Opponents Fear Drainage System Will Allow Development on Preserved Land

They are nothing more than mounds of earth, often camouflaged by grass. But in the fight to stave off suburban sprawl in northwestern Montgomery County, sand mounds have taken on unusual prominence.

Twenty-five years ago, county planners created one of the nation’s most ambitious land preservation programs, setting aside 93,000 acres for farmland and open space. To deter residential development, they kept public water and sewer service out of most of this agricultural reserve, forcing property owners to use wells for water and septic systems to filter sewage into the ground for absorption.
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The mechanics of sewage disposal are well-known to residents of Montgomery’s “upcounty.” In a conventional septic system, waste flows into a storage tank, then into a drain field where the soil soaks up most of it. In a sand mound system, a pump carries the sewage up into a man-made mound of sand and gravel, bypassing the unsuitable soil. A pipeline then lets the waste drain down through the soil.

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