Septic System Installation in Port Jervis, NY

Sewer in the City, Septic in the Town of Deerpark

Most properties inside the Port Jervis city line are on the public sewer. The city owns the network of pipes that carries wastewater to the treatment plant on the Neversink River. New York City's environmental department owns and runs that plant under a 1931 U.S. Supreme Court decree. When a line from the house to the main breaks inside the city, that is a sewer lateral repair.

Step outside the city line and it is all septic. The Town of Deerpark has no municipal sewer and no municipal water system. Houses in Sparrow Bush, Huguenot, Cuddebackville and Godeffroy sit on a private septic system and a private well. That sets the limits on a new absorption area, since the design must hold separation from wells and water lines.

Soils and Bedrock Around Port Jervis

Port Jervis sits in Valley and Ridge country. A county groundwater study lays it out. Softer shale and limestone wore down into the valleys. Harder sandstone and conglomerate stand up as the steep ridges.

Glaciers cut the Delaware and Neversink valleys and filled them with sand and gravel. Those deposits form a mapped aquifer that runs from Summitville, New York down to Milford, Pennsylvania. On the valley floor a percolation test can run fast, and groundwater is not far down. The design has to keep the required separation between the trenches and that water.

Up on the ridges the picture flips. Hard bedrock sits under low permeability glacial till, so test pits often reach refusal well before eight feet. Water perches on the till instead of soaking through. Those lots usually need a raised or fill system so there is enough usable soil under the absorption area.

How a Septic Permit Works in Orange County

New York handles septic approvals at the county level. Plans for a residential system go to the Orange County Department of Health. Across the river in Pennsylvania that job belongs to a township sewage enforcement officer. The county works from the state Appendix 75-A wastewater treatment standards and the state design handbook.

Soil testing comes first. Orange County asks for at least two deep test pits, widely spaced, dug to eight feet or until refusal. They go in or right beside the proposed leaching area. Percolation tests are required, and the system gets sized off the slowest rate found in that area.

A licensed engineer or architect draws the design and the county reviews it. We dig the test pits for that soil work. Once the plan is approved we set the tank, install the distribution box and build the absorption area. Then we backfill, finish the grading and leave the yard ready to seed.

Water, Runoff and Wet Ground in the Delaware Valley

Two rivers meet at Port Jervis, and both run high in spring. The Delaware flooded three times in 22 months between September 2004 and June 2006. The U.S. Geological Survey published a study of the April 2005 flood from Port Jervis south. High water and snowmelt raise the water table on the valley floor in spring.

On a single lot that means standing water, soggy ground over a drainfield or a wet basement. Runoff from above lands on whatever sits below it. Yard and stormwater drainage is steady work for us around Port Jervis. French drains, curtain drains, catch basins, culverts and regrading move that water away from the house.

On wooded parcels off Route 97, the first step is often clearing a wooded lot for the septic area. Trees, brush, stumps and ledge come out with excavators. Dig Safely New York (811) gets called before we break ground on any of it.