State to review plan
4/20/16
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday moved forward with a draft plan to manage private septic systems, which includes a provision to test streams and rivers for possible contamination of fecal bacteria.
County Environmental Health Division supervising environmental health specialist Carolyn Hawkins said the water testing will allow the county to determine whether human waste is responsible for contaminating four local beaches and surrounding waterways. Hawkins said the alternative is retaining the current program, which requires landowners living near these bacteria-impaired waters to follow stringent and expensive building rules if building a new septic system or repairing an existing one. “You can differentiate the source of the bacteria,” Hawkins said. “We want to use that to help focus our efforts so we’re not spinning our wheels and going off in the wrong direction. If we see a human source, then we know more about where to focus our efforts.”
The county’s sewage management rules have not been updated since 1984, Hawkins said. However, the state adopted new regulations for these private wastewater systems after nearly a decade’s worth of work in 2013, which the county has been implementing. Hawkins said the state’s new rules allows local governments to create their own set of septic regulations through a Local Area Management Program.
After receiving the board’s unanimous approval Tuesday, the Environmental Health Division is planning to submit the county’s 122-page septic management plan to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board for review by May 13.
Hawkins said the plan maintains many of the current regulations on the septic systems, formally known as on-site wastewater treatment systems, but has some major changes from the state program regarding sewage lines near impaired waterways. Under the state’s rules, anyone planning to repair or build a septic system on property located within 600 feet of a bacteria-impaired waterway must follow a stringent set of building standards.
The four impaired watersheds the county is basing their regulations on are Trinidad State Beach, Luffenholtz Beach, Moonstone State Beach and Clam Beach.
The county has been following this set of rules for the last three years, but nobody has sought to build a new or repair an existing septic system in that time, Hawkins said.
Several supervisors expressed concern that the state’s program could financially encumber some property owners whose septic systems are nowhere near the impaired waterways. The expense in bringing these septic systems up to compliance with the new state standards was also a concern.
First District Supervisor Rex Bohn said the issue is similar to medical marijuana compliance, stating that “if we overprice it, we’re not going to get any results.”
The county seeks to deviate from this system by testing the creeks and rivers that drain out to the four impaired beaches.
Dave Spinosa of Environmental Health said the county’s proposal will result in more than 300 properties being included in the study rather than the 67 properties the state’s program would affect.
“We’re more concerned with the source of contamination, which is more likely from upstream,” Spinosa said.
Humboldt Baykeeper Director Jennifer Kalt said she is concerned that the county’s proposal does not include testing for all six of the waterways in the county that have been listed as contaminated by fecal bacteria — Little River, Widow White Creek, Martin Slough, lower Elk River, Jolly Giant Creek and Campbell Creek.
“Ultimately I think it’s good that we’re looking at what the problems are and trying to fix them,” Kalt said. “It’ll be a work in progress I imagine.”
Humboldt Baykeeper collected the water samples that ultimately led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare these waterways as impaired last summer. Five local beaches, including the four listed by the county and Mad River Beach, were also listed as being impaired.
Baykeeper plans to continue tests throughout the next year, with the data being used to create a separate management plan for each waterway by 2020.
After the county’s Local Area Management Program is reviewed by the water board, the board of supervisors will have to adopt an ordinance to implement the plan. The plan must be adopted by May 13, 2018, according to Hawkins.
