Sparsely, Sage and Timely
Septic-law-reform battle looms as science confronts politics
By David V. Mitchell
Watching the County of Marin’s attempts to reform its septic-system laws is uncomfortably reminiscent of watching Iranians rise up and overthrow the sometimes-brutal shah only to end up with the merciless Ayatollah Khomenini.
I believe Supervisor Steve Kinsey, Community Development Director Alex Hinds, Environmental Services Director Phil Smith, and other county officials when they agree the current permit process is cumbersome, expensive, and often counter-productive. They all agree they want to see the cost and red tape for getting septic permits made less onerous
Rather than existing to protect the environment and public health, as they were originally intended to do, Marin’s septic-system regulations have become the main weapon for fighting residential growth, as Hinds acknowledged a couple of weeks ago.
By using non-scientific definitions of septic-system "failures," the County of Marin has made it practically impossible to install a conventional, gravity-flow septic system of the sort that has historically worked well.
Instead people building homes, adding rooms, or replacing old septic systems are typically required to use "mound" systems than can easily cost $65,000. Even with low interest rates, this would add about $300 per month to a mortgage payment, virtually eliminating any new affordable housing. At the same time, consulting firms (such as Questa Engineering) that specialize in designing expensive systems seem to stay busy designing virtually the same system over and over again – with each new customer having to pay a stiff consulting fee.
Not only are people building homes often required to unnecessarily use "mound" systems (essentially septic systems with above-ground leachfields), they are being grossly overcharged because of the county/consultant-industry complex. Why should it cost more than $50,000 on average to build a mound system in West Marin when the average cost of a mound system around the country is $9,000? This nationwide figure, by the way, comes from an Environmental Technology Initiative report funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
How septic systems work has been essentially understood for 146 years. While designing a filtering system for the sewage of Dijon in 1856, a French engineer named Henry Darcy developed what is now known as Darcy’s Law, a basic law of physics for describing the flow of liquids through porous materials.
As applied to treating sewage with septic systems, the law predicts how quickly wastewater will pass through the "biomat," a thin layer of slime rich in the anaerobic bacteria that filters out most viruses and pathogens. Unlike the biomat, the soil around it is rich in aerobic bacteria that destroy virtually all remaining viruses or fecal coliform bacteria.
How virtual is virtually? The excellent Septic System Owner’s Manual, written by Lloyd Kahn, Blair Allen and Julie Jones of Bolinas cites research that has found "despite high bacteria counts in the biomat, reductions on the order of 1,000 times were observed at a distance of only one foot into the surrounding soil. At a distance of two feet, the counts were in the range for fully treated wastewater."
In fact, septic systems purify wastewater better than the chemical disinfectants used by municipal sewage-treatment systems, as has been pointed out by former Bolinas Public Utility District Director Peter Warshall. Warshall was one of those who in 1971 led the successful fight to block a Questa Engineering plan for a gigantic sewer to serve Stinson Beach and Bolinas.
The Owner’s Manual cites Warshall’s 1979 Septic Tank Practices as noting, "Soil is the key to clean water. It is a living filter better than any filter man has invented. No material cleans nutrients or disease-causing microbes from wastewater as well as earth does."
So far, so good. None of the pertinent county officials, would disagree with much of this. But what they can’t fathom is how soil occasionally saturated by winter rains can provide the same filtration as unsaturated soil in the dry season. Darcy’s law doesn’t explain situations such as this, Environmental Director Smith told an audience in Bolinas last week. Depending on how listeners understood his answer, it was either misleading or just plain wrong.
Whether or not rainwater has saturated the soil, what matters is the movement of wastewater through the biomat because of pressure (usually caused by gravity). This is not a matter of my opinion. Indeed, it is explained in detail in report prepared this year for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Smith describes the biomat as something that at any moment can easily get out of hand. In fact, the biomat is vital to proper treatment.
The report looked at the performance of septic systems during the rainy season in two counties, Clackamas and Deschutes, that had various strata of soil and found the failure rate to be only one percent. Moreover, the State of Oregon – unlike the Marin Environmental Health Division – understands septic systems and can explain in everyday language what it means for a septic system to fail. For example:
• "Sewage discharging on top of the ground or via [a] straight pipe" indicates a failed system.
