Jordahl: Shall we get back into business here? Back in session to the informal meeting December 8th. Director of Public Health Graham Dameron, you have some other representative from the Department of Health as well.
Public Health Director Graham Dameron: Yes. We have (inaudible) prevention. Hillary Maurer, Environmental Health Specialist. Talking about the proposed onsite waste water rules treatment and disposal system. I think this is a very significant date. December 6th, 1968, when we enacted the rules and regulations for the County, so it's 2 days short of 30 years. This is a major revision since that point in time. I have to go teach a class here in just a few minutes...
Jordahl: I apologize for the delay. You were on the agenda much earlier.
Dameron: But Hillary Maurer will go over with you some highlights. Also we've had a department proposed fee structure related to the proposed regulations. This has gone through a long process. We've been working on the different proposed rules for about a year, and it's gone through the Board of Health. We've had at least 3 meetings regarding these regulations. We had a hearing as required by the law. Last month the Board of Health forwarded these to you for your consideration. I felt it was best to bring it up in informal meeting to get the highlights and answer the questions that may come to you, and then we'd ask for your approval of these rules and regulations that we've been working on. This is also a combination of the state rules that were put in place in May of this year and are some of the reason why we needed to revise these rules and regulations. Thank you for your time. Hillary.
Public Health Disease Prevention Manager Kot Flora: A lot has changed in 30 years, hasn't it?
Jordahl: Every 30 years or so you ought to look at your regulations. This is a sweeping (inaudible).
Stutsman: Carol, do we have to have a public hearing on these?
Dameron: No.
Stutsman: The Board had it, so that takes care of the public part of it.
Environmental Health Specialist Hillary Maurer: That goes into replace page 10. There's the fee (inaudible) schedule. Do you want another copy?
Stutsman: OK. So instead of saying twice. Been there, done that.
Maurer: You might ask any of the Board members... Did any of you bring your...
Stutsman: I've got mine.
Maurer: Oh you're so good.
Jordahl: I did not if you have a spare copy.
Maurer: You bet, you bet.
Maurer: Charlie, do you need another copy?
Lacina left at 10:02 a.m.
Stutsman: Carol did give Board members copies of them.
Jordahl: Right. That we've had them.
Peters: That's what I was saying. I should have brought mine to the meeting with me. You know how it is, you give somebody a couple of days off.
Stutsman: They just fall apart. Carol was reading it on the plane on the way home.
Jordahl: The one thing that... First of all Supervisor Lacina has a conference call that he needs to participate in in Des Moines. He stepped out for that reason. I really wish Supervisor Bolkcom was here given his background with the Department of Health.
Stutsman: He helped work on these, didn't he? Wasn't he the Supervisor on the committee that reviewed.
Flora: If I can just day something really brief before Hillary. Probably explains more in depth some of the major changes, and I assume that's what you would like to hear, right?
Jordahl: Yes.
Flora: The staff has been working on this revision since January, so its been a long process. What we would like to do in the future is start bringing more amendments to the Boards of Health and Supervisors that are less huge. I think Pat White also would like to see us do that. It's quite a task for us to go through it and make all the changes in fell swoop. But it's also a task for you to comprehend what all we're doing when it's such a massive number of changes. But a lot of it is a result of problems that we've seen come out of the County as it develops differently than it was 30 years ago. We're really trying to address some issues that we're seeing as problems now. We're trying to work more towards prevention. When we get to the point where you look at the separate table, the sheet that describes the fees, I know that's an issue for folks. But there's no way we can monitor or track or get a handle on the various types of systems and the ones where the uses change with those that are commercial or industrial without a fee schedule to help defray the costs of monitoring those systems. Most of these things are the activities to the extent that we would like to start monitoring is not being done now. That's something that if we can't do that then we will not have a handle on, for example systems that are designed to have a discharge, we will not now the quality of that discharge. We feel very strongly that we need to have some of these... We need to have these fees in place so that we can do our job. If it comes down to not being able to have these fees, the result will be that we just won't know what's going on with those systems out there that have been problematic. We will be called in when somebody reports discharge in a ditch, or a failing system that we could of maybe prevented that failure through annual monitoring and consultation. We're really trying to get a handle on this. With that, I think I'll turn it over to Hillary.
