisture erodes the dirt around the pits, and acids from the wastewater eat away at the walls of the seepage pit, which may eventually cause them to collapse.

“People drive over them, not even knowing,” he said.

That was literally the case for at least one Lenwood woman, said county senior project manager Gary Martin. A seepage pit under her driveway caved in before her house before the sewer project started. Martin was also aware of at least two pits that collapsed after the sewer project was completed. No one was injured in any of the three cases, he said.

The county was never able to get a completely accurate count of how many seepage pits are in Lenwood or their locations, Oravetz said. With many of the houses in Lenwood built in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the documentation was not always complete, and there is no external marking to outline the location of the pit. Some properties have more than one, as the owners had new pits dug when the walls of the old ones hardened and stopped allowing the wastewater to seep out.

“In many cases, the homeowners themselves don’t know where the pits are,” Oravetz said.

Although several years have elapsed, Oravetz said the county has not forgotten the seepage pit issue. Reserve  funds and money from a bond redemption fund have created about $120,000 that the county can use to fill in approximately 100 of the remaining pits, he said. The difficult part will be determining where the remaining unfilled pits are and deciding which are the highest priority, he said.

Background box:
The Lenwood sewer project got underway at the end of 2003. More than 600 homes that previously used septic systems were hooked up to the city’s sewer system. The switch-over was mandatory. Grants from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture paid for most of the $7 million project; however each homeowner had to pay $3,200 to help cover costs. The project was intended to prevent wastewater released from the septic systems from backing up and overflowing onto the ground surface, a problem that had occurred in the past due to poor soil drainage.
Source: Desert Dispatch archives and San Bernardino County staff

Fact box:
• A seepage pit is a pit with a porous wall about 30 feet deep and 5 feet in diameter, buried 3 to 5 feet underground. It collects wastewater from a septic tank, which then seeps gradually out of the pit and into the ground.
• There are no markings on the surface of the ground to indicate where the seepage pit is. A plumbing company can locate it with special equipment for about $125.
• To report the location of a seepage pit or to get information on where the unfilled seepage pits are located, call the San Bernardino County Water and Sanitation Division at 760-955-9885.
Sources: Gary Martin, senior project manager with San Bernardino County; Roto Rooter, Victorville

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or asewell@desertdispatch.com