On-site treatment system keeps sewage out of Nicholas County’s Lake Carnico

CARLISLE Sewage no longer fouls Lake Carnico in Nicholas County, thanks to an environmentally friendly project that naturally treats wastewater from nearby households.

But it took 22 years, persistence and patience for local officials to piece together funding, and to have the treatment system designed and built for a total cost of more than $2.7 million, said Denny Gallagher, chairman of the sanitation district that oversees the system's maintenance.

"When I set out to do something, I like it to be done," Gallagher said.

Lake Carnico is a jewel in Nicholas County, a rural county of 26,000 people about an hour north of Lexington. Finished in 1962, the 114-acre reservoir was created by damming several unnamed tributaries to Brushy Fork Creek. Its largemouth bass, flathead catfish, bluegill and crappie attract fishermen from around the region.

Initially people erected weekend fishing cabins around the lake, but as time went on, some 103 single-family houses were built near its five miles of shoreline. Home prices around the lake range from $175,000 to $230,000 or more in a county where the average price for a house is closer to $110,000 to $125,000, said county Property Valuation Administrator Michelle Knapke McDonald. When they're for sale, houses around the lake tend to spend less time on the market than those elsewhere in the county.

For years, homes around the lake were served by aging, failing septic systems or by holding tanks that could be pumped out periodically to dispose the sewage elsewhere.

Trouble was, untreated sewage was finding its way into the lake, and something had to be done to stop it.

"It wasn't polluted, but it wasn't crystal clear, either," Gallagher said of the lake.

Hooking on to Carlisle's sewer system would have been prohibitively expensive. So Nicholas County Sanitation District No. 2 found an alternative: rather than send the sewage to the city, it is treated on site.

That is done with something called a "recirculating gravel filter," said Joe Pavoni, an engineer with GRW, a consulting engineering firm in Louisville.

Continue reading here:
On-site treatment system keeps sewage out of Nicholas County's Lake Carnico