Duffy: Can I ask a question? Are we speaking of residents? I thought you said commercial/industrial property or just what are we talking about?
Flora: Well we're talking about multiple...
Duffy: Anything...
Maurer: This regulation is for all on-site systems that produce where there is commercial industrial or residential. Produces 1,500 gallons of waste a day or less of domestic type waste only. When we talk about commercial/industrial, we're talking about the office someplace, or a business that doesn't have chemicals or anything like that require extra treatment, that all would go to the Department of Natural Resources. This is just for domestic waste generated on-site, 1,500 gallons a day or less. It doesn't really matter whether it's residential or commercial/industrial. It has to be domestic waste and it has to be in that volume, or less.
Duffy: In other word there might be someplace in the County. That means that we might have inspections of houses. I still don't understand...
Maurer: No. What is required by the State is that any permitted waste water system that is designed to discharge treated waste, like a sand filter or mechanical aerobic unit that treats the waste then discharges it. Any system like that is required to test.
Stutsman: This is a state regulation, this isn't a local. This is what the state is saying.
Maurer: Yes. It has been that way for a while. The State has redoubled their efforts and now created something NPDES permit number 4. That is a blanket permit for the entire state. Anybody after January first of 1998, so it's been almost a year, who has installed a system that is designed with a discharge has to go under that permit with the State. One of the requirements of that permit is that the effluent be sampled periodically whatever that is. It's different for different systems.
Stutsman: You're just putting in a fee structure so that you can comply with what the State has already put in place and you just want to get paid for the work that you're going to have to do to comply with the State. How did you come up with this fee schedule. Did you base it on estimate of your time? Was it something the state put out as an example?
Flora: We estimated the amount of time it would take for staff to conduct the work. A lot of this would be field-work and data management in the office, both.
Stutsman: OK.
Flora: We tried to be extremely conservative about what it would take so that we weren't asking for a permit fee that's higher than we need. Trying to be very careful about that.
Jordahl: Just to cover the costs.
Flora: Yes.
Stutsman: Has the Board of Health approved the fee schedule?
Flora: No. This is a recommendation from staff. Graham, Hillary, and I sat down and worked on this. Our Board felt that we could establish some recommendations for you to consider.
Stutsman: They weren't interested in approving anything? They just said bring it to the Board.
Maurer: Correct. Charlie did I answer your question?
Duffy: Yes you did. I think in the rural area going to see a lot of things change. Alternatives other than septic systems and sewers, which isn't one of my greatest ideas. I think this Board... I've talked to Graham and probably you folks about it, there's other alternative systems that Association of County meeting that we had down in Davenport a couple of years ago, I thought was a great one. There's some high powered ways to handle waste water and sewage that we haven't talked about much. I know myself I'd like to have more help form the County health department. But there are alternatives to handle this.
Maurer: When I get down to section 19 which is requirements for re-zoning and platting of parcels utilizing on-site waste water systems, I'll address that a little bit because we tried to keep that kind of thing in mind with that.
Duffy: Thank you.
Flora: Would you like Hillary to outline the major changes?
Jordahl: Yes. We need to proceed and get through the rest of our agenda before 11:30.
Maurer: OK. I will try to be brief.
Jordahl: But be...
Maurer: I wanted to stress that though there are substantial changes in this regulation, how an on-site system goes in and the rules that govern the materials that go in and the construction practices have not changed very much at all. For the person getting the permit and hiring the person to do the work, the process will be seamless. People won't notice the difference. For us though, we see major improvements. For us, I think our favorite improvement is, now the state is allowing us to use soil evaluation in lieu of percolation tests for determining the type of system to put on a property and how big to make that system. We have been using soils in tandem with the results of perc tests for several years. We do a site inspection when we receive an application. We go out with our probes and check the soils and look for signs that the property is or is not suitable for on site systems. Or conventional. By acknowledging that soils are important the State has allowed us then to write what we have been doing into the rules, so we will feel much more comfortable about it. Plus, we're hoping that that task, in fact we're counting on that task, falling more to the engineers and soil specialists to do, rather than us. I lost my train of thought.
