Before you blow this off,

look at the dates and places of these tragedies...it's not in the wilderness 200 years ago, it is happening today in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and New York City. 

Some of them are cases where the cesspools (illegal in most states for decades) got old and caved-in.  And you are going to see this happening more and more because they were made out of cinder blocks.  Guess what happens to a cinder block after 30, 40, 50+ years in a wet, caustic environment?  It starts to crumble.  The truth is there are millions of these old cesspools around the country and no one bothered to keep track of where they are. 

And don't think for a minute just because you have city sewer today you are safe...your home could still have an old cesspool in the yard and you don't even know it.  In the 1940's the bulk of the population lived in the cities because you needed to be close to work (contrary to popular opinion not every American was a farmer).  But by the 1950's transportation improved and people began moving out to the suburbs in record numbers.  And these communities sprung up so fast that sewage treatment facilities could not keep pace. 

Rather than wait the 5 to 7 years it would take to build treatment plants the builders simply dug these 10 to 30 foot deep cesspools in the yards.  Quick, simple and cheap.  And when those plants were finally built (usually 10 to 20 years late) the building codes stated that the cesspool was to be filled in, but to be blunt, no one ever enforced it. 

What this means is, if your house was built in 1963 but the sewer lines didn't come through until 1975...you could have a cesspool somewhere on your property.  If you fall-in and you survive the fall, you may get out alive.  But if it is still being used the chances of coming out alive are slim to none because the methane gas causes you to pass out in a matter of minutes, then you drown.  

NOTE: Many of these neighborhoods are still waiting for that big pipe!  At one time almost all of Long Island New York was cesspools.  Today a large portion of Long Island are still on cesspools.  And many of those homes that are now on city sewer were not filled in as they should have been.  The CBS Early Show and Evening News did a news story on October 26th 2005 shot on Long Island and in New Jersey that points out this danger.         

However you will also see a lot of "accidents" that were caused by human error.  A contractor finishes working on a system and doesn't bother to cover it up, or the top of the tank was not secured allowing children (with their natural curiosity) look into the tank.  Or a homeowner decides to try and work on the system himself (ask the guy from Iowa how he spent Christmas Eve...funny story but could have been deadly).
There are inexpensive ways you can protect yourself...but you are going to have to read through a few of these news stories to get to the solutions.  Why the drama?  Because this is no joke.  Read on to see what I am talking about.  The next news story could be about you, your family or your neighbors. 

*In the 1990's many states began to realize septic systems needed to be maintained but people were not doing it, so they began requiring easy access to the tanks.  What this meant is they used a riser to bring the access port up to the surface and a cover placed over it.  At first they were made out of concrete but there were a few problems: First they were ugly.  Second the concrete would breakdown from the sewer gas.  Third, they were heavy and hard to work with.  So manufacturers began coming out with plastic risers and covers...but now we are seeing problems with these. 

The plastic can get easily damaged when hit with a lawn mower, cracked in the cold, retaining screws strip out and the UV light (and sewer gas) can make them brittle.  Now what is happening is children are stepping on them and because the cover is round, it flips on its axis, the child falls in and the cover slams back in place.  There have been 4 incidents of this occurring in the last year alone and as more of these risers are installed, age and get damaged the number is going to go up dramatically in the coming years. 

The solutions are simple: get a www.fakerock.com to cover it up, or build a small decorative cover (a fake well house or windmill) to protect it.  Don't let your child become the next victim.