INSIDE

Secretive sewer approach regretted

By Meg Olson

The county health department is hoping to clear the air after a local group advocating sewers used a new state law to promote their cause in a November mailing.

“I don’t like scare tactics at all and these are two separate issues,” said county environmental health supervisor Jeff Hegedus after reading the single unsigned page stating that “it has come to the attention of the Point Roberts Economic Development Committee” that state septic regulations have changed. The mailing states that many Point Roberts septics will not pass the inspections being mandated by new state laws and that a community sewer, if feasible, is the solution.

“Septic systems and their maintenance and operation are a separate issue from the sewer decisions the community has to make,” Hegedus said. “There are growth management decisions and the growth management issues you face are important. As a first step the community needs to demand a public process with integrity otherwise no one will benefit.”
Hegedus said he was disappointed by the alarmist and secretive nature of the mailing, which he believes came from two Point Roberts residents, who have met with him several times in the last six months. “They approached the health department with plans to form a utilities local improvement district (ULID) for sewers in two areas,” Hegedus said. The first ULID being proposed was for the section of Point Roberts west of Tyee Drive and the second for the Bell’s Grove area.
County planner Amy Petersen confirmed that her department stopped participating in the economic development committee last year because of concerns the group was not engaged in a public process.

“Participation has generally been by invitation,” she said. “Committees we work with should meet criteria the county supports,” such as being open to the public and meeting in accessible locations. At the Port of Bellingham, which oversaw the initial formation of the committee following the 1999 economic development strategy for the community they funded, Dodd Snodgrass said they had also distanced themselves from the group. “They wanted to pick who their members would be and as a public agency we couldn’t support that,” he said.

Hegedus said a subcommittee reporting to the county public health advisory board is now reviewing the new state laws regarding on-site septic systems, most of which went into effect in September 2005 but some of which have a delayed implementation date of July 2007. “We’ll kind of customize it to the local area,” he said. A proposal will be presented to county council and go through a public review before being added to county code.

“The new rule places a lot of emphasis on people knowing how to operate and maintain their septic systems so that they work better and last longer, similar to taking care of your car or furnace,” Hegedus said. The goal is to protect the environment and public health by reducing the number of septic failures, not to reduce use of on-site sewage treatment. “If you have good soils, on-site systems (OSS) work well,” Hegedus said. “If you don’t, sewer is a good alternative but there are others.” He suggested in some areas of Point Roberts with high groundwater the new Glendon BioFilter technology, offered on the Point by Hank’s Backhoe Service, would be a good alternative.

He said a lot of septic problems are not due to poor soils, but to poor maintenance. “They’re kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind,” he said. Like you would check the oil in your car and periodically change the filters, the county’s new rules will encourage people to pay attention and conduct regular maintenance.

The state law’s primary directive is that “the OSS owner is responsible for operating, monitoring and maintaining the OSS to minimize the risk of failure, including obtaining county approval for any alterations or repairs, periodic maintenance as required by the county, and assuring an evaluation of the system every three years for basic systems and annually for more complicated ones. The law does not specify who will perform the evaluation, whether it is the OSS owner, the county, or another party.”

Hegedus said the new county regulations will likely mandate that septic systems be inspected by a licensed specialist. “What we potentially envision is someone you call in the yellow pages who would be certified as an operation and maintenance specialist,” Hegedus said. The new rules did not come with new funding and the county doesn’t have the manpower to inspect all 30,000 septics in Whatcom County. They are also likely to adopt maintenance standards, such as regular pumping of septics for sludge removal.

As far as forming a ULID for a sewer system in Point Roberts, Hegedus said it was also part of his job to work with any group pursuing that alternative but “it’s also my job to make sure the public is informed,” he said. Because the recent mailing was alarmist, Hegedus said “it tells me the ULID effort here is sort of covert,” which limits its chances of success. “The approach is critical.”