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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH October 22, 1998 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Patsy L. Bateman 2 October 22, 1998 and sewer provider in the county. The concept was to get public water and sewer providers in our case, OWASA and Hillsborough together with the land use planners, in our case, Hillsborough/Orange County/Chapel Hill/Carrboro to try and develop public water and sewer boundaries and also to create a set of rules for where those public water and sewer utilities can go, where they can’t go, and under what circumstances they can go. In discussing that whole idea one of the points of focus became what if you have an existing system and it is failing or what if you have more than one septic system and it is failing. This is an area where you won’t normally put water and sewer. How do you address it? Out of that concept came the idea of defining an adverse public health condition as specified in the documents which you were provided. The definitions were developed principally by Ron Holdway but in the context of this water and sewer policy idea. The Water and Sewer Boundary Task Force has now incorporated into the draft of its proposed agreement everything you have in the proposed rules. There are a few differences, this is a little bit broader than just applying to waste water and well water. Summers -- There were several situations the first few months I was here that were very difficult to deal with because the situations were not imminent hazards nor public health nuisances, both of which are narrowly defined statutorily. There are situations that arise that we would like to be able to do something to intervene, but we can’t under the current rules. Examples of broader situations might include the problem with the sharp’s recycling situation and we also had a case where there was hepatitis A in a grocery store produce section employee. We couldn’t under current rules do anything about these situations. The broadening of this definition would at least give us a way to help those agencies/organizations come to a remedy. This is why it’s been broadened slightly. Gledhill -- The broadening you’re talking about is in the occupational exposure to a reportable communicable disease? Summers -- Right, or the other one which is a potential to cause personal injury. Gledhill -- The Water and Sewer Task Force or the Boundary Agreement could work without the BOH adopting this as a rule. The reason is because the Water and Sewer Boundary Agreement as proposed has a role for the Health Department/Environmental Health folks. The role is more a fact-finding role, that is using these definitions and these ideas, and making a determination that an adverse public health condition exists. It’s a defined term in the agreement and it doesn’t require the Health Department making the determination to do anything different than what they’re already doing as a matter of course. Example: Is a waste water system a failing waste water system? The way a failing waste water system is defined both in the rule and in the proposed agreement is the waste water system is failing when sewage or effluent is seeping or discharging to the ground or to surface water. This is something that Environmental Health can determine without looking at a rule. The same will be true with each one of the definitions that are in here. Example: An approvable onsight repair is one that can be completed and is approvable under Health Department rules and regulations. Everything that’s in the Water and Sewer Boundary Agreement and everything in this rule takes you back to something that Environmental Health is already doing. Could the abatement of public health nuisance statute be used in lieu of this rule? In my view, first of all there is virtually no litigation that I’m aware of in N.C. having to do with the abatement of public health nuisance. We don’t have much help from the courts about what that term means. In my view, the adverse public health condition idea is more workable than the public health nuisance. The reason is if you are working with a statutory term you’re going to be held to be applying that statute and we don’t know what that statute means, but we can create our own terms like adverse public health condition and define it in our own way and then we know what that term is. That term is not only defined by us but it refers to other things that Health Department is already doing. I think it’s a safer way to proceed and it’s also more practical.