Agenda - 04-12-2005-6c - Laserfiche WebLink

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~XHTBS i C 6~ House Bill 900 Talking Points 1. The bill is poorly written and may conflict with itself in places and may also pose conflicts with other existing statutes (e.g., RS Act and NCGS 130A). 2. There is a relatively recent enacted statutory framework for the licensing of Soil Scientists (LSS) in North Carolina. However, there is no specialization requirement in this bill to ensure that LSS's have any professional training or even working knowledge of on-site wastewater systems.. Our experience has shown that many LSS's and engineers have no clear understanding of the dynamics of siting or designing wastewater systems and traditional formal education or field training is grossly insufficient to meet this demand. The current authorization system for RS's in NC does provide for extensive training and experience in on-site systems prior to having a legal ability to site, permit, inspect or approve the systems. 3. In general, the "Deemed Permitted" clauses are problematic because they could allow derelict work to proceed without oversight or correction in certain circumstances. For example, think of the implications of a remiss private consultant who submits multiple applications in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster such as Hurricane Floyd. Furthermore, counties with high development may also be pressed to meet the time deadlines and they are the exact ones who will have higher densities with less regulatory oversight. The use oftime-driven clauses in development/building statutes or codes is rare in my experience and leads to undesired complications or end results. 4. The possibility exists in the framework of this bill for a wastewater system to be designed (soil work and system design), permitted, installed, put into operation, and fail before the local health department, or any other impartial expert for that matter) ever visited the site, 5. There will be great potentially liability for homeowners and local health departments for those sites/systems that are evaluated by a private sector consultant and permitted by the LHD and then fail. In cases where the LSS is no longer available or has little or no financial security, the homeowner maybe left with little legal remedy other than to install a new system (many time at great costs), abandon their home or to sue the LHD.. 6. Under the proposal, LHD's without a LSS would have little to no legal ability to deny applications even in situations with glazing defects. 7, Past experience has shown that processes involving private sector consultant work without proper governmental oversight or ability to intervene created problems that eventually had to be dealt with at great cost to homeowners and governments. The best example of this was the North State Utilities fiasco where multiple subdivisions had community wastewater systems that failed miserably and required lengthy extensions of public sewer lines as a remedy„ The systems were sited, designed, installed uid operated with minimal government involvement as the process allowed for self-certification of the sites and systems by the private sector consultants. The sewer extensions were very expensive and the costs were shared by the govenmients and homeowners because the utility had insufficient financial surety to pay for the solution,