We recently bought a home close to a lake. The house has 2 sump pits and the previous owners had raised the pumps due to a high water table. I don't like the smell of stagnant water so I lowers the pumps back down. They are sort of right... we are pumping a lot of water but it's from an underground spring! The water is rushing in to the front pump! The first couple of days after lowering the pumps there was a horrid smell which I figured was the drain tiles airing out. Bow, 2 months later, I am getting a bad sewage smell again. We are on a septic system and the water is rushing from the front of the house to the back of the house so I know it's not coming from my septic system. I have 2 questions. 1. what else could this smell be from? And 2. Is there anything I can do to decrease the amount of water coming into my pits?

Depends on so many factors such as the slopes of the terrain on sides, front and back of home etc. But if the it smells like a septic system it most like is from your septic system or one from an adjacent property. I guess it is remotely possible that a spring could be contaminated by a septic system and smell like the septic you have described. What evidence to you have of a spring and do you have positive drainage away from your house? What types of surface runoff have you seen? Sorry for all of the questions but there are not necessarily simple answers to your problem.
If you know the location of the spring (where it comes closest to the surface of the ground) there are methods of spring control and diversion of the water produced from the spring. But expect work of that type to be very expensive.
First- have your septic system checked by a qualified plumber and rule out your own system as the source of the odor.
Does your jurisdiction require certification of septic systems and a pump out prior to closing on the property? Did you have the property inspected by a certified home inspection company? Does the odor only occur after heavy rains?

Depends on so many factors such as the slopes of the terrain on sides, front and back of home etc. But if the it smells like a septic system it most like is from your septic system or one from an adjacent property. I guess it is remotely possible that a spring could be contaminated by a septic system and smell like the septic you have described. What evidence to you have of a spring and do you have positive drainage away from your house? What types of surface runoff have you seen? Sorry for all of the questions but there are not necessarily simple answers to your problem.
If you know the location of the spring (where it comes closest to the surface of the ground) there are methods of spring control and diversion of the water produced from the spring. But expect work of that type to be very expensive.
First- have your septic system checked by a qualified plumber and rule out your own system as the source of the odor.
Does your jurisdiction require certification of septic systems and a pump out prior to closing on the property? Did you have the property inspected by a certified home inspection company? Does the odor only occur after heavy rains?

Water drains from my property rather well, I believe. There are no spots where it puddles. I had the utility company come out to test the water to ensure that it wasn't from a broken supply line, which it wasn't, and the water is crystal clear. Upon investigating it, the water I was injecting yesterday did have a slight brownish color. It has been raining a lot the last week.my septic was inspected by a well known and used septic company. I have no knowledge of certifications though. I did, however, use a removable sealant around the lids and pipes coming from the pits and there is no smell coming out now. When I first lowered the pumps they were running about every 5-7 minutes. My front pump has been running non stop for almost 2 weeks now. I lifted tge lid to check it out and the water is hitting the pit so hard that it is spraying into the seep holes on the side of the pit! So it's not just coming in from the drain tiles. I have dug out both of my ejection lines to make sure they werwnt broken. I hope I answered your questions.

What did the septic company determine and/or recommend?
If the water is spraying with a lot of force, whether it is a rising water table or a spring it sounds to me like you have to find a way to divert it at a point well away from the house. It may not be feasible to control the volume of water with sump pumps.
For instance, if you are located on a property that slopes toward the lake, you could even be encountering the water source that created the lake (assuming here that it is a natural and not a man-made lake). Again, just for this example you would have to have a trench excavated deep enough to intercept the water source at a suitable distance from your house, and then divert it with a perforated pipe surrounded by stone. You would then need an outlet for that pipe and the outlet would have to be at an elevation lower than your house foundation but still higher than the elevation of the lake (or the highest elevation the lake could rise to). Not saying that is the right answer for your situation but just trying to illustrate that this could be a complex and very expensive problem to solve.
I don't know where you are located and what the laws are in your region. In many areas of the U.S. the seller is required to disclose issues such as serious water problems of the type you are describing, in the property transfer process. If that applies in your case, and it wasn't disclosed, you would have legal recourse.
Sounds to me like you need either a good hydraulics engineer or a lawyer, or maybe both. This does not sound like a simple problem to me.

I
water drains from my property rather well,If you're discharging into the septic system with out a trap that's where your smell's coming from. Check it out. Good luck, Tom

IIf you're discharging into the septic system with out a trap that's where your smell's coming from. Check it out. Good luck, Tom

No, it's not. It has an option to but I keep that closed and pump to a field behind my house.

What did the septic company determine and/or recommend?
If the water is spraying with a lot of of force, whether it is a rising water table or a spring it sounds to me like you have to find a way to divert it at a point well away from the house. It may not be feasible to control the volume of water with sump pumps.
For instance, if you are located on a property that slopes toward the lake, you could even be encountering the water source that created the lake (assuming here that it is a natural and not a man-made lake). Again, just for this example you would have to have a trench excavated deep enough to intercept the water source at a suitable distance from your house, and then divert it with a perforated pipe surrounded by stone. You would then need an outlet for that pipe and the outlet would have to be at an elevation lower than your house foundation but still higher than the elevation of the lake (or the highest elevation the lake could rise to). Not saying that is the right answer for your situation but just trying to illustrate that this could be a complex and very expensive problem to solve.
I don't know where you are located and what the laws are in your region. In many areas of the U.S. the seller is required to disclose issues such as serious water problems of the type you are describing, in the property transfer process. If that applies in your case, and it wasn't disclosed, you would have legal recourse.
Sounds to me like you need either a good hydraulics engineer or a lawyer, or maybe both. This does not sound like a simple problem to me.

You're right, it's definitely not a simple water problem. The sellers did say that there's a high water table... but this is something else. I may check with a lawyer about it. All that the previous owners did was avert dealing with the situation by raising the pumps which in my opinion would only cause the water to stay under the house and add to risk of future problems! I'm pumping so much water that the field behind my house is starting to retain water!

The water being pumped into the field behind the house could conceivably be coming right back to the sump pumps (or affecting your septic system) even if the ground slopes down from the house toward the sump pump discharge. What is the elevation of the discharge point compared to elevation of the pumps. I don't know the lay of your land but sounds like many possibilities.

the water being pumped into the field behind the house could conceivably be coming right back to the sump pumps (or affecting your septic system) even if the ground slopes down from the house toward the sump pump discharge. What is the elevation of the discharge point compared to elevation of the pumps. I don't know the lay of your land but sounds like many possibilities.

I would say the pumps are lower than the field but the water is rushing into the front pump and not the rear. You can clearly see that the water is hitting the pit from the front of the house. I live in a small 2 road subdivision and there is a line of about 5 houses that are pumping a lot of water... my house is the last in line!

Could you pump to a location that will drain away as surface water maybe toward the lake (assuming that would be allowed in your jurisdiction).
On a much smaller scale, I had a situation where the easiest spot to discharge my sump pump would have resulted in it coming back in as it penetrated the soil so I had run pipe to a location where that couldn't happen.
If yours is simply going into the ground (especially at a point higher than the pumps) and you have water table and/or springs to deal with I think that you may be fighting a losing battle. Not knowing how your sump pit and pumping are designed, the water could originate from another point and appear to be coming from the opposite direction, as it is redirected through piping.