Thompson Residents Question GPH O&M Program

May 23, 2024 by Allison Wilson

Geauga Public Health’s Operation and Maintenance Program presentation received a cold reception at the Thompson Township Trustees meeting May 15, with the audience questioning why the program was necessary.

Kristi Pinkley, a registered environmental health specialist, explained the program to the crowd.

“In 2015, the Ohio Department of Health updated rules,” she said. “They made a pretty significant change where they said all the local health departments have to start issuing ongoing operation permits for anyone with a residential septic system, so we can track and make sure people are maintaining their system to a minimum standard.”

Though the program is state mandated, it is not state funded. To cover costs, GPH will charge for permit fees and in the cases of systems that require it, sampling fees.

“Mid-May we’re going to have some letters going out to some of your residents. We have about 43 people that’ll be getting letters in mid-May and those are systems that have mechanical components,” Pinkley said, listing systems with aerators, peat modules or drip irrigation.

“They’ll be due the last day of June for $30 and that’ll be an annual permit fee,” Pinkley said, elaborating that the fee will cover the time costs related to the process, such as cross referencing a database and records, and doing audits of service providers.

Owners of systems that discharge into the environment, such as a road ditch, stream, storm sewer or spray irrigation will be receiving letters by mid-June, Pinkley said, adding national pollutant discharge elimination systems will cost $155 per year, while spray irrigation systems will cost $150, with the difference in cost due to discharge systems requiring an extra test.

In both cases, about half the money will go to lab costs, while the other half will cover the health department’s time.

The department also intends to begin environmental sampling to see if the program is having an impact, she said.

“That’s why they passed this,” Pinkley said. “In 2012, the state did a study and they estimated about 30% of septics in Ohio were in some degree of failure. Northeastern Ohio, they estimated about 38%.”

The health department’s data puts the rate for Geauga County at around 40%.

A woman in the audience asked if leach systems would be included in this phase of the rollout.

“The state requires (the O&M program) for all residential septic systems and we actually have about 30,000 total septic systems in Geauga County,” she said. “(Leach systems) will be coming. We’re planning to have everyone in the program by the end of 2030.”

Trustee Erwin “Kok” Leffel questioned what the department would do if someone refused to comply.

“To be honest, we still need to go over with our prosecutor exactly how that’s gonna work,” Pinkley responded, telling him there were a few options allowed in Ohio Revised Code — a noncompliance inspection could be performed on the system, with repair or replacement of the system if it was creating a public health nuisance.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Leffel told her. “What if I don’t comply? What do you do?”

Pinkley repeated her answer and Leffel pressed her on the question once again, asking what would happen if someone had a system creating a nuisance. Pinkley said the system would need to be replaced and the health department would go through the county prosecutor to do so.

“So, I would be prosecuted?” Leffel clarified, going on to question what would happen if compliance was low.

“It’ll block the court,” he said. “It’ll never happen.”

Pinkley said there are two forms of compliance — payment and fulfilling the requirement of the permit.

If the fee is not paid to the health department, a 25% late fee will be added and it will be assessed as a special assessment lien on the property taxes, she said, adding noncompliance with service has not fully been ironed out yet.

“There is something in code that basically says, ‘You knowingly did not follow the sewage rules,’ it’s kind of a more general code. We can charge up to $1,000 a day for not complying,” she said.

While there are systems causing problems, Pinkley said, the department does not have the manpower to visit every person’s property. The matter of noncompliance will be discussed at further meetings while working on the details of adding other systems.

Since 2015, service providers have been required to turn in documentation of service within 60 days of performing work on a system.

Pinkley recommended homeowners keep a copy for their own records, also noting the department doesn’t know what it isn’t getting and providers don’t always submit the work.

A question echoed multiple times in the meeting was why people already maintaining their systems are charged, especially if service providers should already be providing that information. Some people called it a money grab.

“This program is not designed to take in any more money than to cover (the) cost of the program,” Pinkley responded. “That’s all we’re trying to do is comply with the mandate. We’re not trying to make money on it.”

Pinkley also noted Geauga’s O&M fees are the lowest she knows of in the state, to which a resident raised concern of the fees rising over time.

“It’s a nightmare for us to change the fees, just in our database,” Pinkley said. “So we have every inclination not to change them.”

The health department has pushed back on the state regarding the program, Pinkley told the audience. If the county does not comply, control of the O&M program will be given to another county.

“(Another county) would essentially take over this entire section of the health department. It wouldn’t just be this one program, my understanding is it would even be … probably the entire sewage program,” Pinkley clarified in a followup interview May 20. “This allows us to maintain local control and try and do the best we can, given the requirements of the program.”

Pinkley encouraged anyone with questions to reach out to GPH. Information about the O&M program is available at gphohio.org.