By Chris Finnie
On June 19, 2012, the State Water Board adopted the Water Quality Control Policy for Siting, Design, Operation, and Maintenance of Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems—what most of us call septic systems. The goal is to protect groundwater and surface water. At the time it was adopted, the Board gave local agencies until May of 2018 to propose a local-area management plan that meets their specific needs. So far, only Santa Barbara and Monterey counties have a local plan approved by the Central Coast Regional Water Board.
Santa Cruz County is currently in the process of developing such a plan. According to Jennifer Epp, Waste Discharge Requirements Program Manager with the Central Coast Water Board says, “Essentially it’s their proposal on how they plan to manage these systems.” She explains that they are still working with other counties in the region to get an approved plan. “Once we approve the local-area plan, the county will be able to issue permits that are in compliance with that plan.”
Until the local plan is approved, Santa Cruz County can issue and sign off on permits for systems that meet the Tier-1 siting and design requirements of the 2012 state policy. Anything that doesn’t meet those requirements needs to go through the regional board for permits and approval. Epp says people who need new, expanded, or replacement systems should start with the county first. The county may be able to work with the designer to make changes to make it fit the Tier-1 requirements. The regional water board will do the same thing with systems that don’t fit the existing regulations. Epp explains, “We look at what makes sense for the particular site. We’ve done a variety of different things. Some have been pretty easy solutions. Some haven’t. We handle them on a case-by-case basis.”
Affecting 23,000 Users in Santa Cruz County
23,000 homes and business are on septic systems in the county; the largest number in the San Lorenzo watershed, with about 13,500 systems in the San Lorenzo Valley, Scotts Valley, and Branciforte.
John Ricker, Water Resources Di-vision Director with the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency, Environmental Health Division explained how they’re working on this issue. “We developed a septic-system management pro-gram back in the 90s to address the constraints of these areas, and negotiated with the regional board to accept our program then. We’ve been through this before. We did a lot of water quality and ground-water testing then to document what the issues were and how we expected our program to work. We’re going to have to do some of that again because we’re dealing with a different board and staff.”
“I was part of the working group to develop the guidelines and regulations for the state. So, we knew what was in it and what was coming. We felt we were already in substantial compliance and just needed to tweak our current program and ordinance. There was a transition period that gave us until 2015 to submit our draft proposal, which we did. But we weren’t expecting a cutoff while we were still working with them, which we are.”
Ricker points to the success of the current program. “We used to have a failure rate close to 15% back in the ‘80s. Now it’s 1-2%. We did lot-by-lot inspections for about 10 years. Now we do more target-ed investigations and sampling in the creeks and roadside ditch-es—looking for signs of failing systems. Then we’ll investigate upstream from that. We also look a lot at the septic-tank pumpers’ reports. That can give us an indication of problem systems. Finally, we investigate complaints.”
Where Do Property Owners Stand Now?
Ricker emphasizes that there is a way to process and approve permits, either through the county or the regional board. But it could cost more and take longer.
Ricker and Epp agree that, if the county determines that the design can’t meet the Tier-1 requirements, they’ll send you to the regional board to work on a new design. Ricker says, “We’ve had a couple of people come to us who need-ed to do a pit system. We put the information together and referred them to the regional board, for them to do the approval. Particularly with a system repair of a failing system, the regional board can authorize a variance and we can approve it with that authorization. They want a lot of information before they give us that authorization, and they’ve been somewhat backlogged. So, it’s been taking as long as a month to get the approvals.”
The state does require a fee. Ricker says some are higher, and some lower than the county fees. He also says the state charges an annual fee, but he believes people will only have to pay that once because the county program should be in place by the second year.
He says, “We’re shooting to have it on the agenda for approval at the meeting in September in Watsonville. We do have a working group of septic contractors, pumpers, designers, and realtors who have reviewed our draft ordinance. They’ll also review our proposal to the state.” Again, both Ricker and Epp say they’re collaborating to get the local plan approved. Ricker expects that they will be able to negotiate solutions before they submit the plan, as they’ve done in the past. “Our program is already more comprehensive than some other areas in the state, and we’ve done a good job of it.”
When asked who needs to get a permit, Ricker stressed that the county wants to be sure the work is done right. So, aside from small repairs like replacing cracked lids, Ts, or Ls; you need to get a permit. Some work like re-piping for tree-root incursion only requires a minor permit. The county has guidelines on their webpage, and local contractors should know which repairs qualify.
As part of the new ordinance, Ricker is proposing a requirement to have systems evaluated before a sale transfer. Currently, that’s not legally required—though he says it’s a good idea and some lenders ask for it. The county does not plan mandate they be brought up to code before the sale closes, or who has to do the repair or replacement. He says, “We want the buyer to know so they can negotiate the best solution.”
For more information on the state policy, go to: www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/water_issues/programs/septics/permits.html