Last winter, the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District began facilitating a program to help Rappahannock County homeowners improve the performance of their septic systems. Two grants from Virginia's Water Quality Improvement Fund made about $90,000 available to county residents for maintenance and replacement through the cost-share program.

Since then, 53 homeowners have participated in the program. Regular septic pump-out maintenance has been completed on 27 systems, repairs have have been completed on eight systems and one system has been fully replaced.

Repairs included patching leaky pipes, leveling distribution boxes and replacing the inlet and outlet tees in the septic tanks.

Several systems are scheduled to be replaced or repaired and many more regular maintenance pump-outs are scheduled to be completed.

The CSWCD is encouraging people to get their work completed because one of the two grants expires at the end of June and the district's employees would like to put that money to good use around Rappahannock. Anyone that has a home or business located within 300 feet of a stream in Rappahannock should call 825-8591 to learn more about the septic cost-share program. The district can save homeowners money while helping to keep their septic systems in working order.

The district has a septics display at the Rappahannock County Library, where brochures about the program are also available.