GRANBY— The Board of Health will hold a public hearing Tuesday on its septic system regulations, which are more stringent than state’s, including limiting percolation tests to the months of March or April, increasing leach fields by 110 gallons beyond Title V minimums and separating existing leach fields from the water table by at least 18 inches of matter.
“These are actually regulations that we’ve had,” Board of Health Chair Richard Bombardier said. “Most of them we’ve had for 30 to 45 years and that many of them that we’ve had are regulations that went in before the current Title V regulations.”
The hearing at 6:45 p.m. will take place remotely on Zoom. A copy of the proposed regulations can be found at the Senior Center.
Over the past two years, Bombardier said a couple of residents attempting to sell their Granby homes have verbally and legally pushed back against the board’s orders to improve their septic system. A handful of homeowners on Granby’s social media community forum have discussed how the Board of Health’s septic suggestions upheld the sale or renovations of their homes.
The tests and renovations to these waste systems cost residents thousands of dollars. Without these regulations in official writing, the board lacks the enforcement power to ensure their orders are completed, and homeowners can challenge the local septic system regulations in court, according to town officials.
“In reality it leaves us in a sport where if someone chose to take us to court on these regulations, we would have some difficultly defending it,” Bombadier said.
Part of the proposed regulations would require all percolation tests, which determines the absorption rate of soils used in leach fields, to occur when water table levels peak in March or April. Normally these tests begin by digging a hole to search where the soil turns orange from oxidation of wet iron in the soil. All septic systems must be four or five feet above this rust line. However, Bombadier claims that since water table levels change throughout the year, he finds it is more difficult to see the rust line when the water line shrinks during summer and fall due to the various soil types in Granby.
“If you take the rules that the state has, a lot of the time, you’d end up with a faulty water line,” he said. “It’s really important for the system to know where the water table is because if it’s below the water table, it doesn’t take out the bacteria effectively.”
Similarly, one of the Title V inspection regulations requires septic tanks to be pumped prior to inspection to be able to see it’s condition clearly. The regulations also require a Board of Health member to be present during soil evaluations for Title V inspections and subsurface absorption system excavations. Bombadier claims this is to standardize the credentials of the inspector, who can range from engineers to septic system installers.
Other major regulations Bombardier points out are all septic tanks smaller than 1,500 gallons must be replaced when inspected, septic systems should be located 100 feet from any wetlands and leach fields should be expanded by 110 gallons in addition to the 110 gallon per bedroom minimum. The latter, Bombadier said, will hopefully save homeowners money in the long run.
“It sure appears that as we look at repairs, the systems that were designed with a little bit of extra capacity lasted a lot longer,” he said. “That extra size ends up not being very expensive. Increasing number of bedrooms from three to four bedrooms, so increasing [the septic system capacity] by 33%, probably changes the cost of the septic system by 5%.”
The Zoom link for the remote meeting can be found on the Granby website under the calendar.
Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.