• Standing water that is effluent surfacing over the lines or the tank" is an indication of failure.
• "Odor alone is not an indication of failure" but should be checked.
• Green grass and lush vegetation alone are not an indication of a failure."
• "Usually the drainfield area will have moister soil conditions directly over the lines. This is not a failure. If you walk on a soggy drain line area and puddles of sewage result in your footprints, it is a failure."
• "Ponding in the trenches...is not a failure. Serial distribution systems will have substantial ponding by design. As long as effluent is not surfacing, the system is not considered failing."
• "Landscaping, filling with dirt over the systems etc. are not surface failures."
Unfortunately, county officials feel under pressure from last year’s grand jurors, shellfish growers, and "environmental" advocates to adopt more stringent septic-system regulations although the need for them has not been demonstrated.
Oyster growers are at the forefront of this campaign because they have had problems with pollution in Tomales Bay. The State Health Department each winter makes growers stop harvesting for various periods of time after various amounts of rainfall (to ensure runoff doesn’t carry cow manure into shellfish beds). Shellfish growers had to stop harvesting for three weeks in 1996 when a North Marin sewer line burst near Tomales. And growers had to stop harvesting for a month in 1998 when 170 people got sick after a sick boater above – or next to – racks of oysters contaminated them.
Likewise, 19 people in the year 2000 got gastrointestinal problems after drinking water at Rancho Nicasio. But in none of these case was a septic system to blame. The problem at Rancho Nicasio, for example, was traced to an improperly sealed well, which was overlooked by county inspectors when restaurateur Bob Brown bought the roadhouse.
The problem has never been that septic-system regulations here are too lenient. In fact, they are so unreasonably tough that environmental and political activists routinely break them.
County officials really do want to make the regulations less onerous, eliminating the unreasonable ones before approving new ones. A so-called "amnesty" program has been proposed, which sounds good until you realize it’s based on misconceptions about septic-system failures.
Here is what is happening. EPA is now revising its guidelines for "decentralized wastewater management" and will make recommendations to the states and local governments. Two years ago, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 885, which orders state and local agencies to set minimal regulations for septic systems.
However, the State Water Board has not completed its proposed policies and under AB 885 does not have to for another year. County officials say they are developing new regulations ahead of the state’s so they won’t be forced by the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt standards that will be even stricter.
However, exactly the opposite may occur. AB 885 specifically allows local and regional governments to enact regulations that are more restrictive than the state’s and would mean big bucks for the consultant industry. It was telling that when people in Bolinas asked Environmental Health Director Smith what AB 885 actually says, he referred them to a consultants’ group, the California Onsite Wastewater Association, whose vice president for Northern California is none other than Norm Hantzche of Questa Engineering. Why am I not surprised?
If the county government wants to legalize all existing septic systems that – by scientific definition – are not failing, I say, "Fine. Go for it."
Unfortunately, too many people find science counter-intuitive and reject it. There is a widespread assumption, for example, that the deeper a septic line is, the safer it is for the environment. In fact, the bacteria that destroy pathogens are millions of times more dense near the surface, as even county officials Hinds and Smith will tell you.
Likewise, the amount of land needed for a septic system is consistently overestimated. New sewage-disposal technology, such as "infiltrator" systems that greatly increase the biomat, can more than double the amount of sewage a household can safely put in the ground in a given length of leachfield.
County government may yet opt for modern technology rather than a septic-system Shariah that avoids offending the Koran of growth control. But don’t count on it. West Marin should be leery of endorsing any new "policies," as county officials now describe them, until residents find out what laws these policies will lead to. Otherwise, some people could end up evicting themselves from their own homes.
Community Development Director Hinds and Supervisor Kinsey say they want Marin’s septic regulations to be based on science, but both of them expect political pressure from various groups who have an interest in unduly harsh laws. Kinsey and Hinds seem to be saying they will fight the good fight for science – but don’t expect total victory.