Stutsman: The soil scientists can do it instead of the percolation test.
Maurer: Yes. It's a much more accurate system. What we envision is this professional going out, finding a suitable place on the lot, before they dig a hole, before they do anything, for percolation test if that's what they want to do. They find a good place on the property. That way they're not wasting anybody's time by just digging some holes and running a test that we reject in the end. Get people up to speed on how to evaluate properties properly. We call that a site characterization in here. When they find a suitable site on a property they can move on to the analysis of the soil at that site. That will make a huge difference in the amount of time that we spend going and going and going back and back and back with people trying to figure out what's going on with a property. Hopefully it will become even more seamless for people. We're excited about that. Also, the State has put in its rules, so we have transferred that, some new technologies, drip irrigation is one, that is used for just disposal for treated effluent from mechanical aerobic units. Constructive wetlands are now an option by rule in here, not just...
Stutsman: What is a constructive wetlands? I read that and I thought...
Maurer: It's basically a rock bed that is lined and has rock in it and then you do native plantings. We have one.
Stutsman: Weren't they talking about doing that...
Maurer: It's been an option for small communities for quite a long time. But this brings it to the site.
Flora: Disney World has...
Maurer: There you go. Florida would be a good place for that kind of thing.
Flora: And cold weather areas, too.
Stutsman: I was trying to visualize this... I thought could you build a house in the middle of a wetlands? Thank you.
Duffy: There's one off of Newport Road. Is that the one we're talking about? I've been over there several times. There's a lot of cattails.
Maurer: Are there?
Duffy: Is that working pretty good?
Maurer: I'm not familiar with it. It's not in my part of the County.
Duffy: You know where I mean don't you?
Maurer: Yes.
Jordahl: What about odor there? You got sewage lagoon, you got odor. This is not an odoriferous thing.
Flora: It's sub-surface. There's a rock layer, I don't know how many inches above the water level, and it's not considered a problem.
Jordahl: So these cattails are visibly growing out gravel?
Flora: You plant them in gravel.
Jordahl: Are the cattails happy growing out of gravel?
Maurer: They are.
Flora: Look at your ditches. Where's there is water there are cattails. They haven't filed any complaints.
Duffy: There's a bunch of them growing.
Flora: But you do bring up a good point. We do have that one system, the constructive wetlands system, and we aren't really going out and sampling it. We did initially. Under this enhanced fee structure we would be able to do that for folks on a regular basis. Even though they are supposed to be doing it themselves we would be able to facilitate that. Go out and grab samples and have that be done on a regular basis.
Jordahl: Is there a discharge from the constructed wetland.
Maurer: Yes. It's a lined series of beds. So there is a discharge.
Stutsman: Does this apply to existing? You talked this one, so even though it was done before these had been adopted, this is going to apply to all existing systems and future systems?
Flora: That is good question for Pat White.
Maurer: The sampling has been required for many many years. It is the homeowners responsibility to do that. I don't think most homeowners realize that. Because we don't get the results. They may be doing it. But we're not getting the results.
Flora: But in terms of the permits, I feel that Pat White needs to help us with that. I'm not sure were we stand on that.
Maurer: The requirement is there nonetheless.
Flora: We would be divorced from developing that database on that particular system. We wouldn't really have a handle on that ourselves. But the requirement to sample exists whether or not.
Duffy: That's over 1,500 gallons?
Maurer: Under. We have jurisdiction for anything 1,500 gallons or less.
Duffy: Looks like we're getting the little guy.
Maurer: Anything above that is the Department of Natural Resources.
Stutsman: But these are alternative systems that we're talking about? Like if I put in just a standard septic system, would that be included?
Maurer: Yes, it's everything. This is everything. The systems that are alternative tend to take the forefront all of the time because they require so much more maintenance and monitoring and that kind of thing that when we talk about it we tend to forget that there's those old conventional systems to that are plugging away out there. But this includes everything.
Jordahl: Now when you say this you're patting the entire set of waste water regulations. When Charlie was asking you a question, does this apply to residential systems and or existing systems, the answer to that was no unless they have a discharge. Now you're saying this, I want to make sure that I'm following the hand to the right piece of paper here.
