Supervisors support rollback of septic-system inspections
Placer County supervisors have added their support to a bill by Assemblyman Ted Gaines to stave off mandatory septic-system inspections. Supervisors voted at Tuesday’s meeting to sign on to a letter of support for the Roseville Republican’s Assembly Bill 268. Jill Pahl, county environmental health director, said the Gaines bill would repeal provisions of state law established nine years ago to start an inspection program for all septic tanks and wells. It’s one of several bills now moving through the Legislature in response to the State Water Resources Control Board proposal to start enforcing the 2000 legislation next year. Pahl said the Gaines bill best addresses draft regulations that would create onerous requirements on property owners and local governments. Gaines introduced his bill after hearing from a parade of speakers at a public forum on sewer and water issues in Auburn early last month. There are 26,000 septic-system sites in Placer County facing mandatory inspections and what Pahl said were unnecessary monitoring costs of $325 every five years. The Gaines bill would remove the financial burdens coming from inspections and the possibility of expensive upgrades, Pahl told supervisors. At the same time, AB 268 would ensure public health through existing local and state water-quality protections, she said. Supervisor Jim Holmes said that the state rural counties association is also working on rolling back the regulations. Holmes and other supervisors voted unanimously to write a letter outlining problems with statewide in-spections. The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia. com.
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Thank you.
Outstanding performance by all...Thank you!
at last somebody is trying to help us in the goverment.but lets keep on all could be a bird in the bush thing
Simply shameless opportunistic grandstanding by all. I’ll bet that if there are mandatory inspections but no fees, there will still be huge resistance. The same scofflaws who don't want to pay to make certain their septic systems are working will also drag their feet when it comes to even having inspections.
The point is, they don’t want the inspections (preferring to break the law, pollute creeks and groundwater) because they don’t want to pay for needed repairs. They hide their opposition behind the fee (calling it outrageous, etc.).
Well, let’s see how they all react when the inspections become mandatory. The money will come from county or the state funds, taken from some other pot, but don’t worry, penny-pinching taxpayer, you won’t know it came through your dirty fingers.
People who are on sewer lines are the ones who ought to be outraged by this blantant shirking of responsibility and huge threat to our drinking water.
I thank Ted Gaines for trying to protect Californians from an over reaching bureaucrats of doubtful competence. These regulations were just a huge overreach. If they would have truly been what the state needed it would not been opposed by organizations that represent every county environmental health director in the state. Even people that helped write the original law said that these regulations should be completely rewritten instead of trying to fix them. What this shows me is that the system can work if people are willing to put in the time to make it work. Below is a list of organizations that openly opposed the proposed regulations.
California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health (CCDEH)
California State Association of Counties (CSAC)
Rural Conference of Rural Counties (RCRC)
League of Placer County Taxpayers
California Association of Realtors
California State Grange
Placer County Water Agency
Placer-Nevada County Medical Society
City of Auburn
Counties of:Amador, Butte,Calaveras,Del Norte,El Dorado,Kings,Lake,Madera,Mariposam,Modoc,Napa,Nevada,Placer,Plumas,San Benito,Santa Cruz,Shasta,Tehama,Trinity,Tuolomne
First and foremost, thank for BOS for listening!!
JimCather, thanks for being so clear on whose horse you back in this race.
You shouldn't be so quick to paint everyone with such a broad brush! I resent you calling me a scofflaw. We regularly maintain our septic and have it pumped every 3-5 years. When we "expanded" septic system so we could add on to our house ( didn't do the addition but expanded the septic), the septic system installers, said we had ample leach field to accomodate a single room addiiton without the expansion, but we were required to do so to meet county requirements (and pay their fees too).
It's in my own best interest to maintain my septic system , so why the one-size-fits-all implementation of legislation which was introduced for a completely different area to address a problem in a completely different region. Hopefully, you'll just have to wait to get your "dirty fingers" on my "dirty money", but I bet you can't wait, can you?
kepingupdated. We did the same thing when we built our house. The septic was sixed to accomodate two more rooms, we have not had it pumped since it hasn't been 4 years yet but every year we have the screen cleaned and the discharge levels checked. Like you, I'm not a scofflaw and resent being called one. Obviously Jim only opposes things that hit him directly like wineries using private roads, there are quite a few people like him around, they are the ones that don't mind taxes as long as they don't affect them, you know the tax the rich mentality.
Have a great day.
'Bout time the BOS did something for the good of the county they serve! BTW Mr. JC- I'm on a sewer line and I thought the law was over-kill. Especially, if I understand correctly, the septic owners must already do inspections and what-not anyway. All the language in the law did was tack on additional fees and another layer of bureacracy.....and as usual so unnecessary. When people hastily write laws to regulate every darn thing it hinders rather than helps. Next thing you know they'll regulate how many times you can flush!