May 2016

MPCA, MOWA working to extend flexibility in determining need for SDS permit to all Other Establishments (not just campgrounds/resorts); tank inspection rule change also near

In 2015 a legislative initiative was proposed by Hospitality Minnesota regarding when a State Disposal System (SDS) permit is necessary for seasonal resorts and campgrounds. In the past, this determination was required to be the higher of estimated flow or measured flow of the SSTS serving the location.

Legislation was passed and signed into law that created a means for using measured flows in determining if the 10,000 gpd threshold for an SDS permit has been exceeded, even if these calculations are below estimated flows.

Calculated estimated flows can also still be used to make the determination of whether or not an SDS permit is required for a facility. This choice and flexibility is now in place for a limited number of resorts/campgrounds.

The MN Hospitality initiative is being further advanced by the Minnesota Onsite Wastewater Association (MOWA) which has, along with county representatives on the SSTS Advisory Committee, been working with the MPCA to amend the SSTS rules to extend this same flexibility in determining the need for an SDS permit to all Other Establishments as defined in the rules.

“The proposed rule change applies only to existing systems and only for determining if an SDS permit is required,” says the MPCA’s Brandon Montgomery. “This has nothing to do with system design.”

MOWA and the MPCA are still working on finalizing language in the rules to accomplish this goal.

Second proposed rule change requires pumping septic tanks prior to inspection (in most cases)

The MPCA has also been working with stakeholder groups on changing language in the SSTS rules to require that a septic tank be pumped dry prior to an official inspection to determine its integrity. Widespread support for such a requirement was heard during discussions with those attending the annual Minnesota Onsite Wastewater Association convention earlier this year as well as in other discussions with SSTS professionals.

Most felt this was a reasonable requirement and said they were already pumping the septic tank empty prior to conducting an inspection in order to adequately assess the condition of the entire tank.

Others told the MPCA they felt such a change in the rules was too prescriptive and that completely pumping a septic tank dry prior to an inspection was not always necessary, especially given the many tools SSTS professionals now have at their disposal to make an adequate assessment.

“We understand this viewpoint,” says the MPCA’s Brandon Montgomery. “There are two provisions in the rule change that should address these concerns.”

Number one, he said, if an inspector knows ahead of time that a particular septic tank is not going to pass inspection for whatever reason, then pumping the tank is not required. But a tank can only pass an inspection if it has been inspected when empty.

The other provision Montgomery said, is that a tank may pass inspection without first being pumped if there is a tank integrity inspection report available that shows the tank has passed inspection (with the tank empty) within the past three years.

The MPCA hopes to complete the rule changes in time for them to be in effect for the 2017 field work season. Contact your regional MPCA SSTS staff person if you would like to provide input on either of the pending rule changes.

Cody Robinson joins MPCA SSTS policy/planning unit; Theresa Haugen promoted to SSTS supervisor

Cody Robinson has join the MPCA as a soil scientist with the SSTS policy/planning unit. Robinson graduated this past December from St. Cloud State University. He is stationed in St. Paul. Theresa Haugen has been named supervisor for the MPCA SSTS compliance and enforcement and southeast region unit. Previously she was an industrial wastewater permit writer for the MPCA

Stacey Feser joins U of M soils training team under contract

The University of Minnesota’s Onsite Sewage Treatment Program (OSTP) welcomes Stacey Feser of Feser Environmental PSC to its Subsurface Sewage Treatment Systems (SSTS) certification program. She has earned all SSTS certifications and designed over 100 residential and commercial septic systems. In the past, she was the Health Specialist and Wetland Specialist with Blue Earth County and also administered the county SSTS program. Dan Wheeler is the Soil Science lead for the OSTP, and continues to be the primary contact for soils-related training, research or technical assistance related issues. He can be reached at 612-625-8791 or wheel027@umn.edu.

