AN UNNECESSARY INVESTMENT

The septic tank is a wonderful invention, particularly for isolated houses in rural areas. In the modern version, the liquids and solids are separated, and the liquid is pumped through a "nedsivningsanlæg" (don't know the word in English), which lies under our back lawn. This consists of a relay of pipes with tiny holes in them, and which sit on a bed of stones. These act as a sort of cleaner, so that the water seeping into the ground is clean. Once a year, a local contractor comes and empties the tank of all the solid waste, and takes it up to the town sewage works, where it is processed along with the waste of everyone who is connected to the public sewage system. If for any reason the tank fills up before the planned yearly visit, a sensor activates an alarm, and I ask the contractor to come a bit earlier.

Once installed, the system is cheap to run, requiring only some electricity to work the pump, and an annual payment to the contractor, which forms part of the local authority rates. I would guess that the whole thing costs around £100 per annum per household.

When we bought our house back in 2002, the local authority made us invest more than £10,000 in a brand-new septic tank (the old one had no nedsivningsanlæg) on the grounds that "you will never be connected to the public system, it is simply not economic". A view which made sense at the time, since we live 500 yards from the sea; if we were connected, then our sewage would have to be pumped 3km uphill to the sewage works. So I was more than a little surprised when in 2011 the local authority decided to connect the four houses on our street, plus other isolated farms in the village, to the public network, and to charge us each kr.35.000 (£4,000 or so) for the privilege. After protesting violently, we were saved by the fact that our new installation was under 10 years old. But our three neighbours, all of whom have perfectly well-functioning septic tanks, could not escape.

At the moment, therefore, there is a large construction crew, complete with enormous digger and other assorted equipment, busily installing pipes along our road. Because the houses are far from each other, we are talking about at least 500 metres of pipes. Even with the forced contribution of kr.105.000 from the three households, there is no way that this is an economic investment, given that the labour costs alone are of the order of kr.10.000 a day. Furthermore, once the system is up and running, it will surely cost more in pumping costs than we currently use in pumping/transporting. This is like Keynes' idea of paying men to dig holes and fill them up again in order to alleviate unemployment.

What is particularly stupid about this whole idea is that it is in stark contrast with what is going on elsewhere. The local authority has decided that the sewage waste of 6 adults and 2 children needs to be pumped miles underground. Meanwhile, on the field next to all of this activity, the sewage waste of hundreds of pigs is spread indiscriminately all over the place. It makes no sense.

Walter Blotscher