Presenting on Decentralized Wastewater at the Private Well Conference 2025
Our sister program, PrivateWellClass.org, held its third in-person Private Well Conference this past May in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Our joint teams were thrilled at the success of the conference — returning for the first time in-person since 2019. The event featured 31 speakers, seven lightning talk presenters, and 92 attendees registered from 25 American states and two Canadian provinces.
As one might expect at the Private Well Conference, the majority of the presentations centered on private wells, with the goal of providing well professionals with information and insights that could be taken home to protect their local groundwater and serve their community’s well owners. However, as we also know, on the majority of residential properties without community drinking water access, there is also no municipal wastewater service. In other words — Most houses with wells also have septic systems, meaning the two are intrinsically linked!
The proper care and maintenance of a septic system can impact the functionality of a private well, and vice versa. Keeping both systems operating properly protects the health and wallets of homeowners, as well as the groundwater and environmental health of surrounding properties.
This year, the conference featured two presentations that centered on septic systems, both given by members of our joint DecentralizedWastewater.org/PrivateWellClass.org team. For future conferences, we are certainly open to considering more abstracts for presentations that focus primarily on septic systems, as long as they do relate back to protecting and servicing wells. If you have an idea in this vein you’d like to pitch us, please send us an email at info@privatewellclass.org in order to chat!
We are already planning and considering new locations for next year’s Private Well Conference, so keep an eye on our newsletters and social media for further information!
In the meantime, you can check out the slides for our team’s two septic presentations. Downloadable PDF versions of each are now available, and all presentations from the conference will be posted to our YouTube channel as video recordings later this summer.
Onsite Wastewater Treatment System Assessment Tool: Lessons from Two Case Studies
By: Erin Huggett and Sallie Dolan
In this presentation, our scientific specialists Erin Huggett and Sallie Dolan presented two case studies of unique septic systems that were assessed with our onsite wastewater treatment system assessment tool. While the two systems were similar in type, Erin and Sallie highlighted how each installation had their own variations, and explored some of the more peculiar features (and even historical mysteries) of one of the systems. If you have any thoughts on these particularities, or any questions about the assessment tool, they want to hear from you!
Evaluating State Well and Septic Information To Determine Potential Locations For Extending Water and/or Sewer Lines
By: Hideyuki Terashima
In the final presentation of the conference, our research scientist Hideyuki Terashima discussed his research on determining potential locations for new municipal water and sewer lines from well and septic data. This five-year project aims to map underserved areas with higher usage of private wells and/or septic systems, identify publicly available datasets related to these systems, and develop a report outlining the criteria used to identify communities that would most benefit from transitioning to centralized water and/or sewer services. The mapping tool will be made available for RCAP and other partners to locate and potentially offer technical assistance to these communities.
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You can find the rest of the presentation slides from the Private Well Conference 2025 to peruse here. Remember to check back later this summer to see the video recordings!