Delegate acts in the best interest of Fauquier

This letter responds to Scott District Supervisor Holder Trumbo’s letter (“Supervisor disappointed in Fauquier delegate,” Feb. 1) to Delegate Scott Lingamfelter with regard to House Bill 942 (HB 942).

HB 942 needs to be placed in context with what is occurring in Virginia, and, in fact, the nation as a whole.

The Virginia Department of Health (“VDH”) regulates conventional and alternative septic system installation in Virginia. A conventional system generally consists of a septic tank, a distribution box and a distribution field.

The distribution field distributes the septic effluent from the user (generally a residential unit) into the ground. The septic tank provides primary treatment through anaerobic digestion of the sewage.

Generally, an alternative onsite sewage system (“AOSS”) adds a secondary treatment unit, often between the septic tank and the distribution box, which provides secondary treatment to the effluent reducing the contaminants found in conventional systems by 90 percent.

This allows the distribution field to be reduced in size, or the use of soils which otherwise might not support a conventional septic system.

In both cases (conventional and alternative), the soil provides final treatment.

The Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) has adopted a policy which limits additional discharge from municipal sewage plants into the state surface waters.

Additionally, the commonwealth has prepared a Watershed Implementation Plan (“WIP”) for the Chesapeake Bay watershed in Virginia which it has submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The WIP commits the commonwealth to reduce the amount of total nitrogen distributed into the ground through drainfields to an amount well below what can occur with a conventional system.

Thus in the near future, there will likely come a time when only alternative systems are permitted for installation by VDH. In fact, in order to comply with the WIP commitments, many existing conventional fields will need to be retrofitted with nitrogen reduction alternative units.

House Bill 942 was proposed by Delegate Lingamfelter at my request to deal with regulatory issues raised by Fauquier County’s refusal to acknowledge the future.

In 2009, the General Assembly adopted legislation which was intended to provide that the 95 counties and nearly 200 cities and towns in the commonwealth operated under the same set of rules and regulations for alternative systems.

Virginia Code Section 15.2-2157 was amended to prohibit municipalities from banning the use of alternative systems and provided that once the Health Department adopted regulations governing alternative systems, that only Health Department regulations would apply.

The Health Department adopted the emergency regulations (12VAC5-613) in April 2010.

I served on the Health Department Advisory Committee that drafted those regulations. The committee specifically dealt with the issue of bonding for both individual units (less than 1,000 gallons per day) and for larger systems serving multiple residential and business uses.

The Health Department elected not to require bonding, instead imposing certain operational and maintenance requirements upon the owners of alternative systems.

In August 2010, the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors amended Chapter 17 of the county code involving the county’s sewage disposal regulations.

Fauquier County interprets the language “maintenance standards and requirements” as “maintenance, standards and [maintenance] requirements,” thus, in the county’s view, allowing jurisdictions to adopt regulations in excess of Virginia Department of Health regulations with regard to design, construction, inspection, operation, bonding and reporting.

This is clearly not what the General Assembly intended.

The Fauquier County ordinance requires that when a homeowner with an alternative system sells his home to a new owner, the new owner must go through the permitting process to acquire a new Health Department permit.

Additionally, the county ordinance requires that whoever installs an alternative system must post a $15,000 bond with the county to insure the system does not fail.

There is no bonding company or insurance company, of which I am aware, where a bond can be purchased. Therefore, a $15,000 cash bond needs to be posted with the county.

The county will keep this $15,000 in perpetuity.

Mr. Trumbo, in his letter to Delegate Lingamfelter states, that alternative systems have a “high failure rate.” I am not aware of any statistics that suggest that alternative systems fail at a higher rate than do conventional systems.

Mr. Trumbo expresses a concern with responsibility “for fixing these systems when they fail.” That responsibility is clearly upon the homeowner. Just like a hot water tank or heat pump system that fails, the homeowner is responsible for replacement. There is even a program in Virginia (See Virginia Code Section 32.1-164.1:2) where a homeowner can work with the Health Department to acquire a “betterment loan” from a lending institution to repair or replace a septic system that fails (conventional or alternative) and the lien for the money borrowed does not adversely impact the owner’s mortgage.

The responsibility for maintaining one’s home is always upon the homeowner. The way to repair many failed conventional systems is to install alternative secondary treatment units, thus reducing the need for drain field areas. Interestingly, under the County Ordinance, a homeowner would not have access to his own $15,000 to fix his system unless he defaulted on his obligation to do so with the County.

Fauquier County has tolerated a large number of failed conventional systems in southern Fauquier County for many years.

There are many more conventional systems than alternative systems in Fauquier County and thus, more conventional failures. The county ordinance does not deal with failed conventional systems at all.

Mr. Trumbo’s plea for the environment is hypocritical, at best.

If a majority of our elected representatives concur that what they intended as group in 2009 was to have one set of regulations for the commonwealth with regard to Alternative Onsite Sewage Systems, they will pass the bill. If not, then the commonwealth will be subject to 95 different sets of county rules and nearly 200 different sets of rules for cities and towns. This is clearly not good for the commonwealth nor for the residents of Fauquier County. Delegate Lingamfelter deserves our thanks for representing the best interests of all of the residents of the commonwealth and for protecting the environment.

Merle W. Fallon

Warrenton

Editor’s note: This letter was edited for space considerations.