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Paul Flemming: Something stinks in septic-tank battle

The Tallahassee Democrat, October 8, 2010.

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

Here's an analogy to the wisdom of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr.: Your right to put sewage in the ground ends at my water tap.

I'm not running for office, so I'm free to say this. If your effluent is seeping into my drinking water, it's perfectly OK with me if it'll cost you a couple hundred dollars to make it stop.

Back in the spring, Florida's Legislature enacted a water bill that passed with a broad swath of political support from homebuilders and environmentalists alike. One part of the legislation requires septic-tank inspections once every five years. If the septic tank isn't working right, the new law requires it be remedied.

There are up to 2.7 million septic tanks in the state and, before now, there had been no statewide regulation. Three counties — Escambia, Santa Rosa and Charlotte — have septic-inspection requirements. But the estimated 200,000 failing septic tanks — full to the brim with solids, clogged by crushed laterals or pooling in unfit soils — are sending untreated waste into the ground.

In the karst of North Florida, the Swiss cheese of geologic formations, it's an easy path to the aquifer. Everywhere in the state, untreated sewage is a threat to water supplies.

Yet an increasing chorus of lawmakers, some of whom voted for the bill, are now shouting out their intention to repeal it next year. They say the harsh economic times make it tough for people to stop poisoning the ground with sewage.

State Rep. Greg Evers, a Baker Republican and a candidate for the state Senate, voted against it in the spring. He's still against it and wants to repeal it.

"Concerns have continued to grow as estimates from various counties on the cost of implementing the septic tank provisions have varied widely from a low of $180 to a high of $800," Evers wrote to Gov. Charlie Crist in September, asking him to delay implementation. Crist declined.

Evers' letter was also signed by state Sen. Durell Peaden, a Crestview Republican term-limited out of office (Evers will likely take his place). Peaden voted for SB 550. So did Sen. Al Lawson, a Tallahassee Democrat who made a stink about the bill earlier this summer when he was running for Congress.

State Rep. Marti Coley, a Marianna Republican, and Sen. Don Gaetz, a Niceville Republican, say they'll file legislation to repeal the septic-system regulations. Coley didn't record a vote on SB 550. Gaetz voted for it in April. Among the reasons Coley cited for repeal is the fact that the association for the businesses that conduct the inspections played a role in writing the law. Coley said, "This is a clear conflict of interest."

If that's the new standard, I expect those lawmakers to file legislation repealing all insurance legislation — just to name one example — ever passed.

The travesty of modern Florida is not that there are so many septic tanks in the state. The criminal silliness is that there is still development that jumps through all the regulatory hoops and is designed, in 2010, the 21st-freaking-century in the wealthiest nation on Earth, to depend on septic tanks.

But that's a rant for another day.

Let's go to war with the sewage treatment we have, not the sewage treatment I wish we had.

Septic tanks can work. But even the best technology, correctly installed, is not maintenance free. You have to get them emptied out from time to time and make sure they haven't been compromised. It is not too much to ask that property owners pay a couple hundred bucks every five years to do so.

In the last year I've paid $320.78 for sewer service to the municipally owned utility in Tallahassee. That's not an option for me. Even if it were, even if I could choose to run my plumbing out onto my backyard, I'd pay it. This must qualify as the very lowest rung of the social-contract ladder.

Some lawmakers disagree. They're intent on answering the wailing of constituents who say they can't afford $35 a year to ensure they're not flushing directly into rivers and aquifers.

That putrid odor is not the septic tank.

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