How Septic Systems Are Improving Lives in San Lucas

Written by Anne Castleton

Rosa and her family pose with their newly constructed septic tank

Did you know that nearly 50% of San Lucas homes don’t have indoor plumbing?

Even though I’ve been coming to San Lucas Tolimán for 30 years and spent a decade working around the globe on humanitarian and development projects, it wasn’t until recently that I understood the challenging sanitation conditions in San Lucas Tolimán and on Lake Atitlán.

Sanitation (safe ways to dispose of human waste) and hygiene (the availability of soap and running water to clean oneself) are major challenges in most developing countries. In San Lucas, I always stay in places with indoor plumbing, so I didn’t realize how difficult the situation is for most local people and how damaging this is to Lake Atitlán.

Constructing a “pozo”

Understanding San Lucas’ Sanitation Crisis

My understanding deepened when my San Lucas neighbor started building a pozo across from my house. I witnessed the daily construction (and cleaned up the dirt and dust that ended up at my house). A pozo is a rudimentary septic system made up of a deep hole at least 5 yards (or 16 feet) deep and 3 yards (or 9 feet) in diameter. It receives raw sewage and kitchen and laundry runoff through connecting tubes. It’s lined with large rocks that slow down the drainage, stabilize the effluent, and act as a first filter as liquid seeps into the ground. The top is sealed with concrete.

Julio Cesar Morales, the Mission Construction Program Director, estimates that 50% of San Lucas area homes have built their own pozos. The other 50% are using superficial pit latrines, which come with almost certain health issues (like skin rashes and insect infestations) and unpleasant odors. Besides the smell and health challenges, latrine users need to find sawdust and lime to absorb moisture and reduce smell and contamination. Every 6 months or so, they dig a new hole to move the latrine.

Constructing a “pozo”

How a Pozo Improves Family Health and Quality of Life

My friend Rosa’s family was selected for one of the Mission’s pozos. Before receiving it, Rosa spent one day a week at the lake doing the family’s laundry (think detergents polluting the lake). This cost her time and money (i.e., she paid a tuk-tuk to come home, given the heaviness of wet laundry). Now, the septic tank more effectively manages the water on her property, and with the time she’s saving, she’s weaving canastas (plastic market bags) to make extra money.

Rosa

With their toilet now draining into the pozo, they’ve also reduced drainage and standing water by connecting their pila (outside dish and clothes washing station). Rosa counted up the benefits of their new pozo: no smell, more time, less work, less expense, and no mosquitoes or other bugs. Her children spend less time out of school with sickness. Her face broke into a big smile as she said, “This isn’t just a blessing for me; it is a blessing for the whole family in both health and convenience.”

Bags hand-woven by Rosa

The Environmental Impact on Lake Atitlán

Finally, full of curiosity to understand the big picture, I took a field trip with Veronica Castro Ajcot, the Assistant Director of the Mission Construction Program. I learned about the dire health impacts and environmental consequences of not having any adequate sewage systems in the surrounding lake towns.

The fifteen small towns that populate the volcanic mountains surrounding Lake Atitlán have grown exponentially over the last 25 years. The lack of municipal sanitation systems means that ‘black’ (raw sewage) and ‘grey’ (kitchen/laundry runoff) water is dumped right into the lake. Add to that agricultural runoff (think chemical fertilizers), and the health of the lake today mirrors the endangered health of the lake’s indigenous communities.

Lake Atitlán

In 2006, the country passed a Regulation on the Discharge and Reutilization of Wastewater and Disposal of Sludge, which requires all municipalities to install treatment plants. But with no enforcement, less than 20% of sewage is treated and there are no testing mechanisms to know whether any of the existing treatment is effective. San Lucas Tolimán, like the other lake towns, lacks a municipality-wide sewage collection system as well as a sewage treatment plant.

Originally, when one of the Mission’s founders, Father Greg Schaffer, purchased land and oversaw the development of some of the 16 small communities that surround San Lucas, those communities had small sewage collection systems. None of these original systems included sewage treatment processes and with the population growth experienced in the San Lucas area, all these communities have outgrown their original systems and none have maintained them. As visitors can easily observe, the area around San Lucas is mountainous, and gravity sends problems downhill (to put it politely), creating drainage and sanitation issues for the communities below, including parts of San Lucas proper.

The Mission’s Pozo Construction Program

In San Lucas, there is no current plan for a municipality-wide solution. Instead, aiming for the next best solution, the Mission is slowly but steadily building individual family pozos. This reduces environmental damage to the lake and lessens the disease burden on local communities. The Mission’s pozo construction initiative began in 2019 in response to requests from local families in need. They build on average 16 pozos a year for $2500-$2900 each; some are part of new homes and some are stand-alone.

On my excursion with Veronica, I met 30-year-old Adonis, one of the Mission’s recent pozo recipients. He lives in a small compound with his wife and his two siblings. His sister is a single mom with two children. Within the compound, each of the siblings has a small house for sleeping; they share the outbuildings – kitchen, shower, and latrine. When his siblings joined him in the compound, the increased use of the latrine made their need for a pozo more urgent. They couldn’t control the smell with the existing latrine; they had to keep buying sawdust to absorb the moisture, and the hole filled up quickly, so they were frequently moving it around the small compound. It embarrassed them that their neighbors complained about the smell, and sometimes they or their neighbors had headaches.

Adonis (right) poses with his family

It is a global best practice among development professionals, such as the Mission, that project beneficiaries contribute to their new asset. Adonis’ family excavated the dirt to create the hole for the pozo; they provided sand and small rocks for the concrete, and they contributed the large rocks needed to line it. Rosa’s family cleaned up and prepared the space, bought 10 bags of cement, and contributed the large rocks.

Adonis poses with his newly constructed “pozo”

Adonis’ Dream for a Healthy Home

At the end of our visit, 30-year-old Adonis looked reflective as he stood on the concrete cover of his new pozo. He said: “My dream is to have a beautiful bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower. It will be clean, with no smell and no need for sawdust. We can stay healthy and be more comfortable.” Hearing this was sobering as I take my clean, functioning bathroom for granted. I hope that by sharing these stories and donating to the Mission, I can help others achieve this simple, sometimes lifesaving dream.

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