Maurer: The rules cover everything. The application fee covers everything. Alteration fee would everything. Permit extension fee would be everything. Penalty fee would be anytime somebody decides to do work without permit. The use permit and the operation permit are those that are specific to either commercial/industrial properties or discharging systems.
Jordahl: OK.
Duffy: That might change things for me. 1,500 or less. And that includes farm real estate or does it? As you get south here there's a lot of smaller farms. But I'd hate to see you running all over 300,000 acres of land to see if. I might have a problem with this now. Why don't we get the big guy instead...
Flora: Because we don't have jurisdiction, that's a State jurisdiction if it's over 1,500 gallons a day.
Duffy: Why did the State stop at 1,500 gallons? Didn't they think it was a problem,?
Maurer: It's their dividing line and every state is different. In Iowa is 1,500 because that's about 6 bedroom house or less, or a small office. That kind of thing. They decided that that was appropriate for on-site systems regulated by counties.
Flora: We couldn't regulate a system generating more than 1,500 gallons if we wanted to.
Duffy: Again, it looks to me now like we're getting the little guy like I just said. In other words, 50 gallons a day you might be regulated and I'm going to charge you $50...
Jordahl: Only for those cases as I read this chart, where either a new system is being applied for where you already have the same fee or were the system is being altered. The novelty here is in the area of... Say we're going to redig your drain field and see if you could extend it, extend the life of the system, then they want to be involved in looking at, is this in fact effective. There's been some reason I assume, that you would want to go in and alter your system. There's been a problem.
Maurer: We already do that to, Jonathan. That's something that we do with out fee now.
Jordahl: There's no fee now.
Maurer: Truthfully, it takes more time and many more trips to figure out what's going wrong with a system than it does to permit a new system. The $50 is realty deceptive because it would be much much more than that if we were to try to recover the actual costs. But because it's new, we felt like anything at this point would be good. It takes a lot of time and effort. But it is being done now. There's nothing new in here from what's being done today than what would be done under these new rules as far as who requires a permit. Everybody requires a permit if they've got an on-site system and they have since 1965. Whether you're on a farm or you're in small office building, if you generate less than 1,500 gallons per day and you propose to put it to an on-site system this regulation covers you.
Duffy: I can see alteration or a new system. But it's not clear to me that maybe some of these systems that have been used for years, in fact there's some outhouses around. But would that be, and I think Sally asked the same question. Just what are we talking about the ones that 1,500 gallons or less now that might've been in there for a long time working good are we going to kind of expect those...
Maurer: No.
Flora: If it's a conventional system that serves a house a farmhouse a home in the country and it's not designed to discharge any waste water, then nothing changes for that.
Stutsman: I think the discharge is important...
Maurer: Is very difficult to put it all together.
Stutsman: Right., Because it's only if there's discharge do we get in to this annual... If I'm reading this right too we have the initial permit and then you will be inspecting that annually, they'll have to reapply for another permit. That gets into the $35? Is that right?
Maurer: To cover the trip out there. Keep in mind too, it is already required that they sample. It's just that we don't think most people are because we're not getting that information. That hasn't changed; in fact what has changed is the requirement has been twice a year and the State changed to once a year. So we would be changing to a once a year inspection of that.
Duffy: Are we going to have to hire more help to get this done?
Flora: I think that we're going to have a technician go out and grab the samples. We don't have a huge number of these systems out there. We've looked at our records and it's somewhere around a hundred. But to be perfectly honest, because we don't have a database there may be more than a hundred. But that's not a huge number of systems to monitor annually. Again, part of the reason that we wanted some of these fees included that we do not have now, is so that we can track how these systems are working not only for the County's well being, so we know what the effluent is that's coming out of these systems, and we can stay on top of that. But also so we can help those property owners increase the longevity of their system. If there are problems with the effluent quality then that's triggering then maybe there's something going on with the system that we need to look at before everything breaks down and they need to install a completely system. If we don't have the ability to monitor this, then it is going to be left up to each homeowner to do on their own, and the County will not have handle with what's going on with these discharging systems. That's what we're doing now and I think it's, at least from the ad hoc committee standpoint, that was unacceptable. It's unacceptable from a public health standpoint. I think that even though it's more money per for these households and these commercial businesses to have this monitoring system replaced, in the long run it's preventative.
