Shit Talking: Humboldt County Looks at Adjusting Compost Toilet Rules Amidst Bureaucratic Tangle

Composting toilet [Stock photo from Wiki Commons.

However, several issues stand in the way of the County adopting composting toilets as a Best Management Practice including state law. Additionally, the Department of Environmental Health lies deep in Humboldt County’s bureaucracy–Department of Health and Human Services which is a subset of the Public Health Branch.

Humboldt County’s Department of Environmental Health (DEH) is finishing its revisions to the Onsite Wastewater Treatment (OWT) Ordinance by recommending revisions to the Code changing the Experimental Disposal Systems Program to Waterless Toilet Systems and codifying their use. [Click for PDF]

When residents live away from communities with sewage services, wastewater is generally treated with septic systems under California Plumbing Code, but a group of rural residents are saying septic systems needlessly waste water and energy. These stakeholders are encouraging the County to not merely allow waterless and composting toilet systems but to see them as the preferred method of waste treatment in low density areas such as Southern Humboldt.

On Tuesday the 21st of May, four stakeholders–Chip Tittmann, Rob Gellman, Jill McClure and Marc Delaney–met with Mario Kalson and Melissa Martel of the DEH along with Supervisor Estelle Fennell to discuss the draft changes to its Ordinance on Onsite Wastewater Treatment that staff will present to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday the 28th.

Mario Kalson is the Senior Environmental Health Specialist in charge of the Ordinance and its review. Kalson introduced himself by saying that while he feels strongly about protecting the aquatic resources in the rural areas of Humboldt County, the laws his job operates under do not easily support waterless and composting toilets. He said, “As a surfer and a diver …. I want to protect the water. I have a real passion for that,” but he also said, “I also have this public health hat. I need to maintain that perspective and ensure that the community is safe in the jurisdiction that is my responsibility.”

Humboldt County is bringing the Department of Environmental Health to bring the County’s Onsite Wastewater Management (OWM) Ordinance into compliance with the California Plumbing Code that was updated in 2016. At the meeting, Kalson said that part of the purpose of the revision is to bring more landowners into coming into compliance with their septic systems. The original ordinance was adopted in 1984 and Kalson said very few landowners have registered previously existing Onsite Wastewater Management systems. He noted,

What we have now is the opportunity to update the ordinance that was implemented in 1984 and not utilized. I’m hearing you guys say you have been installing composting toilets for 40 years, but we haven’t issued any permits. So the ordinance as it is, is not working, it’s not bringing people to the table. In our eyes, if we can get people to the table and get people to apply for a permit, that’s a positive thing. We are protecting the environment and we are creating an opportunity for people to have permits for their properties.

When Kalson asked for their feedback on the proposed draft, he heard from the stakeholders present that the newer version of the ordinance appears to criminalize those who have composting toilets, that it mandates residents to have a permitted septic system in place before being allowed to use a composting toilet, and that it therefor fails to promote composting toilets in areas of environmental concern such as the Eel River watershed.

Rob Gellman is an owner of the New Harris Store in the southeastern corner of Humboldt County. Gellman told the county staff in the meeting that he has been using a composting toilet for decades and has helped install a dozen or so on homesteads in the area during that time.

Gellman said he didn’t understand the need for landowners to have an engineered septic system in place in order to get a permit for a composting toilet. He said that didn’t seem to support actually having people use the composting toilets. He noted that community sewage treatment systems sometimes fail, that cattle are often seen in creeks, but that no effluent ever leaves his toilet. “They compost,” he said. “They are healthy. There is no e. coli seeping out into the environment.”

Rural Cannabis cultivators must bring septic systems into compliance on sites where manufacturing will occur or in other instances in which the site will be an ordinary daily place of employment as opposed to an agricultural site only.

Jill McClure has a rental on land that is being licensed for Commercial Cannabis. The current septic system does not have a building permit. The rental is not involved in the cannabis operation, but lies on the same parcel. She is not being allowed to simply have the system evaluated to see that it functions properly. She said, “The engineers are going to charge thousands to get it permitted, if the county will even allow it, so I have to take this gamble just because I am growing cannabis there.” McClure would prefer to put in a composting toilet which will save water which is a big concern for the regulatory agencies regarding her cannabis operation.

A family of four will use between 12,000 and 24,000 gallons of water a year for toilet flushing depending on the efficiency of the toilet’s design according to the U.S. EPA’s WaterSense webpage. It can also be up to two or three times higher for toilets built before the 1990’s. Composting toilets use no water.

Despite the Safe Homes Program that is supposed to make permitting easier to access, Kalson said, “Development on any parcel has to be permitted. That is why we have Humboldt County Code….so whether you do it before you build it, which is what we recommend, or you do it after you build it, it becomes more difficult because the Code changes over time. So if you built your home 20 years ago, it’s not the same Code as our Code is now.”

Marc Delaney sits on the Board of Supervisor’s newly formed Homelessness Solutions Committee as the affordable housing developer representative. Delaney said he has a long history in Appropriate Technology and he said that composting toilets should not come under the jurisdiction of the California Plumbing Code because there are no water inputs or outputs. A composting toilet is not plumbed.

Delaney also mentioned that with thousands of homeless people living in Humboldt County without access to any kind of toilet, there is a tremendous amount of untreated human waste going directly into the watersheds. Delaney noted that composting toilets are far more affordable than septic systems and that makes housing more affordable.

Kalson explained that a home still needs a septic system connected to kitchen sink water because the Plumbing Code requires a septic option even in homes that opt to use a grey water system. Delaney believes that California law is moving toward allowing kitchens to use greywater. He noted that while kitchens formerly could not be treated as grey water, a diversion valve to a grey water system is now allowed under the Plumbing Code.

Chip Tittmann said the proposed draft will make criminals of people who are using composting toilets even though a composting toilet is much more environmentally responsible than using water to flush into a septic system. Both Tittmann and Gellman expressed a sense of personal responsibility involved in “dealing with your own [feces.]”

Kalson said that the County cannot be sure that future owners of properties with composting toilets will be responsible for the systems. He gave an example from Mendocino County where an elderly couple “produced barrels of waste with no means of disposal.”

The language of the OWTS Ordinance adopted in 2017 does not mention any need for ongoing certification that a septic system is operating properly.

Kalson explained to the stakeholders that his staff has heard the concerns and moved the County’s Ordinance toward compromise wherever possible including reducing the mandatory checks on composting toilets from requiring a County employee to check on them twice a year, to having the landowner provide certification by an expert once every three years; an allowance for composting toilets built to pre-approved plans under public domain; and an allowance for manufactured composting toilets if landowners have an appropriate way to finish the composting in a second site.

Kalson said, “We would love for your support and your buy-in. It may not meet every one of your criteria, but it’s going in the direction where we can meet together…”

Then he added, “Rob, I know you had concerns that [the ordinance] doesn’t highlight the water savings, and doesn’t make conspicuous the water saving advantages, and I can appreciate that, but the guidance we have from County Council and from interpreting the code, is that [the ordinance] is not so much the space for the pros and cons, but for the regulatory framework.”

Supervisor Estelle Fennell said she sees that “one size does not fit all.” She agreed with Chip Tittmann’s proposal that a pilot project be developed to move the research forward. Fennell said she will recommend that Kalson be involved.

This Ordinance is scheduled to be presented to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisor’s on Tuesday, May 28th. Residents who cannot attend in person can view the proceedings from a link on the humboldtgov.org Board of Supervisors page. This item is number 4 under the Department Reports at the bottom of the agenda.