Dictionary Definition
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Extensive Definition
A cesspit, or cesspool, is a pit, conservancy
tank, or covered cistern, which can be used for
sewage or refuse.
In the UK a cesspit is a sealed tank for the
reception and temporary storage of sewage. Because it is sealed,
the tank must be emptied frequently — in many cases as
often as weekly. Because of the need for frequent emptying, the
cost of maintenance of a cesspit can be very high.
In many rural communities, sometimes the builder
or installer of a cesspit will illegally breach the floor of the
pit after the final inspection by building inspectors so as to
allow liquid from the tank to escape into the ground. Such
incidents can give rise to locally acute pollution and may contaminate
the drinking
water supplies of others. Using a cesspit in such a condition
constitutes a criminal offence in the UK.
In the US, a cesspool is a dry well for the
disposal of sewage. Liquids leach out promptly if soil conditions
allow. Some solids decay and are leached out after some time. Some
solids accumulate, eventually blocking the escape of liquids,
causing the familiar cesspool failure or overflow. Cesspools are
discouraged, or are banned by local plumbing
codes, and instead connections to municipal sewage systems or
septic
systems are encouraged or required.
The typical American urbanite in the 1870s relied
on the rural solution of individual well and outhouse (privy) or
cesspool. Baltimore in the 1880s smelled "like a billion polecats," according
to H.
L. Mencken, and a Chicagoan said in
his city "the stink is enough to knock you down." Improvement was
slow, and large cities of the East and South depended to the end of
the century mainly on drainage through open gutters. Pollution of
water supplies by sewage as well as dumping of industrial waste
accounted in large measures for the public health records and
staggering mortality rates of the period. (The National
Experience)
In Huntington,
New
York, most households still use cesspools for waste drainage.
There has been a chronic occurrence of cesspool collapses in this
area. Since 1998, four cases of
cesspools collapsing and sucking in human residents that were
standing over them have been reported, injuring a total of five
people, killing one in 2001 and another in
2007.
See also
References
- The National Experience
cesspool in Czech: Žumpa