Duffy: What happens in some small lots, like out north of town? Half-acre lots. Are you monitoring that right now to see if their septic systems are working? I would think that would be more of a problem than this is.
Flora: This set of regulations that you have in front of you removes the on-site waste water management district. Which was the beginning of getting at that. It did not include those small lot older sub-divisions, if you recall. But, that was removed and we decided to retool focus on the systems in terms of permitting that we see as problems areas we see as leading to monitor the quality of the effluent. The commercial systems and the discharging systems. For those small lot sub-divisions we have the ability to permit alterations. But we see that as a real short term Band-Aid approach. We felt that with those small lot sub-divisions, the approach really needs to be more broad based, more looking at the entire sub-division to pull in maybe a package treatment plant to address the effluent needs of the entire sub-division. If you recall H.B. Calvert came to talk to you maybe half a year ago. He was from MAP, Midwest Assistance Program, that goes around and helps small communities develop water systems and waste water systems to address those needs. We feel that really the approach for those small lot sub-divisions needs to be non-regulatory, at least in terms of these rules, it needs to be broader. All we can do is write somebody up for having a failing system and that's not really solving the overall problem. We're looking for a different level of solution in those sub-divisions that you're not going to find the answer to in this regulation.
Duffy: The Health Board before the one we got now, had different idea on them. In fact I got there statement on my desk. Said it'd be a nightmare to go out and check everybody's septics.
Flora: I'm not sure what document that is. But this approach we're asking you to consider targets our prevention efforts at a much smaller group of systems than we were looking at under on-site waste water management district that's in the rules now.
Duffy: I'll try to get it...you have a copy someplace.
Jordahl: Does somebody have any further questions about this? Or we have more points that you want to...
Stutsman: Couple more points. Go ahead.
Maurer: Section 19, on requirements for re-zoning and platting. That's been reworked extensively. The upshot of that is that we want to match the process that we're asking for to the process that folks go through when they decide that they want to develop a property. The initial asking here would be for a broad look at the property. Areas of the property that have extreme limitations for waste water systems, areas that have easements, a very broad look at the property during the re-zoning process. And for platting it gets more specific. There's a list of things that a preliminary plat will have to have, page 4019.09. Where we get down to the nitty-gritty. But one thing, I don't know how familiar you all are with what we have now, right now we do require percolation tests every 5 acres or whatever it is. That is not here anymore because that was extremely misleading for folks. They thought that those percolation test were good forever no matter what happened to the property, everything would be OK. Lots were sold and bought under the assumption that conventional systems would go in because there was a perc test. There again we're going to use just soil analysis instead. This will give a more specific picture. But it will not be a lot by lot picture of what's going on. That will be something that won't happen until a lot is actually sold, or in the process of being sold.
Stutsman: Has zoning had a chance to look this over?
Maurer: They did not want to see it. They did not want to be part of the process. They will see it.
Duffy: Who came up with this again? Was there any Supervisors on the committee?
Flora: Yes, Joe Bolkcom.
Duffy: Oh Joe.
Flora: The ad hoc committee was included Tom Anthony of Landmark Surveying and Engineering, Joe in your Board, Pat Cancilla, Ken Johnson, who was unable to attend the couple of meetings but we did give him the materials and ask for his input, Diane Jocelyn from our Board of Health, Frank Kilpatrick who is on our Board of Health in the ‘60s and he was one of the original authors of our wastewater rules. He was an engineer and with the university for years. Judy Krieg, who's a geologist with MMS Consultants, and Bill Zimmerman of Zimmerman Construction. Those were the folks who sat on the...
Maurer: Who's a waste water contractor.
Flora: Right, sorry. Then we also sent the drafts out to the engineering who work with the other contractors we work with.
Maurer: Septic tank pumpers, manufacturers.
Flora: Their comments were incorporated into the rules where we felt they were appropriate. We really made the effort to divorce land development issues from public health waste water issues. We felt that some of the concerns that people had really needed to be addressed to the Land-Use Plan or to a broader body than these rules are intended to address.
