Eccentric: What is happening in Willisville?

Hart: Believe it or not, in the richest County in America, there are still over 100 homes that have an outhouse as their only bathroom.

About 8 years ago, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Loudoun Public Health Department agreed that it was a health hazard to have both active outhouses and shallow wells in the small village of Willisville—about eight miles northwest of Middleburg. It was proposed that all existing houses in the core of the village be upgraded to have working bathrooms and that an on-site wastewater collection and treatment system be installed for the village.

Unfortunately, the bureaucratic hurdles for the project turned out to be substantial and the project stalled until last spring when, at the insistence of Jim Burton, the County put the project into high gear. Subsequent stories in Leesburg Today and The Washington Post added momentum to the project.

Eccentric: How did Windy Hill get involved?

Hart: In June, the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority (LCSA) put the project out for bid but they didn't get any bidders. In short, there are lots of risks in this project: it is a small project with no economies of scale; people are living all over the construction site; it is a long way from town; rock isn't very deep; and the required drain field is really complicated. And, there isn't much potential profit to offset those risks. The private sector just wasn't willing to take on this job.

So, the residents of Willisville asked the Windy Hill Foundation to help. Based on our good relationships with Loudoun County, the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority (LCSA), and the Health Department, we were able to negotiate a contract that we think can address the risks but at a fair price to the County.

Eccentric: How much will the project cost and who is paying for it?

Hart: The project has two parts. On the house side, our subcontractors will build five new bathrooms (generally as additions to existing houses), drill two new wells, and de-commission six outhouses, failing septic systems, and shallow wells. That part of the job will cost $305,000 and will be paid for in three ways: the Loudoun Co. Housing Trust Fund will contribute $250,000; the Loudoun Community Action Agency will contribute $25,000; and Trinity Church in Upperville and its members are pledged to cover the remaining $30,000. Franny Kansteiner is leading that effort.

The other part of the project is the wastewater collection and treatment system. That involves several thousand feet of buried pipe, an on-site treatment facility, and a very sophisticated on-site drain field. All designed to be owned and operated by LCSA, the combined cost of this system will be about $850,000. By unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors, supplemental funding was approved to complete this project.

Eccentric: Why does this project cost so much?

Hart: In short, because the ground in Willisville doesn't perk.

If a developer were applying to the County to build a subdivision in Willisville today, it wouldn't be approved. But that isn't how Willisville got there. About 140 years ago, in 1867 when the community was founded, the former slaves who bought ground there paid what they could afford. It is no surprise that they weren't given the best ground in the County.

But the community put down its roots and they stuck. The beautiful stone church in the center of the village is a pretty good symbol of the community: solid and not moving someplace else. But, the ground still doesn't perk.

Nearly half of the cost of the Willisville wastewater treatment system will be for one of the most sophisticated drain fields in Loudoun County. The effluent from up to 11 lots will be completely disposed of on about one acre that doesn't perk.

Willisville is taking one giant step from recycling its waste--on-site--with 18th century technology to some of the most sophisticated recycling technology of the 21st century. That isn't cheap.

Eccentric: Wait a minute, I thought you were the guy who hated alternative septic systems?

Hart: I still do! Howard Lewis and I spent most of last spring explaining to anyone in Loudoun County who would listen that alternative septic systems are a bad idea as a tool for allowing development of individual lots that don't perk. They are a "fussy" high-tech solution that can fail all too easily in the hands of unsophisticated homeowners.

We also said, however, that they are really the only tool for helping homeowners who have existing homes on lots where conventional systems have failed, like Willisville.

And, we proposed that in subdivisions where there are multiple lots that don't perk, there should be a community system—owned and operated by LCSA-- instead of individual alternative systems.

Willisville is actually a model of how we might use community systems as a way to reduce the potential negative impacts from all those non-perking lots that the County has already approved for development. In the professional hands of LCSA, such a plant can last indefinitely.

Eccentric: Why is the Windy Hill Foundation willing to do this project?

Hart: There are two short answers: 1)it is our mission to provide safe, decent, affordable housing, and 2)we don't have the same profit hurdles as the private sector.

But there is more to our answer than that. We have a team that has done similar projects before. This is the same team that put the town sewer system into Virginia Lane (west of Middleburg). Except for the on-site treatment facility, Willisville is easier than that project.

We have a great working relationship with Loudoun County: Paul Brown in the Administrators Office; Alan Brewer in the Public Health Department; and Tim Coughlin of LCSA. It may seem that this project is behind but, without the unprecedented cooperation of these County offices, this project still wouldn't exist.

And, finally, we took this job because we live here. These are our neighbors. In the end, we are a community coming together to solve a problem. Isn't that what community, and community government, should be all about.