Onsite Sewage Treatment Program

Information for Small Communities

Small Community Wastewater Education Program (SCWEP)

Our objective is to help communities find viable solutions for wastewater treatment that meet environmental, social and financial needs using a sound decision making process.

When a community faces wastewater treatment issues, a successful outcome is often more dependent on the process the community follows to address the issue than it is on the wastewater treatment technologies available to them. Our resources here can help your community work through a thoughtful process involving the entire community and can result in a viable solution.

We support the use of a 5-phase process to navigate through the big issues that communities must resolve: This process can help communities reach a resolution that fits the community’s needs and provides a system, or combination of systems that is economically and environmentally viable.

Working Through The Five Phases

 

What are the steps to success? pdf, 343 KB

How do we get started?

Who can help me get started?

Minnesota has thousands of rural ‘unsewered’ communities – incorporated and unincorporated areas located on prairie, forest and shore lands. These areas include the residents of many small towns, hamlets and shore lands that are currently not served by centralized wastewater collection and treatment systems.

Residents and leaders of these communities are looking to find viable wastewater treatment solutions that meet their environmental, financial and social needs using a sound decision making process.