Proposed St. Tammany Parish OSDS inspection ordinance targets high‑density areas; council debates testing, pump‑outs and funding

Tim Brown, director of Environmental Services, told the council the parish faces an estimated 36,000 on‑site sewage systems and that failure rates in sampled areas range from about 25 to 50 percent. "If we use the 25 percent failure rate, that still equals 3,600,000 gallons per day of poorly treated wastewater being discharged to our ditches," Brown said, framing the proposal as a public‑health, environmental and economic development concern.

The proposed ordinance differs from a 2023 draft in a number of ways: it removes a per‑inspection fee, narrows the mandatory inspection geography to areas south of the parish’s urban growth boundary (targeting higher‑density areas), lowers maximum fines (from the $100‑per‑day level in 2023 to $100 per month in the current draft), bases inspection prioritization on sampling data rather than only visual identification, allows third‑party…