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Resident urges 20-homes-per-acre cap for septic drip areas, citing failing step systems
Summary
At a Wilson County Planning & Zoning Committee meeting, resident Ken Young urged the committee to adopt a 20-homes-per-acre cap for septic (step) system drip areas to limit ponding, nutrient loading and repeated system failures; staff described regulatory limits and inspection processes but no formal action was taken.
Ken Young, a resident of 421 Shops Creek Road, told the Wilson County Planning & Zoning Committee on April 21, 2025, he recommends a legislative cap of 20 residential houses per acre of septic (step) system drip area to prevent recurring failures and downstream nutrient loading.
"When you have 100 homes on the step system, that's egregious," Ken Young said, describing examples of existing step-system densities he said are much higher than his recommended cap. He urged the committee to put a "guardrail" in place so future subdivisions do not repeat the same problems.
The committee was shown a list Young said came from an executive director, comparing existing step-system densities: Academy Road Treatment Facility (113 homes per acre), Man Road (66 per acre), Cedar Grove (47 per acre), Ridgewater (47 per acre), Poplar Ridge (32 per acre) and several others. Young said some of those systems have open complaints tied to named neighbors and would take "years and millions of dollars to fix." He said his 20-homes-per-acre recommendation is higher than some neighboring jurisdictions' loading rates, which he cited to show it is not intended to slow growth.
A planning staff member and others on the panel described the regulatory purpose for monitoring step systems. The staff member said state regulators (TDEC, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation) and the county investigate when ponding is observed because ponding can cause nutrient-laden discharges to downstream waters. "When they see ponding, we need to investigate and find out what's causing that so it does not run off-site and create nutrient loading on the streams," the staff member said.
Committee members and staff discussed that some step systems have been placed into compliance after notices of violation and that the county monitors sites and issues notices where necessary. No committee motion or vote on Young's proposed 20-homes-per-acre cap occurred at the meeting; the matter remained in the discussion stage and Young offered to meet with staff and to pursue a workshop or additional outreach.
Young and other speakers emphasized environmental and neighbor-complaint impacts rather than claiming the county has already adopted any particular numeric standard. The staff reply cited TDEC's preference that soils percolate rather than create point discharges; beyond that, staff said remediation and compliance are handled case by case.
The committee did not set a next step on the record (no ordinance or formal referral was adopted at the meeting).
