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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 20, 2008 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Anne Miles Cassell 8 November 20, 2008 K. Informational Items a. Environmental Health Existing System Authorization Procedures At the August 28th meeting the Board heard about the policy and procedures employed by environmental health staff when evaluating septic systems and wells at existing homes for renovations, rebuilds, and additions. Tom Konsler stated that whenever a project is proposed that requires a building permit on property served by a septic system, the law and rules require Environmental Health to make a determination: • That the existing septic system is functioning properly • That the construction will not encroach upon the existing septic system • That the proposal does not exceed the conditions of the Operation Permit or, in the absence of documentation, that the proposal does not exceed the apparent and reasonable wastewater flow capacity. This process is in place to assure that whenever a structure is built or rebuilt, that the public’s health will be protected by verifying that the structure will be served by an approved and adequate wastewater system. The Existing System Authorization policy and procedures has been revised to shorten and simplify it from that earlier version to: • Result in a document that is less cumbersome and more closely represents the decision tree that has been used by staff to respond to applications, • Adjust the period of time at which a septic system is considered to be out-of-use and hence subject to a more stringent evaluation criteria, (the time period went from 30 days to 180 days) • Incorporate an early visit prompted by notification from the fire marshal when a home has been destroyed by fire or storm, and • Formalize a prescriptive “stress test” as an option so that a system that has been out of use can demonstrate whether it can perform in a satisfactory manner once put back in to use. Moses Carey, Jr., commended the Environmental Health staff for making the changes to simplify the policy for the citizens of Orange County. b. Social Justice Goal The Board of Health provided input on the development of the Social Justice Goal for the Human Rights Commission. They recently issued a final draft report to the Board of Commissioners for adoption. The report was provided to the Board as an informational item only. c. Fiscal Outlook Board members were provided an email from the NC Association of County Commissioners on the current state of the economy in North Carolina. The first budget cut experienced by the various departments in the state, yielded a 16% cut for the Division of Public Health. They were assigned a disproportionate share of the cut to hold mental health and Medicaid harmless. While they strove to