SSTS grant application process underway

The MPCA once again will have funds available for counties administering SSTS programs. There are four types of SSTS grants available to counties for fiscal year 2017. One, the grant for Advanced Inspector work on systems designed for daily flows greater than 2500 gallons per day, is an ongoing grant administered through Joint Powers Agreements with participating counties. Counties can apply for this grant at any time. Please contact Aaron Jensen if you would like more information on these grants. The grants that opened in May are: SSTS Base Grants SSTS Incentive Grants SSTS Low-income Fix-up Grants For the base grants, no application is required. The MPCA determines eligibility based on whether the county has filed their 2015 Annual Report and has an updated SSTS ordinance that meets the standards of MN Chapter 7082. The remaining grants will have a single application. The application allows you to click “Submit” and it will automatically email your completed application back to ssts.projects.mpca@state.mn.us .  If you have problems with this function, you can save the form and attach it to an email to that same address. An email will be sent to confirm that your application was received. An email was sent in May to all counties with details of the grant application process. The application submission deadline is June 15 at 4:30 p.m. The MPCA will determine grant allocations after reviewing applications. Funds will flow to counties through the BWSR Natural Resources Block Grants. If you still have questions, please send them to ssts.projects.mpca@state.mn.us or call Aaron Jensen at 651-757-2544.

For septic maintainers swimming in paperwork, there’s an app (a database, actually) for that

If you’re a septic system maintainer looking for a better way to manage record keeping and reporting… there’s an “app” for that. Working together, Douglas County officials and area septic maintainers have developed a computer-based, user-friendly Microsoft Access database that makes it easy to record land application site and daily hauling information. And that’s just for starters.

The system was developed based on federal regulations, and allows users to import daily records and quickly view yearly disposal records instead of having to wait for hard-copy reports. The system also helps maintainers calculate vital information like maximum allowed nitrogen, or total gallons of sewage that can be applied to a given land application site.

There are two versions of the database, one for maintainers and one for county staff. Information from the maintainer’s database is easily transferred to the county database. Both versions offer an extensive list of benefits.

The County Access database

The county version of the database contains complete information about many of the septic systems in the county, with inspection data, comments from inspectors, and information on operating permits and monitoring periods for larger systems. Eventually they hope to have information about all of the septic systems in the county.

 “This system will automatically let us know if a required monitoring report has not been received for a particular location and then a letter is generated letting that resident know we have not yet received that report and they need to send it in,” says Patrick Schultz.

“Our goal is to have our Access database talk to the maintainer’s database. So at the end of the year, each maintainer can send us a file containing all of their pumping records and we can just dump that into our database. We don’t have to re-enter all that information,” Schultz says. “We currently have to go through thousands of paper records at the end of the year. What before took me weeks to do, I plan to do in less than half a day.”

In another example of the power of the database, Schultz said the county pulled up a parcel map of a lake in the county, selected all the parcels around it and had the database generate a risk assessment based on the information in the system related to those parcels.

“Another way I envision using this system is we could collect observations from our maintainers about a widespread problem, let’s say with risers on tanks for example that make it hard to adequately maintain the system, and then use that information to address the problem on a broad scale,” Schultz says.

“I can bring that information to the MPCA or the Clean Water Legacy Fund and say we need this much money to get everything up to date. We have 1,500 systems and it’s going to cost this much. We can put a number to it.”

Maintainer database

Maintainers use a laptop or tablet loaded with the database to make daily record entries onsite that include a pumping record for each visit as well as a structure observation record where they record details about the condition of the tank that day.

Next is a tab for disposal information which is where a maintainer chooses the location they are going to land apply the waste. They then enter all information related to how they applied that particular load of waste.

“One professional maintainer in our county is using this right now and he normally does not like computers, but he actually likes this and he’s using it, which is really nice,” Schultz said.

Click on the image at left to view screen grabs from the Douglas County SSTS database. You will need Acrobat viewer software on your computer to open the files.

Is that redox or mottles? Here's how to tell (and describe it to others)

This soil profile exhibiting redoximorphic features (redox) within 40-60 centimeters of the surface (less than a foot) would make this site an unlikely candidate for an in-ground soil treatment system.

By Brandon Montgomery, MPCA

Correctly describing the soil and its associated characteristics is one of the most important steps in designing and inspecting subsurface sewage treatment systems (SSTS) in Minnesota.  While the end goals of designing and inspecting are very different, making a mistake on the soils portion can have disastrous consequences, such as: polluting Minnesota’s groundwater, causing a system to prematurely fail, or creating an imminent threat to public health.  An essential distinction to make when describing soils to homeowners and others is to clearly differentiate between mottles and redoximorphic features commonly referred to as redox. Although you will frequently hear people use mottles and redox as though they are interchangeable, this is not the case and hopefully by defining and demonstrating the differences between the two we can all start to use the terms correctly. 

