The Brown County Board of Health voted at its July 21 meeting to further revise the county’s proposed septic ordinance.

The ordinance draft no longer has a sentence referencing the health department’s Policies and Procedures Manual. The board members voted to remove the sentence from the draft.

“In addition, interested persons should refer to the Brown County Health Department’s Policies and Procedures Manual (the PAP Manual),” the removed sentence read.

During discussion to remove the sentence, board members said that the manual, and thus the reference to it, were unnecessary and would just create more confusion in the already complex ordinance.

John Kennard, environmental health supervisor for the Brown County Health Department, said that including the PAP manual would mean septic inspectors would have to carry around 50 pages of written procedures and that it would be a hassle to sift through all of the policies when on the job.

Additionally, another reference to the PAP manual was removed from Article II, Section 205 of the ordinance. The section discusses the Soil Evaluation Report that any property owner must obtain when coordinating a septic tank.

When referencing the soil report, the section originally said that a definition for the report could be found in the PAP manual. However, after the board voted to remove that part, the Soil Evaluation Report now goes undefined in the revised version.

When asked by The Democrat for a copy of the PAP manual, which is also sometimes referred to as the SOPs (standard operating procedures), Kennard said that there is no actual complete copy of the manual that exists.

“We haven’t gotten any ordinance passed yet, so there aren’t any SOPs yet,” he said over the phone.

A rewritten septic ordinance has been under consideration since 2015 and has been through at least four rewrites since the current one was passed in 1997.

The most recent version of the proposed ordinance will now be passed over to the county commissioners for public hearings and possible approval. When it will go before the commissioners isn’t certain yet. Commissioner Diana Biddle said on Aug. 3 that she didn’t expect it to be discussed at the 2 p.m. Zoom meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 5, but the receipt would probably be acknowledged.

Some community members are already expressing their disapproval.

“I am requesting that you return the proposed Septic Ordinance back to the Health Board and direct they include the references to the Policy and Procedures Manual,” Brown County resident Tim Clark said in an email last week to the county commissioners.

According to Kennard, a policy and procedures manual will be written once an official ordinance is passed if it is deemed necessary. However, for now, the procedures of septic inspections as well as the exact meaning of a Soil Evaluation Report will remain undefined.