A state-mandated program requiring testing of wastewater systems in Geauga County is in its first phase, Kristi Pinkley, a registered environmental health specialist with the Lake County General Health District, said during a recent Geauga County Board of Health meeting.
A state-mandated program requiring testing of wastewater systems in Geauga County is in its first phase, Kristi Pinkley, a registered environmental health specialist with the Lake County General Health District, said during a recent Geauga County Board of Health meeting.
Pinkley updated the board during the Nov. 15 meeting on the progress of the operations and maintenance program — which requires property owners with a septic system to obtain an operating permit and provide regular evidence that their system is being properly maintained.
Geauga County Health Administrator Adam Litke said it is Geauga Public Health’s largest program and will be rolled out slowly, with sampling and billing for septic tanks and spray irrigation systems occurring in phases.
Phase one is currently underway and Pinkley said sampling of the systems will likely begin after Thanksgiving, with payments for the first batch due Nov. 30. Anything that has not been paid by June 1st will be credited towards property taxes.
Sampling from national pollutant discharge removal systems costs $155 and sampling from spray irrigation systems costs $150. According to the GPH website, www.gphohio.org, property owners will be notified when their names are released. It states that property owners involved in the second sampling will be notified by March 1st.
The code also requires an inspection of the system, which GPH will perform.
Pinkley said if the system is not up to code and needs maintenance, a service contractor would need to be hired.
Litke said GPH collects the samples and not the service providers because they are ultimately GPH’s responsibility and the cost of hiring them would be significantly higher.
Pinkley said working with NPDES and SIS systems is expected to take a year.
Dan Lark, GPH’s director of environmental health, added that the next phase is still under construction.
“The first thing we do is because (NPDES and SIS) are not working properly. They dump raw sewage into our environment,” Lark said. “So that’s why these are the first.”
Litke added: “The next part is the vast majority. This (first phase) includes approximately 2,000 systems. The next portion may be up to 38,000.”
Board member Dr. Mark Hendrickson asked if there was a way to identify people who were violating inspection requirements.
“It’s one of the harder things to measure in this community-wide thing,” Pinkley said, explaining that there are 30,000 to 40,000 systems in Geauga County and the GPH can only process the data provided.
Lake County has a stream sampling system that measures water quality in areas with septic tanks. Pinkley expects Geauga County to implement it in the future.
She touched on another part of Lake County’s performance management system that involves taking measurements at various levels.
“This is what we have in Lake that can really address the people, the problem people who aren’t doing anything about their systems,” she said.
Pinkley added that they plan to compare a list of all properties on the Geauga County Auditor’s Office website with a list of addresses connected to the sewer system to prevent people from going missing.
The compliance rate in Lake County is about 70%, she said.
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