Jordahl: To return briefly to the question of the small lot sub-divisions, and the level at which that should be addressed. You're sort of deflecting that from this specific consideration because you don't want to go in and do something regulatory. But if you have someone whose system fails, they're going to be in the position of investing in a new one, if it's possible even to do that on that lot. There'll come a point where it's economically important for that person to do one thing or the other. Either to go with a centralized system that would require some significant coordination. What's your vision of how that proceeds from systems poised to fail and are failing to a fix that will address everybody within that region, rather than just regulating each one individually. What's the process or what should be the process?
Flora: In terms of timing...
Jordahl: Timing, approach, unit responsible. Where should it be in a plan?
Maurer: In some cases there are government moneys available through grants and matching funds, that kind of thing. I know that there are folks out there who are looking in to that. The ad hoc committee was extremely interested in this and wanted us to convey to you that their overriding concern is with situations like this and the County develop a plan that moves those types of areas towards something more comprehensive that actually does address all of the problems.
Flora: H.B. Calvert with MAP, whose job it is to address these issues statewide, recommends that basically you find an area that is willing to have a centralized system go in so you have the first of these types of systems be something that is not imposed on people. But that they are ready for because their experiencing significant problems. Then you work through the funding, and MAP can assist in that process. That's what their business is. In terms of who hooks up when, I know that's a big issue. I suppose there are probably some incentives that you could use if you hook up initially the cost may be lesser than if you hook up later. But H.B. is really the expert in dealing with that. But I feel that that's sort of beyond the Health Department level. We would be thrilled to work on something like that if there were interest at your level. But I think at this point some of those would be specific to the site.
Stutsman: Jonathan I was going to say in the spirit of time I wonder if we should just stay focused on these regulations before us now and deal with that at some other time. I think it could be a whole separate discussion about where we want to go with that.
Maurer: It should be something that is discussed along with your land use, your plans to deal with that.
Duffy: I just question. Everything used to be septic tanks should be pumped every 3 years. Is that in this document or anything... I first found about that I used to be on Bruce Babbitt's committee for ground water...
Maurer: We're not mandating pumping.
Duffy:...(Inaudible) Wisconsin. I think they still do it. $6,000 a year from the State if they want to put a new septic system in. That isn't in here.
Maurer: There are several state that do require pumping. There are lots of sub-division in this County that require periodic pumping.
Duffy: Just gone ahead and do it. We do it out there...it's getting a little expensive last time around $30 because it goes to Iowa City's water plan. They're not cheap.
Flora: But that was in the on-site waste water management district section which has been pulled.
Maurer: That's been pulled. That's no longer on here.
Flora: What we're doing...
Duffy: How come? That was a big thing.
Flora: That was a big thing. OK Charlie, there were never any fees attached to that. We couldn't carry that out. We couldn't do anything, we couldn't staff it. That was one thing. The data management requirements of that section were huge. When we really backed up and look at it, what we realized is that those regulatory efforts were being focused at the newest systems in the County. What we were seeing was the major problems in the County were commercial uses that were not being addressed and the small lot sub-divisions. We felt the design discharging systems we had no clue as to how they were operating. So we decided to retool and really focus on what those issues were that we felt were most problematic. With the overall pumping your tank every 3 to 5 years approach, that we would instead take an educational approach, develop an in-service that we could take to homeowners associations and that we wouldn't drop that in terms of one of the components. But that it would not be regularity.
Duffy: I don't think it'd have to be. Even when you paid your taxes, for example, or else you go down to the health board and the person that did pump your septic tank just show the receipt. Forget it.
Flora: But we really felt there are some things that lend themselves to regulatory approach. That's really the only way to go. But there are other things that do not. We're trying to recognize what we do need on the rules and what we need to address through other avenues. We want to do all of it.
Duffy: How come you didn't try the voluntary approach first. I always like voluntary like Soil Conservation all that that really worked well. I've been asking questions because I know this budget is quite substantial if you really pump your tanks say every 2 years or so plus the inspections.
