Santa Barbara County gets closer to rolling out new ordinance for septic systems

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors slogged through a decision to approve the county’s Local Agency Management Plan, or LAMP, for onsite wastewater treatment systems. The vote was 4-1, with Chair and 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf dissenting. 

Approval for the LAMP is a missing piece that puts the county one step closer to implementing a wastewater treatment ordinance passed in January. Some 450 families have already applied for cash to start designing their new wastewater treatment systems.

The ordinance mostly affects the Santa Ynez Valley, where a study in 2003 identified a worryingly high concentration of onsite septic systems. Some of those systems were located on or in the wrong kind of dirt for dealing with wastewater. 

Many were found in unincorporated areas, or under the purviews of community services districts with limited resources to throw at wastewater disposal. Those districts equipped with septic systems worried that their small-town sets of pumps and pipes would quickly hit capacity.

Fixing this problem—by linking onsite septic systems together, plugging them into municipal plumbing, or implementing the high-tech latrines of the future—could run individual residents between $20,000 and $40,000. 

LAMP is not a policy document, so it won’t cost anyone $40,000, but it gives the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board an “advanced groundwater protection program” by which it can collect data, work through potential solutions with individuals and different agencies, and find the money to pay for it. 

Wolf was unconvinced the LAMP had the data-collecting or agency-coordinating tools it needed to address contamination by wastewater from individual latrines.

“This is really important. Obviously you folks know that. But it feels to me that this is a fuzzy exercise and we’re not putting teeth into this,” she said.

Third District Supervisor Doreen Farr pointed to Los Olivos as a particular example, saying that the town is thinking about starting a community services district to begin addressing wastewater.

The rest of the board weighed in as well: 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino asked questions about specific costs to homeowners, and 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam steered the Board toward a vote to avoid months more of spending, tweaking, and researching.

“The longer we look at this, the longer we tinker with it, it’s going to get worse. But we have to have a system in place,” Lavagnino said, agreeing with Adam.

The LAMP will now bounce back to the Water Quality Control Board for its approval.

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