Overview / Vision / Objectives
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Demonstration Projects Database

Benefits To Community

There are many onsite technologies and management systems that can provide a lower-cost alternative to conventional sewers. These systems are appropriate for use in many small and rural communities and in environmentally sensitive areas. It is important for the protection of the public and environmental health for small and rural communities, in particular, to recognize that proven technologies exist to collect and treat wastewater at a substantial cost savings when compared with conventional sewers. Having appropriate water and wastewater treatment infrastructure in place helps enable smaller communities to remain economically viable and to provide jobs for their residents.

According to the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, research and development efforts offer the most rapidly growing potential for improving public works performance. R & D efforts coupled with technology demonstration have the effect of removing or minimizing the barriers and risks confronted when implementing new technologies and practices. Such efforts also minimize the risk of implementing new technologies so that innovative approaches and ideas can be tried.  

Demonstration projects, such as the NODP, provide unique learning experiences regarding the entire process involved in onsite technology and management system implementation, and thereby enable local officials and others in the community to make better informed decisions. While engineers, designers, planners, and regulators are familiar with these systems in varying degrees, comparatively little attention is typically given to process factors that ultimately affect system performance within communities. These factors include community involvement, system performance goals, selection criteria, site suitability, operation and maintenance, and system management. Demonstrating the implementation of these factors through model projects and disseminating their results will lead to greater capacity at the state/regional level

This project offers a unique opportunity for selected communities throughout the Appalachian Region to implement appropriate community/onsite technologies and management systems using a guided process that is designed to maximize system performance and minimize costly mistakes in the implementation and operation of these systems. Additionally, this project endeavors to facilitate the wider adoption of onsite technologies and management systems by employing an approach to the implementation of onsite systems that involves partnerships with state/regional organizations, regulators, national organizations, and equipment manufacturers.

This project also employs a systematic approach to the decision-making process that ultimately impacts the performance of these systems. This decision-making process can serve as a model for other communities, and perhaps most importantly can act as a catalyst for appropriate regulatory reform within the states relative to the design and implementation of these systems. Such reform could lead to wider and more appropriate use of onsite systems and would thus increase the quality of these systems' performance. Wider use of onsite systems is desirable because the estimated cost savings are significant when compared to conventional systems.

Barriers To Community

According to the USDA Report, Understanding Rural America, the diversity of small and rural communities makes understanding and assessing their needs no easy task. Regardless of other factors, the USDA report recommends that efforts to assist rural areas take into account the following four common rural characteristics:

• Rural settlement patterns tend to be small in scale and low in density.

• The natural resource-based industries on which many rural areas have traditionally depended are declining as generators of jobs and income.

• Low-skill, low-wage rural labor faces increasingly fierce global competition.

• Distance and remoteness impede rural areas form being connected to the urban centers of economic activity. In addition to the characteristics common to rural areas, there are cognitive and systemic barriers regarding the collection and treatment of wastewater that impede small and rural community access to basic wastewater services, such as:

• Lack of awareness on the part of small and rural communities of the severity of environmental, regulatory, and infrastructure problems.

• Small and rural communities lack expertise and knowledge regarding wastewater treatment and disposal infrastructure.

• Lack of coordination among infrastructure players: federal agencies, state agencies, regulators, and consultants, who respectively establish compliance standards, enforce regulations, and who serve small communities by designing and  implementing water and waste disposal technologies. Responsibility   for making  and implementing environmental policies and programs is divided among the federal, state, and local governments. For many  small and rural communities there is little coordination between the three levels of  government. Nor is there adequate coordination between government and the private sector. Additionally, according   to the USDA report "there is no single recipe" or "one size fits all" policy or process that works in addressing the challenges faced by small rural communities.