Flora: But you've got to take care of your system just like you've got to take care of any important piece of your home or your car.
Duffy: I have seen one when I used to knock around on this and I'm no expert. It was in there for years and years and years. Took a bulldozer and (inaudible) the septic pit. There wasn't anything there. The bacteria takes care of it. Might be a lot better than pumping it in the river. I'll tell you that.
Jordahl: I think as much as you have stated that your focus was on dealing with what you saw to be the worst problem areas, commercial and then you proceeded to say small lot sub-division, in as much as your regulations you've also stated do not address the small lot sub-division problem, I think it is germane to ask how you propose that we deal with that. I hear you asking for guidance from the Board of Supervisors, that may be something we want to wait until January to give you, because you're going to have to work on that into the future. But I want to encourage you to put this back on the agenda for us in the very near future because it is a problem whose solution is very much implied by your review of these regulations. I agree with Charlie, it would be nice if we could do this on a voluntary, educational basis. But we should do it, in my view. If we get 5 Supervisors sitting up here and come to an agreement about that, I'd like to see that process move forward in some way.
Stutsman: We do have to have a full discussion about it because it's going to be more staff. There a lot of small lot sub-divisions. If we're going to enter into regulating and if that's what the Board wants to do, then we have to realize we're going to have to put the staff in place to implement that. They have no function to put a regulation on the books and not enforce it.
Jordahl: I didn't suggest regulation. I meant to agree with Charlie and with (inaudible) that the idea of having volunteers doing it as an educational program offering it...
Stutsman: Sure but that's still going to require some staff time to do that. I think why it hasn't been done before is because the voluntary part of it doesn't always work. We may encourage people to be educated about their systems an updating them and what not. But quite frankly, a lot of people just don't realize what a maintenance of a septic system involves. If you're going to educate people, which I fully agree that that's the approach to take, it's still going to require some staff time to do it. I think we need to be fully aware it's going to require some additional resources. Right?
Flora: We're already doing some of that. Every time we go out to a homeowner and talk to a homeowner, we use that as an opportunity to increase that level. On a more formalized basis, yes. We're actually getting at some of those issues now. The small lot sub-division with the need to have centralized systems, for example, would be an approach over here. The education piece is here, the regulatory piece is here. But that small lot sub-division piece could be something that could be similar to Lake Crest Manor. They're operating their own waste water system. There are a lot of different ways that could be done. We would love to bring it back for a more detailed discussion.
Jordahl: Let's do that next year.
Duffy: But I hope we don't get into the dual systems. I never did like those.
Maurer: No. You don't see those in here.
Duffy: That was a mistake. I used to fight those.
Stutsman: I just had a couple just very minor things, for clarity on reading over these regulations. On page 8, section 4B, why don't we just say it should be valid for one year from the date of issuance and must be renewed annually. I thought that sentence was kind of confusing when they just say it must be renewed.
Maurer: Sure. OK.
Stutsman: It seems like it needs renewed.
Maurer: There you go. That's good. I thought these were perfect. Ignore that extra space in that paragraph.
Stutsman: On page 11, I feel more comfortable in that Table 2 if we say that the 10 and the 12 meant feet. I didn't see where it said anywhere. Does to mean yards, does it mean miles.
Maurer: It means miles.
Jordahl: We'd feel really safe with that.
Maurer: Good job. Thank you. One other thing under section 19 that I want to point because this definitely will have an effect on what is happening with what you're doing with land use. The way that is written is we're saying it is OK to have multiple systems, let's say it's a 3 acre of the County, which would be around the Coralville watershed area. You could put 5 houses there, and you could put them on 5 contiguous acres and leave the rest as out lot and that would meet this requirement. To this date, it has only been by board policy, Board of Health policy, to allow the density requirement to be interpreted that way. So this writes that in, that you can in effect cluster. But, here' the kicker, in no case no matter where it's at, no lot that's proposed for an on-site system will be less than one acre in size. If somebody wants to develop 20 acres and they want to put in half acre lots with out lots and that kind of thing, if they're half acre lots then they will go to a shared system, they'll go to a community system of some kind. That will have to be designed in. It is not appropriate to put on-site systems in a density greater than one per acre anywhere. That will change things slightly for folks as they're designing.
