Barbara Brenner a Whatcom County Council Member sent this out the end
of last week in regards to Whatcom County septic inspections and rules,
I thought it might be useful information for those of you who own homes
which are not on city sewer such as myself.

Last Tuesday night the council approved some amendments
to the OSS plan that make it more flexible. I would have preferred
more flexibility but the amendments are a great improvement over
what we had.

With the amendments after initial professional inspections
are performed, homeowners of all passing systems can do their own
inspections until the ninth year (that would be two homeowner
inspections at three year intervals) for gravity systems and until
the seventh year (that would be six homeowner
inspections at yearly intervals) for more complicated systems.
The frequency ofinspections is dictated by the State of Washington.
The frequency of professional inspections is dictated by Whatcom County.

Additionally homeowners will be able to do their own inspections in
sensitive areas following the same schedule as above. Sensitive
areas will be inspected before other areas.

Additionally a licensed operations and maintenance inspection
professional will be required to pass a test but will not have
to be in the business for two years prior to being qualified
as was previously required.

To be able to do self inspections homeowners must first
take a homeowners’ class. I hope the class will be free. I
believe some other council members are interested in free
classes also. The homeowners classes have not been set up
yet.

Our treasurer Steve Oliver has spent much time researching
a low interest loan program/grant program for OSS
repairs/replacement and believes we can create one that
will be effective.

I believe there should be more flexibility and that may
happen if the health department continues to have only a
5% failure rate which is the approximate failure rate on
property sales so far.

Should you have any further questions or concerns you can reach Barbara Brenner at (360) 384-2762.