Virginia Regulatory Town Hall View Comments

Virginia Department of Health

State Board of Health

Regulations for Alternative Onsite Sewage Systems [12 VAC 5 ‑ 613]

Action	Action to Adopt Regulations for Alternative Onsite Sewage Systems
Stage	Proposed
Comment Period	Ended on 2/4/2011

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2/4/11 7:37 pm

Commenter: Joel S. Pinnix, PE, Obsidian, Inc.

Part I - Technical Comments

12VAC5-613-10 – Definitions

Direct dispersal of effluent to groundwater should be modified to read: means direct introduction of treated wastewater from a treatment unit into groundwater.

General Approval should be modified to read : means a treatment unit that has been approved by the Health Department for use.

High-Level Disinfection should be omitted. There is no need to specify this level of disinfection as it exceeds the statutory requirement of meeting effluent and groundwater quality standards for systems otherwise permitted pursuant to the regulations. There are no other regulatory systems that require this level of treatment.

Point of Compliance should be added to read – means a point within the treatment works, at the terminus of the treatment works or within the project area where compliance with a specified standard is measured.

Renewable Operating Permit should be omitted. As long as systems are operating within their permit limits they should continue. This new requirement adds a tremendous level of risk to owners where they may be required to upgrade systems to meet an unknown standard in the future. This requirement will have a great impact on community systems. If a systems fails to operate as permitted, VDH has the authority to revoke the permit. This authority combined with regulatory operation and maintenance requirements is sufficient to ensure compliance.

Standard Engineering Practice should be omitted. Only DPOR has the authority to regulate engineering. Creating a definition of standard engineering practice is not within VDH statutory authority.

Subsurface drainfields – change treatment works to treatment unit. A subsurface drainfield is part of a treatment works.

Treatment Level 2 Effluent should be replaced with – “Secondary Effluent” means effluent that has been treated to produce BOD₅ and TSS concentrations equal to or less than 30 mg/l each.

Treatment Level 3 Effluent – should be omitted. There are no manufactured treatment units that can achieve a BOD of 10mg/l consistently. This standard is superfluous – TL-2 (Secondary) is achievable and allows for disinfection. TL-3 is completely contrived.

Treatment Unit should be modified to read - means a method, technique, equipment, or process other than a septic tank or septic tanks used to treat sewage to produce effluent of a specified quality prior to the point of compliance.

Vertical separation – remove “or the bottom of a trench or other excavation”. The definition should read – means the vertical distance between the point of effluent application to the soil and a limiting feature of the soil treatment area such as…. The revised definition is consistent with the SHDR (12VAC5-610) and compliant with the statutory requirement for systems otherwise permitted pursuant to the regulations.

12VAC5-613-30.B – should read: Part II of this chapter, Performance Requirements, applies only to AOSSs designed pursuant to § 32.1-163.6 with applications filed on or after the effective date of this chapter. AOSSs designs submitted by professional engineers or others pursuant to § 32.1-163.5 are excluded from Part II requirements of this chapter.

12VAC5-613-30.F should be omitted – see comments on renewable operating permits.

12VAC5-613-30.I should be omitted – redundant reading of the statute.

12VAC5-613-30.J should be modified to read: Permitting of a soil treatment area within a wetland, permitting of spray irrigation systems, and permitting the direct dispersal of effluent to groundwater are subject to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality pursuant to the requirements of Title 62.1 of the Code of Virginia and are specifically excluded from this chapter.

12VAC5-613-30.L – Revalidation should be omitted. I fail to understand why VDH would require revalidation. Considering that VDH is going to receive routine testing data, there is already sufficient authority for VDH to revoke an approval if routine testing indicates that a manufacturer’s treatment unit is nonconforming.

12VAC5-613-30.M should be omitted. There is no statutory authority for any manufacturer approval or product testing authorized by Statute or NOIRA.

12VAC5-613-40.D should be omitted. The performance requirements of the proposed regulations applies specifically to Professional Engineer’s design pursuant to 32.1-163.6 (see 12VAC5-613-40.E). Since the proposed final only applies to PE’s, any exclusion of 12VAC5-610, Table 5.4 is irrelevant.

12VAC5-613-40.E should be modified to read: All plans and specifications for AOSSs submitted pursuant to this chapter shall be properly sealed by a professional engineer licensed in the Commonwealth pursuant to Title 54.1 of the Code of Virginia and, shall have a statement on the title page of the plans clearly identifying the plans as a § 32.1-163.6 submittal. Where this statement is not included on the title page, the Department will review the plans pursuant to the Sewage Handling and Disposal Regulations (12VAC5-610) and applicable policies.

12VAC5-613-40.F should be omitted. There are no AOSS designs authorized under this regulation by anyone other than a PE.

12VAC5-613-40. G. – remove “In accordance with standard engineering practice” and begin the section with “Each application….”

12VAC5-613-60. D – should be omitted. See comments on renewable operating permit in Definitions, above.

12VAC5-613-70 – should be omitted. VDH has failed in every attempt to set up and administer a jurisdictional test program. Puraflo failed its testing program yet was granted General Approval. Both Advantex and Ecoflo used sampling lysimeters that filtered out the bacterial contaminants used as the pass/fail criteria – yet were granted General Approval. The statistical model used in GMP-147 is fundamentally flawed. Dr. David Edwards of VCU found that the use of standard error and confidence intervals for the mean were not appropriate when interest lies in where treatment unit performance will fall. He further added, the tolerance intervals computed by VDH are too low as a large percentage of treatment units will fail the criterion. Furthermore, the raw data shows that each of the three units above had average BOD levels ranging from 6.9 to 8.3 mg/l but had a 99% confidence limit range of 28.5 to 43.2 mg/l. This data demonstrates that the units work well most of the time, but cannot achieve the treatment levels of 10/10 more than about 50% of the time. Similar data exists for TSS. VDH should get out of the product testing business.

CommentID: 15058