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18 <br />of these systems failed in a very short time after installation.. The most notable of these situations was <br />the Piney Mountain Subdivision and that malfunction was eventually remedied by the extension of <br />sewer from the City of Durham. The company that installed the Piney Mountain system also had <br />problem with systems in at least two other counties in North Carolina. <br />At a glance, the proposal contains no public health merit and likely represents a step backwards in <br />program quality. The major thrust seems to be resulting from licensed soil scientists who do not agree <br />with local health department's reviewing their work and from developers who have to wait several <br />weeks to months for their projects to be evaluated. Please be aware that there is no wording of the <br />general statute language for the proposal available to us at this time. As with all law making "the devil <br />is in the details" and we really do not know what the final statutory language will look like. <br />Below are the three major points from the NCCPWE proposal. Our comments on each point follows <br />them and are in italics. <br />1) Allow for a licensed soil scientist and certified site evaluator to submit soil and site suitability <br />information to the local health department as part of a completed wastewater permit application <br />package. The local health department would be able to issue a wastewater permit based upon <br />this packet of information with little or no field review. The proposed legislation would create a <br />system by which the health department could spot check these proposals prepared by the private <br />sector, but the local health department would not have to perform a duplicate evaluation and <br />may issue wastewater permits with no evaluation. A time trigger would be utilized to create a <br />deadline by which the health department would have to issue a permit or notify the licensed soil <br />scientist and certified site evaluator of any deficiencies in their proposal. <br />For the reasons listed on the first page, we think this approach is suspect. Furthermore, the <br />concept of conducting a "spot check" of those sites recommended for approval is without <br />sound professional merit as it would be cosmetic at best. For discussion, if a problem was <br />discovered in a "spot check" would prior work by the individual Soil Scientist be subject to <br />review and possibly action on outstanding permits or would we just ignore those existing <br />approvals? It is our impression that Soil Scientists in this setting would have an abundance of <br />authority with little or no responsibility for errors and omissions in their work because the <br />local health department is still the permitting agency. Finally, it is not clear what happens in <br />the event the local health department staff disagrees with the soil scientist and therefore <br />refuses to issue a permit. We have had many submittals from private soil scientists in the past <br />that, upon field review by our staff, have not accurately represented the true conditions on the <br />site. The expertise of some private sector soil scientists for evaluating on-site systems has <br />been limited at best and the quality of work varies greatly from one individual or firm to <br />another. "Spot checks" would be a haphazard and meaningless method of quality checks <br />given the variability and complexity of soils and sites. If we were to issue a permit on even <br />one soil report from the private sector without field review, we would be putting ourselves and <br />the future homeowner at great risk and also assuming at least some responsibility for the <br />outcome of that system. <br />2) Create a certification program for those persons using soils information to propose a wastewater <br />system. The "certified site evaluator" would be allowed to collect site information necessary to <br />complete a wastewater system proposal. A certified site evaluator would not be allowed to <br />perform acts of soil science unless the site evaluator is also a licensed soil scientist in <br />accordance with G.S. 89F. An engineer or other professional that wanted to be involved in <br />small wastewater system proposals would be welcome to become certified through this <br />program. The advantage of certification is that a certified site evaluator could submit a proposal <br />for a wastewater system to a local health department and the local health department could issue <br />