The Brown County Commissioners will be accepting comments in writing at the public hearing they will have this week about proposed changes to the septic system ordinance.
The hearing will start at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 29 in the County Office Building’s Salmon Room.
County commissioner Diana Biddle explained the process the hearing will take.
“We’ll take public comment,” she said at the March 21 commissioners meeting. “I talked with Thomi Elmore at the end of last week. What she would like to do and what we’ve talked about was similar to like League of Women Voters forums, where you write questions and comments on notecards so we have them. We’re going to do something similar to that. We’re going to ask people to put their comments in writing, so when that meeting is over, we can give those comments to the health board. They (the health board) have a new member. Thomi is the new president. I think that will give them some more information going forward to maybe make some more tweaks before we actually get into reading the ordinance for approval,” Biddle said.
“Come prepared to write your comments down. If you don’t want to write them, I guess you could email them to me (at [email protected]). I hesitate to offer that, because my email box will start to explode. I’ve gotten some very good emails. This last week I’ve got at least two that were very well written, put together, very thoughtful comments on different parts of the septic ordinance.”
The county’s septic system ordinance hasn’t been fully revised since 1997. Since only Nashville, Helmsburg and Gnaw Bone have sewers, the ordinance covers a majority of Brown County residents.
A committee has been working for over a year on making changes, some of which are different from the rules spelled out in state law, and different from the county ordinance currently in place.
The commissioners have made no promises that they will actually pass the revised septic ordinance at the hearing this week.
“We’re taking a very serious look at it,” Biddle said about the ordinance. “We’re not planning to be hasty in passing something until we’re sure it’s exactly what we want.”
READ THE ORDINANCE: http://www.bcdemocrat.com/2018/03/06/new-septic-ordinance-proposed-by-brown-county-commissioners/
UPDATE: 3:35 p.m. Wednesday
Biddle said though written comments are encouraged, she’s thinking the commissioners also will allow people to stand up and have up to 2 minutes to talk about the ordinance. The commissioners will go through the ordinance section by section and ask if people have questions or comments on each section. Copies of the ordinance will be provided, she said.
The reasons why written comments are being encouraged is that she believes there will be a high volume of people wanting to speak, and if things are put in writing to give to the health board, that will help them understand what was shared, rather than requiring the board to listen to the meeting tape.
If people want to give a written comment and then speak too, that’s fine, but they’d like to keep the meeting at a reasonable length, she said.
Written comments will be made a part of the record of the meeting along with the tape, she said.
DOCUMENT BELOW: Septic system and revised septic ordinance FAQs, from the Brown County Health Department:
[embeddoc url=”http://www.bcdemocrat.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/03/FAQ-SHEET-1.pdf” download=”all”]
Real-world problem
Health board members have said in past meetings that their primary goals in making changes are to prevent public health problems that can come from failed septic systems, and to prevent unsuspecting homeowners from buying a house with a system that is failing or illegal, which will cost them more money to fix.
One homeowner came before the health board on March 20 with one of those stories.
Wendy Church and her husband bought a vacation home on Drum Drive in the Cordry-Sweetwater lakes community about three years ago.
She told the health board that they didn’t know until the closing that the home was in pre-foreclosure, and they didn’t get the property inspected.
The house, built in 1960, is 500 square feet, which is less than the county’s minimum codes now allow.
They had planned to tear down the screened-in porch and replace it with more living space, but not to add a bedroom or bathroom. They also wanted to elevate their house off its slab foundation in order to insulate under it, and possibly change the pitch of the roof to deal with water problems.
Before they could get a building permit, the Churches had to have their building plans reviewed and approved by the Brown County Health Department.
The health department could not approve them because the house never had a legal septic system, said John Kennard, environmental health supervisor. Instead, the house has a septic pit, which has never been a state-approved method of dealing with wastewater, he said.
He described it as “just a hole in the ground filled with gravel with a pipe running through it.”
“It is a noncompliant system from Day 1, and that’s the problem,” said health board member Linda Bauer.
Another problem is that the Churches’ property is so sloped, the health department knows of no type of septic system they could put in to serve the house, even though the couple owns three lots, said environmental health employee Ernie Reed.
Kennard said if the septic system would have been failing, the Churches could have made a repair. But that’s not the case, because they don’t have an approved system.
“What am I supposed to do?” Church asked. “Is my house condemned? Because honestly, if I don’t do the repairs, it will be,” she said, mentioning past water damage.
Kennard said what the Churches can do is to not make any structural changes to the house, because if they do, that will require them to follow state rules for home construction permits.
Rule 410 of Indiana Administrative Code 6-8.3-53 says that to get a construction permit for reconstruction of a residence; replacement of a residence; or expansion or remodeling of a residence in a way that “may increase the number of bedrooms or the DDF” (designed daily flow of wastewater), the owner has to first get a permit to build an on-site sewage system. There are also five other actions that would trigger that permit process, according to that “construction permits” section of the state’s septic rules.
“You can paint the walls, fix the plumbing, add insulation … but as far as changing the structure of the building, no,” Kennard said about the Churches’ situation.
The county’s revised septic ordinance which is going up for public hearing this week has a clause that says that if a home’s septic system is up to code based on the rules in the year the house was built, it doesn’t necessarily have to be upgraded if it’s working. The problem with the Churches’ septic is that it wasn’t up to code even then, Kennard said.
“Because we’re talking state law … we can’t change state law,” he said.
“We can’t either,” added health board member Cathy Rountree.
“It grieves all of us up here, because we’re bound by the law. It’s not a law that we made,” said health board President Thomi Elmore.
Church said she understood, but she was “extremely disappointed.”
She said the family didn’t have any intentions of doing anything that would put more stress on septic treatment. They don’t even do laundry at the lake house now, she said.
When the property was marketed to them, the listing said something to the effect of, “If you don’t like this one, tear it down and build a new one,” she told the health board. “They’ll do anything to sell a property.”
Kennard said technology could change in a few years that would enable a septic system to be built on their lots. “There’s new technology right now, but the state’s dragging their feet on allowing us to use it,” he said.
He said the best solution would be putting in sewers, but that would be up to the Cordry-Sweetwater Lot Owners Association.
If sewers were to be built, that would make many lots deemed “unbuildable” buildable because they’d have wastewater treatment, he said. If that happened, the Churches could sell their lots on the water and make money on the deal, he said.
Church said she didn’t want to sell them; she just wanted to have a house her family could enjoy.
County resident Sherrie Mitchell challenged the health board on the idea that Church was changing the square footage of the house if there was already a porch on it.
Bauer said it was a change in square footage because she’d be using that porch space to increase the home’s living space.
“Is this what county people are going to have to deal with? Because I can’t wait ’til Thursday,” Mitchell said, referring to the March 29 septic law public hearing.
“This is the state law, so I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” Bauer responded. “… This is not something we created. … They’re rules we have to follow.”
After a few more exchanges between the two, Elmore cut off the discussion.
“I’ll see you guys Thursday,” Mitchell said.
“I can’t wait,” Kennard responded.
“I can’t either,” Bauer said.
