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Tallahassee, FL – A push to weaken septic tank regulations passed earlier this year is in progress. After convincing lawmakers to delay implementing new regulations, James Call reports, Niceville Senator Don Gaetz is leading an effort to rewrite a septic tank inspection bill.
When Panhandle residents heard that starting in January, their septic tanks must be inspected once every five years, they began protesting. Richard Harrison lives in Jackson County and gathered petitions demanding that the Legislature repeal the new law. He had them in hand in October when he spoke at a Department of Health workshop about the state-required inspections.
"These are 500 signatures that I have collected to repeal the law," he said. "There's another man in Jackson County who collected 500 signatures recently. And there are also people in Calhoun County who are collecting petitions for this. To repeal the law. We the people advise DOH, our legislature and our Governor to stop wasting the taxpayers' money, stop enacting legislation that attempts to give away our rights to our own private property and is also taxation without representation."
The protesters say the inspections will cost as much as $500, while the law's defenders say the actual price is $185. The dispute prompted Niceville Sen. Don Gaetz to propose delaying the start of the inspection program until July, and lawmakers passed his bill during a November special session. Gaetz has now filed a bill for the 2011 session to repeal the mandate. He said he welcomes an open public discussion of septic tank regulations something he said that didn't happen when the inspection requirement was added to a water quality bill in 2010.
"There are some people who believe that the only way to have a good solution to a public policy problem is to increase the power of government," said Gaetz. "I am not one of them."
Septic tanks are part of an on-site sewage system, mostly for homes in areas without a connection to a municipal system. There are almost three million of them hidden underground in Florida. People who support an inspection program say leaky tanks are dumping human waste into the aquifer, springs and lakes. Sen. Dennis Jones supported the once-every-five-years inspection plan, and he was the lone Senate vote against Gaetz' plan to delay.
"I hope when the issue comes back it will certainly come back in a different form or we still move forward because that has to happen," Jones said. "You cannot. Take Rainbow River, for example - that is now put on an endangered list. The main reason it is on an endangered list is because you have septic tanks literally 25 feet from the river. Those septic tanks have not been checked for 40 years."
Gaetz calls the inspection mandate a bridge too far. He and other opponents say it's a one-size-fits-all solution that is not reasonable in a state with Florida's diverse topography. He says an inspection regimen appropriate for low-lying, water-saturated south Florida is inappropriate for the rolling red-clay hills of the Panhandle. He also questions the wisdom of having the same regulation for a home with one or two residents and one with six or seven. And he bristles at what he sees as innuendos that people opposed to mandated inspections don't care about water quality.
"Public health and public safety is a legitimate concern of government. But let us not presuppose that people who have septic tanks don't care," Gaetz said. "Vickie and I had a septic tank until recently when we were able to connect to the county sewer. And until then we couldn't. We also live on the water and our children swim in that water and we catch fish out of that water and we eat it. Don't presuppose that private individuals have absolutely no social conscience."
Supporters of stricter regulations, like Jones, suggest that Gaetz' success in delaying the inspection program could be the opening statement in a much larger debate lawmakers will have during the 2011 session.
"From the federal level on down, clean water is one of the bigger issues we're going to have this session - along with the Medicaid," Jones said. "And this would certainly be a step backwards on not starting to clean up these septic tanks in Florida."
The Florida Legislature's 2011 regular session will begin Tuesday March 8th.