The Scars of Project 459: The Environmental Story of the Lake of the Ozarks

10. Challenges in Regulating Pollution Sources

CHAPTER 10 Challenges in Regulating Pollution Sources Wesley Nyhaug is one of the responsible septic tank owners. He has made the lake his permanent home since 1998, and about ten years after he moved there he spent $10,000 to replace his septic tank. It wasn’t mandatory. The other system had been there since 1972, and Nyhaug knew it was time for a new one. “I just thought it was the responsible thing to do, and everybody has to do his or her part to keep the lake clean,” he says. “I don’t know if it was leaking or not.”1 The Department of Natural Resources isn’t giving people around here much help, he said. “They don’t seem to know what the problem is, and it’s going to take a while” until they figure it out, Nyhaug said. In years past, it took the agency longer to report E. coli levels about the public beaches, but the agency has started posting findings within a couple of days now. Something is going on, but Nyhaug can’t put his finger on it. Media reports in recent years have harmed the lake and make it seem like a “cesspool,” when in reality it’s just a few spots, he said. He’s concerned that people think the whole lake is contaminated. There have always been rains to wash things into the lake, he said. One of the more idealistic solutions put forth by community leaders for cleaning up the lake, or keeping it clean, is to get all four counties on board for one sewer district. This would streamline systems and ensure that all homes had waste disposal on the same grid, undergoing the same regulations, and the same checks and monitoring. But all that has come out of the idea over the years are a few committees formed to discuss such a plan, and a lot of discourse about why it won’t work. The EPA released a study in 1974 that outlined a watershed management plan for the Lake of the Ozarks. It touted the plan as “the most advantageous and economically feasible plan for protection and enhancement of the Lake of the Ozarks’ water quality.” The study’s summary highlighted an ongoing conversation: the absence of an overall system to collect and carry wastes to treatment sites. “For implementation of an effective area-wide wastewater management system, various local governmental administrative problems must be solved,” the report said.2 Even in the 1970s—decades before this book came out—the EPA was trying to find the solution that continues to haunt the area, as shown in the report. Most of the Lake shore residents occupy homes on individual lots in unincorporated segments of the Lake of the Ozarks Study Area. With the exception of very small, incorporated areas, the agency responsible for governmental functions in the Region is the county. Since only a small portion of each county is involved, and many lot owners are nonresidents who work away from the area, the county governments have not been compelled to furnish the normally expected utilitarian services. Those include water supply, streets and roads, sewerage, lighting, zoning protection and, of course, police and fire protection. The EPA study proposed a system, new at the time, which was completely pressurized rather than the conventional way, which is pumping using the force of gravity. The operation was proposed for use near residences and businesses. It wasn’t that long ago that it was common and acceptable for homes’ sewage systems to just drain directly into the lake. And, in some places, it’s still happening. The dumping is no longer legal, but reports about leaks or failing wastewater systems are a suspected underlying culprit of lake water quality. Thousands of homes still maintain a septic tank; many homes are 98 CHALLENGES IN REGULATING POLLUTION SOURCES now connected to systems. The area’s two largest municipalities—Osage Beach and Lake Ozark—built treatment plants and systems in the 1980s. But problems can still happen. Heavy rain flooded the system in November 1996 causing seventy-six thousand gallons of raw sewage to spill into the lake near the Grand Glaize Bridge. Osage Beach reported nearly eighty spills in the three years prior to that. A state law that became effective in 1996 required a permit for installing or repairing on-site sewer systems. A few years ago...