VDH is well advised to repeal the 12VAC5-613 Regulations. These regulations have become an impediment to reliable review and approval of applications for Sewage System Permitting. 12VAC5-610 (Sewage Handling & Disposal Regulations, of 2000) established process for determining standoffs to limitations but do not interfere with proprietary specifications for products conveying, treating and dispersing sewage and effluent.

12VAC5-613-90. (Performance requirements; ground water protection.) are especially problematic. Consider the consequences of policies developed under 613-90:

D. The following additional nutrient requirements apply to all AOSSs in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed:

1. All small AOSSs shall provide a 50% reduction of TN as compared to a conventional gravity drainfield system; compliance with this subdivision may be demonstrated through the following:

a. Compliance with one or more best management practices recognized by the division such as the use of a NSF 245 certified treatment; or

b. Relevant and necessary calculations provided to show one or both of the following:

(1) Effluent TN concentration of 20 mg/l measured prior to application to the soil dispersal field; or

(2) A mass loading of 4.5 lbs N or less per person per year at the project boundary provided that no reduction for N is allotted for uptake or denitrification for the dispersal of effluent below the root zone (>18 inches below the soil surface).

Applying the results of calculations by the US EPA’s “Onsite Wastewater Treatment System Expert Panel” (Panel) results in a net change of nutrient loading to the Bay of almost zero. At a cost reported by VDH of over $800/lb N removed. Without getting into the weeds the Panel refused to consider Nitrogen mineralized and fixed into organic matter as being isolated, nor did it recognize nutrient losses accruing from many miles of transport through inorganic and microbial influences. Thus developing guidance resulting in onsite installations over 400 miles from the Bay being regulated to as stringent a standard as sites on the waterfront.  Compounding the matter “conventional” systems are completely unregulated despite installation in proximity to surface, ground and even tidal waters.

VDH is operating under an erratic and ill considered policy resulting in almost no improvement of statewide N loading to the Chesapeake Bay from onsite systems, but resulting in a wholesale avoidance of "alternative" systems, on a misconstrued assumption that only systems benefitting from treatment should be held to a higher and more expensive standard of regulation. The resulting prescriptive solutions under GMP156 have virtually eliminated acceptance by the ordinary consumer of advanced treatment systems despite the proven performance advantages of virtual elimination of pathogens and organic loads. Erratic in that VDH staff are providing approval of "voluntary upgrades" and "conventional" designs which disperse Septic Tank Effluent (STE) into soils with high groundwater.

While VDH staff provides design and approval for these permits to pollute, the community should also be cognizant of the distribution of shellfish water closures.  These reports of coliform bacteria (associated w/ STE) leading to closure seem circumstantially associated with subdivisions on tributaries to the Bay especially along the Three Rivers and Eastern Shore Districts.

Surely the VDH recognizes the need to restore it's primary duty toward oversight by policy and action of the environmental impact of development. To do otherwise continues to undermine it's authority over these matters.