My dad has done a few like in the link in the soft sand and extremely shallow water table in sw fl. I'd be surprised if that would be a viable solution up north. Likely get stopped by a big rock in just a few feet.

I briefly though about driving points too, but I think it is too rocky and water is too deep up here I think
 

Last year in late may I was able to hit water in my back yard in 18" of hand dug earth. I have two wells in my backyard and which one is a dug well line with Rock original to the house and another one that is about 30 foot deep that was a shallow Drilled well. but yes it is very hit or miss up here, and I am only a few miles from the big lake. fishing guy you are correct with the big rocks as of about 10 years ago we triEd a Dug well out in town of albion /altmar, and we hit huge rocks about six foot down. they were wet with water running over them but not deep enough for our needs

Do you think last year is the start of something, that being a late run?  I am thinking of delaying my visit till Columbus Day.  

I have a driven point in my basement, but am also hooked into town water. They are very common in my area, but we sit on a large strata of sand and gravel. This geo-feature  extends over into Saratoga County and the Home Despot actually sold the pipe, drive couplings and points for driven wells. I'd be leery of E.coli and chemical contaminants getting into the shallow aquifer. 

If there is no leach field, where does the "flush and showers" go?  I don't recall a sewage treatment plant in Altmar.  Unless you have a holding tank and pay someone to pump when it gets full.....
 
Check the Oswego County Sanitary Code on well requirements, whether the driller needs to be certified, all the little details that are a lot cheaper to deal with in advance than to fix later. Also be aware that the property line is irrelevant to distances from waste disposal systems, it is what else is nearby and up gradient, and despite the rural character of Altmar, where you are is fairly dense.  This is one where a call to the Health Department could be very helpful, as they may be able to tell you where you can dig, and where the best site is, and may know about all the other utilities in the area.
 
2B pointed out your "compound" to me on a ride through a couple of years ago>

I have seen more than one 55 gallon septic. Heck the one at our farm wad an old Buick with the Windows rolled up for close to 50 years. Just got it replaced 10 years ago. With neighbors and codes now L is right though.

Standard on parts of Irondequoit Bay (and all the other bays) and up in a the 'daks for years was a cedar box, but they don't meet any code anymore, and you are not doing the river or any other water body nearby any favors.  When you see all the dark green cladophora growing on  the rocks and all the fine black sediment  accumulating in the slow spots, a lot of these old systems, which are not much better than straight pipes, are part of that problem.  At least in the 'daks, the predominant soil is sand, unlike the till on the hill and surroundings.     

Lucky the sediment and cladorpha seem to get worse and worse... Ispeaking of water quality, i've actually got a question for you I've been meaning to ask you about: Eel treatment is the subject. What are your thoughts??? To my knowledge it is a newer practice in the past ten years. I've noticed this river getting scummier and scummier as they do it each summer. A few years back there was that few thousand breeder walleyes in sandy pond that died from the treatment. I've noticed browns and smallies die from it on the salmon and smaller fingerlings vanish from sight after their treatment The river is real scummy after they do their annual treatment. Thoughts please :)

The compound is specific if applied very carefully and conditions stay static.  But things sometimes go awry and there are some ancillary negatives.  The alternative, in relation to the fishery, is not pretty, could devastate the Lake trout fishery and put another serious dent in the salmon, brown and atlantic populations .  I even watched a gull pick one off a steelhead two falls ago in the riff going up out of the staircases. 
 
I did not think they did any of the tributaries every year, but maybe they hit the Salmon harder due to the large numbers of returning fish.
 
The algae and turbidity have to do with increased use of the watershed surrounding the river: aging of the infrastructure, 55 gallon or older steel tank systems, or systems not maintained (expected life of an onsite wastewater treatment system is 20-25 years), all those Amish horses pooping all over the road, more active dairy, new construction, and just more people disposing of nutrient containing by-products of life in Steelhead Paradise.  Pretty soon the camel is carrying a lot of extra straws!
 
Once the crowds hit town in the fall, you used to be able to see the effluent coming out of the Pulaski Waste Water Treatment Plant sometimes (the discharge is about 3/4 of the way down the Black Hole.  I know they did a lot of upgrading, but the population swells considerably in the fall.  And NYS is the Greek Yogurt Capital of the World now, all those extra cows gotta go sometime (all the time!) and the manure generally ends up spread on a field some place.