| Many people in
small communities, those with fewer than 10,000 people,
don't have access to public sewers. For these residents
alternative wastewater systems are often used to solve
their communities' public health problems and to help
them comply with the Clean Water Act.
The 1990 Decennial Census of Population and Housing
says 30 percent of all Americans live in small communities;
31.8 percent of the Nation's housing units are located
in these communities (Figure 1). The Census
contains information on the structural characteristics
of these houses, plus wastewater disposal methods
and types of plumbing facilities.
| Did
you know...?
77 million people live in small
communities.
11.7 million housing units in
small communities are served by
public sewers; 19.8 million use
septic tanks or cesspools, and
917,373 use outhouses or privies.
Pennsylvania has the most people
living in small communities (4.4
million), and Texas has the greatest
number of housing units in small
communities (1,877,889).
California has the highest number
of housing units using outhouses
or privies (67,865).
|
The sections that follow contain information
on small community housing, wastewater disposal practices,
and existing plumbing facilities. All data presented
here are derived from the 1990 Census of Population
and Housing. Table 1
provides a state-by-state summary of small community
population, housing, sewage disposal and plumbing
data.
Wastewater Disposal Methods
The Census Bureau categorizes U.S. wastewater
disposal into three types: public sewer, septic tank
or cesspool, and "other" means, such as privies and
outhouses. In large communities (those with more than
10,000 people) almost 93 percent of the housing units
are connected to a public sewer, 7 percent use septic
tanks or cesspools, and 0.3 percent use other means
(Figure 2). In contrast, about 61 percent of
housing units in small communities use a septic tank
or cesspool for wastewater disposal. Approximately
36 percent are hooked up to public sewers and nearly
3 percent use an alternative means of disposal. Other
states with large numbers of small community housing
units using outhouses/privies are: Kentucky (55,764),
Pennsylvania (47,902), Missouri (46,223), and North
Carolina (45,461).
Figure 3 shows that in eight out
of ten Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regions,
septic tanks and cesspools are used by more than 50
percent of the small community housing units. When
comparing the EPA regions, the proportion of housing
units using septic tanks and cesspools varies. For
example, in Region 1 about 71 percent of the homes
use septic tanks or cesspools for sewage disposal
as compared to 45 percent in Regions 7 and 8.
Plumbing Facilities
According to the Census, complete plumbing
facilities means that a housing unit has hot and cold
piped water, a flush toilet, and a bathtub or shower.
All three facilities must be located inside the home
but not necessarily in the same room.
Nationwide, 2.3 percent of housing units
in small communities have incomplete plumbing facilities.
This amounts to nearly three quarters of a million
homes that have inadequate plumbing. Alaska has the
highest percentage of incomplete plumbing facilities
(24.6 percent), followed by Arizona (7.8 percent),
New Mexico (7.4 percent), and Kentucky (5.0 percent).
When evaluated by numbers rather than percentages,
Texas has the highest number of incomplete plumbing
facilities (50,214) in housing units, followed by
Kentucky (41,707) and Virginia (40,162).
Small communities have a bigger problem
with incomplete plumbing than large ones. Figure
4 illustrates the disparity between the percentages
of small community housing units with incomplete plumbing
facilities and large community housing units with
incomplete plumbing facilities by EPA region. The
percent of housing units in large communities with
incomplete plumbing does not exceed 0.7 percent for
any EPA region, whereas in small communities the percent
is as high as 3.8 percent. As highlighted in Table
1, more than 70 percent of the Nation's housing
units that lack complete plumbing facilities are in
small communities.
EPA recognizes that small communities
lag behind others in addressing their wastewater treatment
and disposal needs. The Agency has, therefore, established
several financial and technical assistance programs
and centers to help these communities obtain appropriate
sewage treatment and disposal systems. To learn more
about these programs, visit the Office of Wastewater
Management's website: http://www.epa.gov/OWM.
| Additional copies of
this Fact Sheet may be obtained by
contacting the Office of Water Resource
Center in EPA at (202) 260-7786 and
referring to the document number EPA
832-F-99-060. You may also visit our
Website (http://www.epa.gov/OWM/smallc.htm)
to obtain other summaries of this
information. |
Small Community Census Data Tables:
* Note: To download
tab-delimited text, right-click on the selected
icon, then save the file to the desired location.
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