[FanucM16i]

Long story short. Been in this house 5 years. When purchasing, dye test passed, no problems. My wife has been here 3 years. Just last summer we had our first backup into the basement (floor drains). Previous to that I noticed the filmy water around the septic tank area.

I dug down, found the leech bed line....water all around it. I dug a small drainage ditch away from it and perforated the line with the shovel....old faithful geyser for a few minutes....

Basically, my leech bed failed....or so I thought. After more investigation, I found that my leech bed is about 30 feet long at best.....single line...obviously "garage engineered".

Specifics of my system:
I have a 500gal tank....single unit..one building attached to the system. All lines from house go to septic including gray water.... We have a disposal but rarely use it...Two bathrooms, a super-efficient front-loader washing machine (at least now anyway), 1.6 gal toilet that gets used most of the time. My wife and I are the only ones here for now...

Here is the problem I found.... At the end of the "leech line" was a rigged-up plug by the previous owner. They blocked the end of the line which used to be just a free-flowing pipe. I know they installed it because I found all of the same gravel they used on the other side of my shed....they basically rigged it up so the house would sell....probably had their fingers crossed for the dye test. I cant believe it actually worked this long!

Bigger problem - my land borders a small lake. The land around this lake is owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers. My septic tank is about 1 foot from the line, and the leech bed leeches (if you will) onto their land....

I unplugged the line, and right now my system is leeching onto open ground.... It is on a large hill so the water doesnt stay surfaced long....but its nasty...

What the heck should I do? I had a septic company come out - they said I could be looking at 30K or more...driveway has to be ripped out in that area, grinder pump, larger tank, holding tank, and new leech field somewhere else on my property (up hill from current location - hence the pump and holding tank)...that is only provided the soil passes perk test.

Last option is treatment system.....

Do i even have an option to fall back on the seller? It was not disclosed....or has it been too long? Am I looking at a massive investment, or could I possibly rig up a better leech system myself...or am I asking for legal issues later?

No fun!! Thanks in advance for the help and for reading this!