EPIC and Blackwater

EPIC and Blackwater takes as its starting point EPIC's own statement that a septic tank is primary treatment and the field that follows it is the secondary stage, and sets out how an EPIC cell is designed to perform that role.

The document is arranged in nine parts. It opens with why a stone-filled leach line fails and why filter area matters more than storage volume, then describes the EPIC growth cell, the character of septic tank effluent, nitrogen, solids and pathogens, and what has and has not been measured, with the comparison basis stated for each result.

The design parts cover sizing from a percolation test, three design families (unlined, panned and EPDM-lined), the values carried on EPIC's 2022 construction drawings, and field alternation through a switching box. Later parts describe the tree cell and other configurations, the feedwater EPIC accepts, the approval route with regulators, and the measurements a pilot installation would need to make.

Every figure is marked by class of evidence: R for a measured result, D for a design figure and S for a sourced statement of mechanism or practice. The document is written so an engineer or reviewer can see what is settled and what is not, and it states that it is not a permit, not a water-quality guarantee and not a substitute for a percolation test on the actual site.