Wayne County, MO's soil, for a septic absorption field

Very limited

84.5% of Wayne County, MO's surveyed soil comes back "Very limited" in USDA's own SSURGO data, the county's dominant condition for a septic absorption field. That reading means a conventional system is a poor bet here - 84.5% of Wayne County lands in the strictest "very limited" bucket USDA uses. Wayne County covers 759.187 square miles and counts 10,820 residents.

This is a county figure, not a parcel figure

Wayne County's rating is an average across the whole county, not a promise about any one lot inside it. A site-specific perc test, usually $750-$1,850, is what a health department will actually require before permitting a lot in Wayne County.

System cost, conventional vs. engineered

Given Wayne County's rating, plan for the engineered-system range rather than the conventional one. The engineered-system range, $10,000-$40,000 (mound or aerobic treatment), is the more realistic number to plan around, against $3,000-$8,000 for a conventional system on the rare lot that passes.

Wayne County's rank among Missouri counties

Nationally, Wayne County, MO is the 1,737-most-constrained of 3,058 rated counties for septic soil. Within Missouri alone it ranks 92 of 114.

Further reading

How this rating is built, and its real limits · Conventional vs. engineered septic systems