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Thurston County proclaims National Preparedness Month, Septic Smart Week; county staff outline resources
Summary
At its Sept. 9 meeting the Thurston County Board of Health adopted proclamations recognizing September as National Preparedness Month and the designated week as Septic Smart Week, with county emergency management and environmental health staff urging residents to prepare and describing homeowner septic‑maintenance classes.
Thurston County’s Board of Health on Sept. 9 adopted proclamations recognizing September 2025 as National Preparedness Month and designating a week in September as Septic Smart Week, and county emergency‑management and environmental‑health staff used the meeting to outline preparedness and septic maintenance resources for residents.
Alex Dingus, speaking on behalf of county emergency management, summarized the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Ready Campaign theme for 2025: “Preparedness Starts at Home.” "The foundation of community resilience lies in individual action," Dingus said, urging residents to know local risks, make and practice family emergency plans, and assemble emergency kits stocked for at least three days.
Commissioner Emily Klaus read the county proclamation for National Preparedness Month and encouraged registration for the county’s TC Alert notification system.
The board also heard from Stuart Whitford, Environmental Health Program Manager, and Maggie Morehouse, an environmental specialist who runs the county’s homeowner septic classes. Whitford said the county’s homeowner maintenance program dates to about 2008 and serves roughly "3,000 septic system owners" in Thurston County. Morehouse described the class structure and what participants learn: "I emphasize safety... I demonstrate how to do the inspections, talk to them about how to use their system, what common failure it looks like, and then how to actually make some of the repairs for those most common failures."
The Septic Smart Week proclamation presented numbers intended to show the scale of on‑site sewage systems in the county. The proclamation text states that "there are nearly 54,000 septic systems in Thurston County that treat and dispose of almost 12,000,000 gallons of sewage per day," and notes the county’s role in design, installation and maintenance oversight. The proclamation also cited the shellfish industry annual production figure (about 6,000,000 pounds) as a reason to protect water resources.
Board members invited attendees to a photo in the lobby after the proclamations. No public commenters were signed up for the meeting’s public comment period.
The proclamations were adopted at the meeting and the Environmental Health department listed public training and outreach work — homeowner classes and the homeowner maintenance program — as follow‑up activities.
A separate, contested appeal about a septic repair permit heard later in the meeting highlighted the regulatory interaction between Environmental Health and county planning staff (CPED) over whether certain repairs must undergo land‑use review under the Critical Areas Ordinance and Shoreline Master Program before installation authority is issued.
