EOI Form for Wastewater Treatment Site Suitability

 

Effluent from septic tanks is highly polluting and can pose a significant risk to groundwater, surface water and public health. A lack of understanding of the treatment and disposal processes involved in on-site wastewater disposal has contributed to poor design, siting and installation of systems, resulting in significant environmental problems. In view of the need to safeguard public health, protect the environment and ensure compliance with relevant legislation, particularly the Building Regulations, improvements in the location and control of on-site wastewater systems are required.

 

This course enable site assessors to have a sufficient knowledge and understanding to be able to carry out site suitability assessments in relation to on-site treatment systems (i.e., septic tank systems or mechanical aeration treatment systems) for single houses. This course is based mainly on the EPA Code of Practice (2009) and the Groundwater Protection Responses for On-site Systems.

 

The course is intended for professional and technical staff involved in building control, environmental, planning, health and water services areas. Participants may be engineers, planners, architects, technicians, environmental health officers, etc. There are no minimum entry requirements for the programme.  However, prior Certification or equivalent in a related discipline is desirable, e.g. Construction, Engineering, Building Surveying, Architecture, Planning Agriculture, Environment, etc.  It is expected that all learners on the programme will have a good standard of English language, and numeracy skills.

 

This is a 6-day course.

The following topics will be covered:
·                        Risks posed by effluent to health and the environment

·                        Basic geological and hydrogeological concepts

·                        Groundwater Protection Schemes

·                        Overview of types of wastewater systems

·                        Site characterisation

·                        Selecting a system using the EPA Code of Practice

·                        Case studies

·                        Current research

 
Course Entry Requirements

It is desirable that participants will have a primary third level technical qualification and will ideally have been involved with and will have background knowledge of issues related to the siting of on-site systems.

 

There is assessment in the form of exam (question and answer) and skills demonstrations, leading to a QQI Specific Purpose Award (6N2213).