Cook County residents who need upgrades to their septic systems but don’t have the money to get them may eventually receive some help from the county. Planning & Zoning Director Tim Nelson informed the county board Tuesday, April 27, 2010 that his department is interested in developing a low-interest septic upgrade revolving loan program.
The Tofte-Schroeder Sanitary Sewer District (TSSSD) would like to see the same thing. On April 22, TSSSD Chair Paul James wrote a letter to commissioners stating they had voted unanimously to request that the county implement a program to fund repair or replacement of noncompliant and failed septic systems, with the cost to be assessed to the property owner on their taxes for up to 20 years. James said that the most recent inspection in the district resulted in a 40-50% noncompliance rate, with about 10% of the systems falling into the “imminent public health threat” category.
Nelson said most of the West End TSSSD systems that were noncompliant only needed minor improvements. Overall, the county has about a 30-35% noncompliance rate on systems they inspect.
James suggested other ways to help people pay for upgrades, such as an expanded low-interest loan program through the Cook County Soil & Water Conservation District. “We have offered partial homeowner grants through the Clean Water Legacy program,” he wrote, “and we have found that many low-income homeowners do not participate because they cannot afford their own portion of the cost-share.”
Commissioner Bruce Martinson said, “No one wants to come down and force the person to replace the system if they don’t have the means or the tools to replace the system.”
One inspector who started working on area lake inspections quit, Nelson said, because he couldn’t bear to fail so many systems. The state has a sliding scale assistance program, but it doesn’t offer much because it assumes people with lake property have more money than a lot of other people, and state assistance funds have been drying up anyway, Nelson said.
Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers said the county has the authority to build up a loan fund through a special assessment. He wondered if they should offer a subsidy for people who can’t even afford a grant that requires matching funds.
The board expressed
” interest in pursuing a revolving loan fund to help people finance septic upgrades.
“Thisissue is always a thorn in my side,” Commissioner Fritz Sobanja said. “We’re just doing what we’re being told to do.” He said he has never seen data proving that health problems have actually occurred from septic failures in Cook County. He expressed dismay over the layers of laws regarding water treatment. Such laws were good for improving the condition of things like Lake Erie, Sobanja said, which was so polluted at one point that it caught on fire.
Commissioner Bruce Martinson suggested that they invite Public Health Nurse Joni Kristenson and Environmental Health Inspector LeRoy Halberg to a county board meeting to talk about public health threats from failing septic systems.
“The Clean Water Act gave [the federal government] ultimate power over us,” said Commissioner Jan Hall, “and it is ridiculous what they’ve done to us.”
Commissioner Sobanja talked about the rate at which pollutants are flushed out of waterways naturally. “We can’t control the snow and we can’t control the rain,” he said.
“But they can control us,” Hall added.
Thehealth of Caribou Lake improved dramatically due to the efforts of area residents, Nelson said, but they cannot pinpoint exactly what made the difference.
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