Septic Engineer in Utica, NY

Septic design around Utica: an honest starting point

If your house is inside the City of Utica, you almost certainly do not need a septic engineer. The city is a member of the Oneida County Sewer District, and its wastewater runs through the district's interceptors and pumping stations to the county Water Pollution Control Plant. That plant opened in 1968 as a regional facility, and a major upgrade will give it 65 million gallons a day of dry weather treatment and 111 million gallons a day in wet weather.

The septic work in the Utica area is just outside the city. The district's member towns include Marcy, Deerfield, Frankfort, Schuyler, Whitestown, New Hartford and Paris, but membership does not mean every parcel in those towns has a sewer main out front. Marcy, for example, reports sewers on about 80 percent of its area. The rest of the land, and the towns outside the district, rely on private septic.

That is who this page is for: the owner of a lot on the hills above the valley, a farmhouse on a back road, or a house whose old system has quit. Designs are prepared and stamped by a New York licensed Professional Engineer (PE). Backwell coordinates the tests, the plans, the approvals and the installation.

The ground around Utica

Utica sits on the Mohawk River, with the river and the Erie Canal passing through the north side of the city and the Utica Marsh northwest of downtown. USDA soil data for the Utica area shows mostly urban land mixed with Honeoye, Alton and filled ground, plus Lima, Aurora and Wayland soils. Those same series run out onto the unsewered land around the city, and each one sends a septic design in a different direction.

• Aurora is moderately deep, with bedrock at 20 to 40 inches. Appendix 75-A asks for at least 4 feet of usable soil above rock under a conventional field. Aurora cannot give that, so these lots go to shallow trenches, raised systems or mounds depending on how much soil sits over the rock.
• Honeoye is very deep and well drained till with bedrock past 60 inches, but some pedons have a dense substratum at 20 to 38 inches. The deep hole decides whether that layer is there.
• Alton is gravelly outwash with high to very high conductivity below 40 inches. The concern is the reverse of wet soil: effluent can move too fast for good treatment.
• Lima is moderately well drained limestone till that can be dense.
• Wayland is floodplain soil along the river and creeks, wet and not a place for a field.

Steps from test pit to approved plan

1. Send the address. We first confirm whether a sewer is available. Estimate in 1 hour.
2. Deep hole. At least one test hole at least 6 feet deep in or next to the field, per Appendix 75-A. Near Utica the main question is often how far down rock or a dense layer sits.
3. Perc tests. At least two per system.
4. Design. Sized at 110 gallons per day per bedroom for new construction, with a 1,000 gallon tank minimum for 1 to 3 bedrooms.
5. Local permit. The town or village where the lot sits issues the permit.
6. County review. The Oneida County Health Department, Environmental Health, 800 Park Ave., Utica, approves alternative sewage treatment technologies for individual homes and gives technical help to towns and engineers.
7. Install and certify. Backwell builds to the plan, inspected before cover.

Fees and the county grant

The Oneida County Health Department plan review fee schedule (revised March 2022) lists $500 for an individual sewage system and $150 for an individual sewage site survey. A realty subdivision costs $50 per lot for plan review plus $25 per lot for filing. Fees can be paid by check to Oneida County or online. Construction cost follows the soil, so we price it after seeing the address: a written number in 1 hour.

For replacements, the county program reimburses 50 percent of eligible costs up to $10,000 for properties within 250 feet of a listed priority waterbody. The list includes Hinckley Reservoir, the Upper Mohawk River and its tributaries, and a tributary of Upper Sauquoit Creek. Eligible work includes repair, replacement or an upgrade such as an advanced nitrogen removal system, and the estimate has to itemize engineering and design. The program ends March 31, 2027 or when the $200,000 is spent.

Why water supply matters here

Hinckley Reservoir supplies municipal water to about 130,000 people in the greater Utica area, and it is one of the county's priority waterbodies for septic replacement money. Out past the water mains, most houses have a private well, and Appendix 75-A keeps an absorption field, raised system or mound 100 feet from a well and 100 feet from a stream, lake or wetland. On a hillside lot with shallow rock, finding a spot that meets both distances and has enough soil is the real design work.

Common problems on lots near Utica

Rock at two feet

Aurora ground leaves little soil over rock. Appendix 75-A allows a mound when bedrock is at least 2 feet below grade, high groundwater at least 1 foot down and natural soil percs faster than 120 minutes per inch. See shallow bedrock septic design.

Gravel that drains too fast

Alton outwash passes a perc test easily. The design has to slow the effluent down enough to treat it, which can mean pressure distribution. See pressure distribution design.

An old system that failed

A replacement still needs a design that meets today's code. See septic replacement design.

Timeline

Testing is one day. Plans follow. County review applies to alternative designs. Raised systems with fill that must settle add six months unless the fill is granular sand or sandy loam compacted in lifts. Installation is days of equipment time.

Sources

• Oneida County Sewer District, facilities
• Town of Marcy, sewer department
• Oneida County, public water supply and sewage program
• Oneida County Health Department, plan review fee schedule
• Oneida County Health Department, permit fee schedule rev. 12/25 (address)
• Oneida County, septic system replacement funding
• Oneida County, septic grant application
• NYS DOH, 10 NYCRR Appendix 75-A
• Hinckley Reservoir (Wikipedia)
• Utica, New York (Wikipedia)
• USDA NRCS, Aurora series
• USDA NRCS, Honeoye series
• USDA NRCS, Alton series