Residents upset over septic upgrades

MARATHON COUNTY -- MYFOXWAUSAU - Some Marathon County residents are worried that they'll be forced to pump thousands of dollars into their sewage systems after mandated inspections.

Starting this year and then every three years after that rural Marathon County residents will get a letter giving them 30 days to get their septic system inspected. If it doesn't meet code, it could cost thousands of dollars to upgrade.

There are nearly 20,000 septic tanks in rural Marathon County. Many installed before 1980 and not inspected since.

Town of Holton Chairman and resident Richard Gumz says, "It came with the place. It's older than me."

Now a state mandate is requiring the county to develop a comprehensive maintenance program to make sure all septic systems in the county are inspected every three years.

Marathon County Conservation, Planning and Zoning interim director Jim Burgener says, "Two and a quarter million gallons of sewage being generated in the area where there isn't sewer and water available. Even if it's just a fraction of that going onto the surface of the ground, the risk to human health is very large."

But, residents in the rural northwest part of the county aren't happy about the mandate replacing a septic system comes with a huge cost that these residents can't afford.

Richard Gumz says, "The cost can be $10,000-$15,000 or more and to have something dropped on you all of sudden in this economic times of that magnitude, people don't have the resources."

Richard Gumz is chairman of the town of Holton, a resident and Board Supervisor for rural northwest Marathon County. Since word of these inspections came out his phone has been ringing off the hook.

Gumz says, "People are just living their lives, they're not thinking, oh, I'm just going to do my septic system. It's just dropping this on so many people and that's why I have so many calls because people have heard about it and they're concerned about it and they just don't know what's going to happen."

The Conservation, Planning and Zoning committee will take up the issue at their meeting April 6th.