Duffy: Did you say 6... How many homes before we do this?
Maurer: It depends on the acreage density that was set out 30 years as Graham was saying in 1968, December of '68. 19.02, on page 39 that says the Lake McBride watershed is one system per 5 acres. Coralville watershed is one system per 3 acres. Everywhere else in the County is one system per one acre is the maximum. We would allow some clustering under that. But in no case would any lot be less than an acre and utilize these rules. They'd have to go to a community system if they want to go to smaller lots.
Duffy: Again, I think we are lax up here to look at alternatives. I believe there's one commercial property down this side of Davenport, I was going to say Stockton but maybe not, that has one of these huge systems that isn't really a septic tank. They didn't hook up top the sewer. Some day might want to drive down there and see if it's feasible go down there and talk to those folks. What did Washington County do? Didn't they have something down in Washington County. I'm pretty sure they did. I talked to Graham about it.
Flora: I don't know.
Maurer: I don't know.
Jordahl: Are there other items you feel you should highlight to us this morning. We do need to try and wrap this up.
Maurer: No.
Jordahl: What are we going to do with this, Board? Have this on for discussion again? Want to do a work session on this?
Duffy: First of the year maybe.
Stutsman: Pardon me?
Jordahl: Charlie said after the first of the year.
Duffy: So we could research some of these other...
Jordahl: We have state regulations you mentioned. They going into effect January first?
Flora: May of '98. They're in effect. Do have contracts that hinge on us passing in some form.
Jordahl: By what time?
Maurer: They're on borrowed time.
Jordahl: By yesterday.
Maurer: We're OK.
Flora: The State's rules are more stringent than our current rules in some of these areas. They would be the rules that we would have to go by anyway. We can't be less stringent than the State with these rules. Important to get it going. I think the State's rules went into effect in June or July.
Stutsman: It's been 30 years... I don't know quite what the advantages is until waiting until after the first of the year. We have State rules that are in effect since last January. I think put it on and get it taken care of.
Duffy: I didn't think the State thought it was a big thing or they'd have a lot less than stop at 1,500 gallons. We're talking about, is that right?
Flora: Yes, that's not changed
Jordahl: The 1,500 gallons has been in effect for some time, hasn't it? That's an older number, the 1,500.
Duffy: I think we'd better do a little more research on it.
Jordahl: We've had at the ad hoc committee and the Board of Health and the Department of Health staff working on this. I don't know if we're going to exceed them in research. You do have your own materials and background on this I know. I wonder if we couldn't... I think the agenda for the 15th is getting kind of crowded. Maybe we could put it on for the 29th. Joe's not going to be here then.
Stutsman: He's gone the 29th, too?
Duffy: Well he helped write this anyway.
Jordahl: I think all that week he's going to, at least I have that in the notes that he's going to be gone. That I will be chairing a meeting both of those days. It looks to me like the last informal meeting that we'll have Joe at unless we schedule a work session, would be the 15th, which is a week from today. In order to have the full Board here and have this on for discussion, we'd have to schedule it for the 15th, or some other day that week.
Stutsman: Gosh, that agenda's just packed for the 15th, isn't it.
Jordahl: Yes, it's going to be an all day meeting for the 15th if we don't watch ourselves.
Duffy: All day today, too.
Jordahl: We'll have to get out of the room for the MH/DD meeting at 4:30.
Stutsman: Well, we may have to wait until after the first of the year then if Joe's not going to be here the 29th or the 31st.
Duffy: We've operated under this system for what 1968?
Flora: '65.
Duffy: So a few days is no matter. Jonathan I'm going to have to leave here about 11:30.
Jordahl: So's Sally. We're going to be real thin on our quorum if we don't get done.
Duffy: Well you could take...
Jordahl: I could do whatever I wanted to after 11:30, couldn't I.
Stutsman: Rather than taking time, why don't we just figure out what we want to do with this.
Jordahl: Yes, we'll talk to Joe when he's back here. We'll get something set up. Expeditiously, I certainly hope. Thank you very much for your work on this. I'm glad to see it coming forward. OK. Sher are you still here?