Mottles are defined by the Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils as “areas that differ from the matrix color” and by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “colored spots” or “a surface having colored spots or blotches.” Essentially, mottle is a term that is used to describe any feature having a color different from the matrix soil color. This phrase, mottled soil, could be used to describe anything from carbonate masses to volcanic glass or even shell fragments found within a soil. However, one of the soil features mottles should not be used to describe is a redoximorphic feature.  The interpretation of redox features in both Minnesota Rule 7080 and soil science as a discipline are drastically different than the interpretation of a mottle and as such redox features warrant their own section in the Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils.

Redoximorphic features are defined in the Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils as “color patterns in a soil caused by loss (depletion) or gain (concentration) of pigment compared to the matrix color.” These depletions and concentrations occur when iron or manganese is exposed to water for an extended period of time, or when the soil is exposed to water repeatedly year-after-year. The Field Book also goes on to state that the “process of formation for a soil color or color pattern must be known or inferred before it can be described as a redoximorphic feature.” What this means is that you should never describe a soil feature as redox unless you are sure that the cause of the change in color is due to the depletion or concentration of iron or manganese, or unless you are sure that those red and gray colors are due to periodic exposure to water year-after-year.

So how does using these two terms interchangeably or incorrectly affect SSTS professionals in Minnesota? Indicating that a soil layer is periodically saturated by noting the presence of mottles is incorrect and has no justification in MN Rule 7080 so we shouldn’t be doing it. In addition, using the wrong term can have a negative impact in the public’s perception of SSTS if a homeowner is in contact with multiple professionals and hears two different terms used to describe the same thing. They may be confused and not well informed on the decisions being made. Or even worse, it’s possible the homeowner loses confidence in the capability of the professionals. Finally, there is always the chance that using the wrong term ends up costing you time, money, or both! None of these situations is beneficial to anyone involved and could easily be avoided by using the correct terminology.

So, as a state let’s start saying what we really mean. If it’s a redox feature, call it that. And if what you really want to describe is a mottle then feel free to do that as well, but from now on let’s not call redox features mottles. It’s not worth the hassle; plus, why would you want to say something that now you know is wrong?

North Carolina State University has created a series of images showing various landscapes along with their soil profiles indicating saturated soil conditions.

About $400,000 will be available this fall to upgrade older diesel engines

The MPCA’s Clean Diesel Grant Program offers incentive funding to help upgrade big, old diesel engines. Typically grants up to 40% help replace and install new engines in off-road construction equipment. New truck replacement grants are typically up to 25%.  

Examples of 2015 Grant Criteria:

• Must be fully operational and expected to operate for 3 more years.
• Must consume at least 1200 gallons of fuel per year. (More is better.)
• If off-road, equipment should be greater than 175 HP & be Tier-0 – Tier-2.
• If on-road, trucks generally must be 2004 and older, class 6 to class 8.

Additional stipulations include:

• Equipment/truck must be fully operational
• Not a backup vehicle
• Good to operate for another three years
• Once the new vehicle or engine is received, the old truck must be disabled so it can’t operate or pollute anymore (EPA requires a 3” diameter hole be cut in the engine block).

Visit the MPCA clean diesel web page for more information about this grant program.

Sign up for the MPCA Clean Diesel email list at www.pca.state.mn.us/cleandiesel  (upper right) to receive updates on the upcoming grant application period.

The annual grant round should open around October. If you have questions, call  Mark Sulzbach at 651-757-2770.

Steele County (Owatanna) looking for full-time SSTS Specialist

Steele County Land Use & Records/Planning & Zoning Department is seeking a full-time SSTS Specialist. This position is responsible for administering MN Rules, Chapter 7080, the Steele County Sewage and Wastewater Treatment Ordinance, and other applicable statutes, rules and regulations to include performing duties such as plan reviews, permit issuing, installation inspections and complaint investigations.

For a current application and job description, please visit the Steele County website . Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m., Friday, May 20.

MPCA SSTS staff - who to call

Detailed contact information for MPCA SSTS staff is available on the MPCA website. All MPCA staff can be reached at 651-296-6300 or toll-free at 1-800-657-3864. Past editions of the SSTS Bulletin are available on the MPCA website.