Abstract
In ... a community, whose method of disposal of wastes has been by means of septic tanks, the addition of a piped water supply can lead to a sanitary breakdown, in that biological activity in the soil, so necessary for final stabilisation and oxidation of effluents, is inhibited by additions of water, often in excess of the annual rainfall. The aquifer water table rises, soil air is displaced, anaerobic conditions prevail in soakage beds, and the area rapidly becomes an inefficient sewage farm.
The chief purpose of this thesis is to describe such a situation, in a rapidly growing district, and to indicate that where piped water supplies are available to a community, the hydrological cycle is not completed until these are discharged by satisfactory sewage disposal. The hazards to a piped water supply in an unsewered community also will be discussed. In so doing I hope to show that a water, satisfactory at its source in the headwaters on the catchment area, is not inviolate, within the reticulated system.