The city has subcontracted to upgrade our neighborhood sewer main. They dug large holes in each home backyard easement so they could re-connect the service line to the main. Our hole is approx 5 feet wide x 3 foot across x 8 foot deep. All the dirt and rocks that came out of the hole is piled in our yard while they worked for 2 weeks. There has been a period of 1-3 days (hard for me to tell exactly) where our home service line was not connected to the main. Our raw sewage (and our rear neighbor's also) emptied into this large hole directly. You could look in there and see the toilet paper, poo, etc. (No smell actually.) When they went to reconnect us after this period of no connection, they used 5 gallon buckets to bale out the raw sewage. I witnessed them doing this at least 10 times. They dumped dark brown water onto the dirt pile, where they dug little pockets to absorb the sewage.

The dirt pile and area where they dumped the raw sewage is 3-5 feet from various edible plants. Lavender, chocolate mint, tomatoes, oregano.

I'm trying to get a straight answer about my family consuming any herbs and vegetables nearby. I have tried contacting the city water dept, health dept, the city inspectors. I'm getting the run around. They claim this practice is normal. When asked about the safety of eating from my garden, they say they wouldn't worry about it. One higher level inspector said that he himself has his vegetable garden planted over a septic system. He said the dirt acts like a filter and the lime in the ground helps even more.

What do you say? Would you wait a certain amount of time before consuming? How long?

(Cross posted on the Herbs forum as well)