Clallam County advances on-site septic code rewrite; draft goes to prosecutor, public hearing planned

Jen Garcelon, environmental health staff for Clallam County Health and Human Services, briefed the Board of Health on March 8 that a draft update to the county's on-site septic code is near completion and is under review at the prosecuting attorney’s office.

Garcelon said the draft adopts many changes the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) now requires statewide, clarifies existing requirements, and adds several items intended to make application and enforcement clearer for residents, designers and installers. Key changes summarized to the board include a new holding-tank permitting pathway, revised minimum lot-area requirements for subdivisions, stricter rules on splitting sewage flows, and clarified inspection and licensing rules.

On holding tanks, Garcelon said they are normally disallowed but the draft would permit them in limited circumstances where a conventional drainfield cannot be installed, subject to an operating permit, regular pumping, alarms and recordkeeping: “The main thing is we want to keep the sewage out of the water table, out of the lake, and in something that's contained and and safe.” She said that holding tanks would generally be used for seasonal lake cabins or where no feasible alternative exists.

Garcelon described substantial edits to subdivision rules. Under current WAC language developers sometimes split flows to avoid higher-level permitting thresholds; the county’s draft decreases the unit-volume allowance and limits splitting. The county’s formula reduces the WAC’s prior multiplier (about 3.5 units) to 2.5 in local code, producing a lower gallons-per-acre allowance and restricting developers’ ability to create large aggregate flows on a single parcel. Garcelon said the change is intended to prevent “point loading” of large sewage volumes into a single area the county cannot manage.

Other changes the presenter described: establishing an RV flow standard at 20 gallons per day, raising administrative penalties for missed inspections from $5 to $10 per day, clarifying when homeowners may not perform “do-it-yourself” inspections for property transfers or building permits, and adding enforcement authority against designers who submit fraudulent inspection reports.

Garcelon also described incentives and repair funding available to property owners: the county’s incentive program increased some rebate amounts to $800–$1,300 for minor fixes (funded from local septic fees), Craft3 (craft3.org) and the conservation district have supported repairs, and the conservation district assisted nine households last year that otherwise faced homelessness. Garcelon said the draft has been submitted to the state Department of Health and the county prosecuting attorney and that staff plan a public hearing and possible adoption after legal review, with a target of May for adoption if legal clearance and public process proceed on schedule.

Ending: Board members asked for the final draft to be circulated in advance; staff said they will return with a legal-reviewed version before calling a public hearing.