How A Tiny Tennessee Town Built A Sewer And Finally Started Growing

There’s only one place in Middle Tennessee that has built a new sewer system — from scratch — in recent years. Eagleville, the one-stoplight town of 650 people in Rutherford County, has cleaned up a foul smell that used to hang in the air. And the town is now seeing its first major development interest in a decade.

The sewer shows what an infrastructure investment can accomplish. Yet anyone involved with the city in recent decades also knows how much of a slog it was to move from septic tanks to a municipal sewer.

Until 2015, flushing a toilet in Eagleville could lead to a septic puddle in the backyard.

Ideally, septic systems filter out the waste and only send water to absorb into a nearby drip field. But aging and faulty septic systems had become a smelly hazard, raising concerns about public health and pollutants entering the Harpeth River.

Read more: http://nashvillepublicradio.org/post/how-tiny-tennessee-town-built-sewer-and-finally-started-growing