Here's how it works:

Builder hires soil person to check soils.

Soils are very poor.

Builder hires engineer who designs a performance based system.

Health department does not review the site/soils and performs a very brief review of the paperwork.

The system is installed.

The builder sells the house to owner #1.

A few years later the house is sold to owner #2.

The system fails to perform properly and may have never performed properly..

I call the health department.  The health department refers me to the soil person and the system designer.

The soil person says "Hey, as my report shows the soil was poor.  It's up to the engineer to design a system that will work".

The engineer says "The system was designed properly.  Either the soil person's report was inaccurate or you are using too much water".

The installer says he did a good job.

Now I have a system that's less than 3 years old, the health department is keeping it's hands off the matter, the soil guy blames the engineer, the engineer blames the soil guy or me, the previous owner says he had no problems with the system, the realtor says there were no problems noted when the house was sold to me, and the original builder is gone.

The health department tells me that this sort of things happens from time to time.  I have a feeling it happens frequently.

There appears to be no accountability.  I've been told not to waste my time in court as I'll probably spend thousands of dollars and lose the case.

I've come to the conclusion that this performance based approach along with no accountability, or at least no realistic accountability, has created my problem.  Wouldn't it make more since to have strict prescriptive site and soil requirements that would prevent these problems?  Did anyone really believe that my system would work?  Common sense would tell you that putting 600 gallons of sewage every day on top of the ground surface and covering it up on the steep slope in front of my house would result in sewage at my front door step.

The developer made money, the builder made money, the soil guy made money, the engineer made money, the realtors made money, the first owner got out just in time, and I'm up the sewage creek without a paddle. 

I received a letter from the health department a few months ago that informed me of MY responsibilities as the owner of an alternative system.  I wonder if they sent any letters to the soil guys or system designers?

It appears my best option is to make this the mortgage company's problem.

Go ahead and pass these regulations.  Let's see how many foreclosures can be chalked up to performance based regulations in a world with no accountability.