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House bill would let DEQ streamline septic approvals where groundwater is absent
Summary
Rep. Lou Jones proposed HB 923 to let the Department of Environmental Quality craft a streamlined review for on-site septic systems in Montana areas with no usable groundwater, aiming to cut cost and delay while preserving nondegradation protections, DEQ witnesses said.
Representative Lou Jones, sponsor of House Bill 923, told the House Natural Resources Committee the bill would let state regulators tailor septic-system review in areas where geology makes usable groundwater effectively absent. “This is a pretty straightforward bill,” Jones said, describing constituents who haul water to cisterns or pipe it long distances because wells in parts of eastern counties don’t yield potable water.
Jones said the amendment circulating with the bill would direct DEQ’s Division of Air Quality and the agency’s water-quality staff to adopt rules allowing a different, streamlined standard for household septic systems in those ‘‘non-drinkable water’’ areas. The proposal, he said, is meant to “save the consumer both money, still protect the environment and speed up the process.”
Rachel Clark, chief of DEQ’s engineering bureau, and Eric Sievers, DEQ water-quality division policy analyst, appeared as informational witnesses and clarified that the item under discussion concerns on-site household septic systems and the agency’s non-degradation review under rule 7-16. Clark said DEQ would still require properly sized tanks and drain fields and would perform a non-degradation analysis to ensure drinking- and surface-water resources are not harmed.
Committee members asked whether there is a discharge where no groundwater exists and whether an exemption would remove testing or design requirements. Clark and Sievers reiterated that the ‘‘discharge’’ in question is the flow from a home through septic components to a drain field and that the bill does not eliminate design or siting standards; it exempts the requirement for a background groundwater nitrogen sample where drilling a test well would be impractical or futile because groundwater is absent or many hundreds of feet deep.
Sponsors and the DEQ said the amendment balances environmental protections with practical relief for long-standing rural residents who face repeated permitting costs when no groundwater exists to protect. The committee concluded the hearing after questions and the sponsor’s closing.
What happens next: the committee may consider the sponsor’s amendment; no formal votes were recorded during the hearing.
