Did road work cause my drain field to fail?

Hi there,

There is a road at the bottom of my property, my drain field is on this side and a creek is on the other. When we bought our home the inspector checked our drain field by flushing tons of colored water down the toilet and checking for it at the creek. There was a culvert there at the time. He never saw any water. This summer the township came and removed the culvert and filled the road back in. We didn't have rain in weeks but now there is a puddle at the bottom of my yard, pretty much in line with the old culvert location. Could the road work have affected the drain field? Should I ask the township about this or will that open a can of worms? Any answers would be appreciated!

hey man said:

We didn't have rain in weeks but now there is a puddle at the bottom of my yard, pretty much in line with the old culvert location. Could the road work have affected the drain field? Should I ask the township about this or will that open a can of worms? Any answers would be appreciated!

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Not so much worms as hornets. You will probably be stonewalled.

With the two cases I'm familiar with, I'd say you need an attorney; I don't guess a puddle is considered "damages" but you may not need to prove damages.

Drain field failure is definitely damages, but a failure soon after the work [correlation] does not prove causality [that the failure was caused by negligent work].

I'd try to find out how soon you should see a change in your field after the work. Small changes probably require very sensitive tests.
Also find out the statute of limitations for suing the town; this might be a race between the statutory limit and how soon damages are evident.

There are several legal forums on the Web that can advise you for free. They'll mostly tell you what you may not expect from the US legal system.
Ask them if "one-party taping" is allowed in your area. This is a tricky area having to do with "expectation of privacy". If it's allowed wear a wire when you talk to the town. I certainly should have when I opened several cans of worms.

Good luck.

Go and stick your nose in the puddle. If you dont smell Sh&*(*, Then you don't have a problem. Before you start taping any conversation, flush some dye in the toilet and see if it shows up in the puddle if you really want to get careful.

Without better detail from you, its impossible to say, but unlikely there is a correlation.

Did they drive on your pipes? Backhoes on your drain field and the pipe leading to it just after a rain with tire ruts left behind?

Just installed a septic and I drive all over the field with trucks and backhoes every day to get some compaction. If its trench and rock, the effluent percolates into the SIDEWALLS only [by engineering standards in most locales] and compacting the earth over the trench is good. The sidewalls that accept the effluent are native earth and fully compacted by definition.

So unless they left ruts in your property and drain field, don't sweat it. If yes, call them up and have someone come and look at it before tossing any money into the dumpster known as a lawyer.

I live on a creek, and have puddles here and there with no rain after 5 months.

ballvalve said:

flush some dye in the toilet and see if it shows up in the puddle

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How many days between the dye in the toilet and the dye in the puddle? Won't a few gallons of dye be much diluted so it's almost colorless in the puddle?

I'll put my surveillance gear away for now.