Taking The Lower Ground…
We lost a bid to provide a modular plant for a growing mobile home park in a pristine location, a few miles from municipal utilities.
The issue was strictly price – a traditional, old-technology plant that would make the acceptable level of impurity, given the liquid effluent was buried in a sub-surface field for additional purification. Lots of developers would do the same thing, but this is why they should think twice.
- First is simple economics. If you are required to put the effluent in a sort of septic field, you are losing developable land. You could be able to get by without that land for a few years, but what if the demand grows? You turn down that revenue or your start over, neither are good choices.
- What if in five years, the county raises its standards for the effluent quality being released into the environment? Just like tightening water usage in communities, these kinds of issues are going to come up more and more going forward.
- Finally, what about the environmental costs? Counties and the state’s Dept of Environmental Quality have to balance the economic viability of their area with the impact on the environment, so standards can vary in different areas. But western NC and many other places have very unique species only existing there, and they are very threatened by pollution. Salamanders, plants, birds, fireflies and bees are among the most sensitive to the smallest changes.