HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-1-14BOARD OF HEALTH
TOWN OF NANTUCKET
MINUTES.
JANUARY 14, 2004
SUPERIOR COURTROOM
MEMBERS OF THE B.O.H. PRESENT: CHAIRMAN MURPHY, MR. SPRIGGS, MR. FEE,
MR. SOVERINO, AND MR. WATTS
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MEETING CALLED TO ORDER: Approx. 7:00 p.m.
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Chairman Murphy: We start the Board of Health meeting for January 14, 2004 - Mr.
Ray ? ='
HO Ray: Board Members, I have been asked to come with updates for you this evening.
Probably the first and most important one regards the Septic System Advisory Committee. As
you are all well aware, we have been experiencing some difficulty with compliance within the
Harbor Watershed Protection District. It was decided some time ago that the Septic System
Advisory Committee would sit down and look at this issue and come to grips with it and try to
come up with some regulations or protocol changes that would foster a quicker inspection period
and a more complete inspection of the system. What I am going to tell you tonight requires no
vote of the Board or any form of legal action at this point. Much of this will be presented to you
in the form of an amendment to regulations probably in about 3 -4 weeks. The Committee still
has a number of issues it still has to grapple with, and we will be dealing with those. The first
meeting of the Committee went extremely well and the first issue tackled by the Committee was
the timely manner of inspections. The Committee has decided rather than allow simply an 18-
month or a 24 -month window or things of that nature, that they would arrive at a date specific at
which the septic systems in both the A and B Zones of the Harbor Watershed Protection District
must be inspected by. To that end, you have in front of you some regulations upgrades (I am
going to call them upgrades right now because they are not dramatic changes). The first page on
top for the larger point, it is the larger print, it is the older regulation. The smaller, finer print, I
liken to - the new regulation. Those tentative changes are in the compliance requirements
particularly for Zone A, which now requires that these systems within Zone A, we are going to
make everyone have their systems inspected prior to Jan. 1, 2005 (that's a little less than one year
away. (This is a tentative date because as we all know we are looking at some rather intensive
inspection protocols now requiring a representative of the town to be at these inspections. That
representative has not been decided upon yet, nor has the format been decided upon yet, so I
think what we are saying with these regulations is that when that format is established probably
some time within the next 4 -6 weeks, I would hope, that it would be 12 months from that date
that these inspections must be done. In Zone B, we have allowed an extra 6 months on top of the
inspection period in Zone A. In Zone A, you are getting about one year, so Zone B will get a
year and a half. Those inspections will be done, or in the new violation section that we are
proposing, there will be a fine of $100.00 a day - each day being a separate offense. That fine
system will be administered through the non - criminal disposition concept which means a ticket