The $20 Flush

Yesterday I received a certified letter from the Pinetop-Lakeside Sanitary District. Before I even opened it I knew we were in trouble. About three years ago, Our do-gooder neighbor made a ruckus with the authorities about their neighbor who was alledgedly pumping their septic tank into the irrigation ditch that runs through our properties in Lakeside. She made enough of a stink (no pun intended) to force the District to put in a sewer line that ends at our property. I received all the notification letters that told us we would have to connect to the sewer and that it would cost a bundle in fees to the district let alone the cost of putting in about 150 feet of sewer line just to get to the main line. We seriously thought about it but in the end did nothing. After all, we only use our small cabin, tucked away in the pines, several times a year and have never had problems with the septic tank. Why should we as upright citizens be forced to absorb unnecessary heavy costs placed on us by an overbearing government. This is the kind of reasoning that allowed us to ignore all letters and instructions from the Pinetop-Lakeside Sanitary District for the past three years.


We hadn't heard anything from the Sanitary District in the past two years and thought they had forgotten. Yesterday's letter changed that. The District Turd Patrol had sniffed us out and weren't going to be ignored again. Yesterday's notice threatened criminal prosecution. They gave us two months to be connected or we'll be faced with a class 2 misdemeanor. I guess that's better than "be out of town by sundown".

I've calculated that over the next ten years at our current usage, it's going to cost us about $20/flush over using our septic tank. All I can say is, that from now on, I'm going to hold it until I get to the cabin to get my money's worth.