12VAC5-613-60B. The Department shall not issue an operation permit for an AOSS until the Owner has recorded an instrument that complies with § 15.2-2157 E of the Code of Virginia in the land records of the circuit court having jurisdiction over the site of the AOSS.

 

The proposed regulations (and the Code of Virginia) should be expanded to address instrument recordation where the clustered (decentralized) systems is owned by a public utility, such as public service authority or a town. It is my contention that in such cases the property owners/land owners do not own the system and are not responsible for maintaining it. The public utility is responsible for owning and maintaining it. In these cases, property owners/land owners should have granted an easement for the utility to enter his property in order to inspect/maintain the on-lot components. The property owners/land owners should also have signed a contract with the utility agreeing to use its wastewater service. This contract is commonly referred to as a “User Agreement”. I believe that the easement and the user agreement should be recorded with the circuit court, and both obligations would be transferred with the title to the property upon the sale or transfer of the land.

 

A utility-owned system, such as described above is referred to as Model 5 – The Responsible Management Entity (RME) Ownership Model in EPA’s Voluntary National Guidelines for Management of Onsite and Clustered (Decentralized) Wastewater Treatment Systems. According to EPA, Model 5 is analogous to central sewerage and provides the greatest assurance of system performance in the most sensitive  of environments.

 

In far southwest Virginia, we have three systems where this is applicable: Imboden (14 homes) and Lower Exeter (16 homes) both located in Wise County where the Town of Appalachia is the RME; and Ewing (18 homes) in Lee County where the Lee County PSA is the RME.