Some Improvement, But Septic System Inspection Struggles Persist

This article was published in The Pilot on Aug. 6, 2022.

After months of dealing with backlogged requests for septic system inspections and permits, it seemed like the Moore County Environmental Health Department was finally making progress on its caseload — and they were.

At the height of the backlog earlier this year, applicants for septic permits could expect to wait six to eight months for approval. There were hundreds of permits in the queue. Four months later, that time had dropped in half. Wait times are now running at three to four months, said Matt Garner, the county’s interim health director.

Garner gave an update on the status of permitting in back-to-back presentations this past week to Moore County’s Board of Health and the Board of Commissioners. Sharing the most recent data regarding septic permits, Garner said his department had been receiving 18 applications per week and closing out 21.

At the end of July, there were 133 applications awaiting site evaluation for a septic system, according to data from the county’s permit dashboard.

Garner believes it’s possible to reduce those wait times even more.

“Our goal is a two-week turnaround, and it’s totally achievable if we’re able to fill positions and keep working at a pace that out-paces what we’re seeing come in the door,” Garner said.

Those slow processing times for septic permits have had a ripple effect throughout the county. The Environmental Health Department is the sole authorizing body able to issue such permits. Long wait times have held up new residential developments that rely on septic systems for months. That has left builders, landscapers and homeowners in need of septic systems with few options other than to wait it out.

Brandon Haddock, vice president of Pinehurst Homes Inc., said the delay is forcing local builders to hire private specialists to help expedite the permitting process.

“We’re being forced to use third-party soil scientists, which is adding additional costs,” said Haddock, a past president of the Moore County Home Builders Association. “Most of our work is in town where we’ve got sewer (capacity), so it’s not a hold-up. But anything in the county is a hold-up. I’ve had jobs wait as long as four to six months.”

The businesses most affected by the delay are “the bigger homebuilders doing tract neighborhoods” in parts of the county without access to sewer service, according to Haddock

“They may have as many as 60 homes that are on hold,” he said. “They’re the larger businesses that concentrate on speculative houses, while our business concentrates on custom-built, residential stuff. That generally puts us in an area where there’s sewer, but not all the time.”

The long wait to get septic permits approved by the county, Haddock said, “is not a new issue by any means.”

“This has been an issue they’ve been dealing with now for a number of years,” he said.

Garner affirmed this statement during his most recent comments.

“Previously in the past, we have worked at a deficit for quite some time,” Garner said.

About two or three years ago, builders still had to wait, but times were running at about one to two months to get a permit approved.

“I’d like to get it down even further than that, with an expectation of two weeks from permit submission to turn around times,” Garner added.

‘General Attrition’

There is no single reason for the permitting backlog. Garner has repeatedly pointed out previously that Moore is not alone; other counties have also dealt with slow processing times for septic permits. However, the department has consistently cited staffing shortages as the reason for these delays.

Before the pandemic, the on-site sewage division was fully staffed, with five positions filled. However, by the end of 2021, the division was down to two employees, with three employees departing in 2021. Garner said that this was “following several retirements and staff loss due to general attrition.”

Last November, the issue — already acute at that point — was brought to the attention of the county commissioners.

“We are short-staffed. We are severely short-staffed,” Robert Wittmann, health director at the time, told the Board of Commissioners.

In January, the department got two more positions approved for the septic permitting division, a change which was the result of a “manpower study” that found additional staff were needed to process the influx of septic permit applications. For one month, the department had two people staffing a seven-person division.

However, in February the department recruited two trainees who underwent months-long training and were certified to approve permits in June. The department also found some success when it got the go-ahead to create a new position for an environmental health technician in the spring, which was quickly filled. While the new hire was not able to actively approve permits, that person could help by taking on other duties, like collecting soil samples, to expedite the permitting process.

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

Despite recent success hiring new employees, the department faced another setback last month after two employees resigned within days of each other. That has left the on-site sewage division with two out of seven positions filled — the same circumstance Garner found the division in back in January.

One of the employees, Alex Thompson, was a new recruit who had just finished his field training with the county. Garner said he took another opportunity closer to home. The other employee was the lead soil scientist, Sloan Griffin, who had been working at the department for a number of years.

Garner says the county has made two “conditional offers” to candidates to fill the vacancies. An additional candidate, who has dual certifications in wastewater and food and lodging, has also accepted a conditional offer and will work with the on-site sewage division to process septic permits.

It’s unclear what the expectation is for environmental health staff working in the on-site sewage division. According to an internal policy published in June 2019, the Environmental Health Department has certain expectations that customers must meet prior to the evaluation of a property for a septic system. That document, which was reviewed most recently this February, states that its purpose is to “process on-site sewage system applications within a 10 business day timeframe.”

The document goes on to state that the “10 day service timeframes will begin when all of the above steps have been completed.” The steps include priority order when submitting multiple applications; authorization from the property owner for evaluation; setting up field markings for property boundaries and proposed structures; ensuring property is accessible; and notifying the Environmental Health Department when all steps are complete.

Garner has said that some applications are not processed because they do not meet the necessary requirements to begin permit evaluation.

Recent Progress

Since the start of this year, the Environmental Health Department has taken steps to cut down the backlog. On the staffing side of things, this includes hiring part-time, resource staff to help out on the weekends, pursuing agreements that allow workers from other counties to assist the department and allowing overtime for current staff. The department also created a new position for an environmental health technician, filled this past spring.

The department also created a tracking system and permitting dashboard, which allows users to track the status of their permits in real-time and see the current productivity of the department. Those are available on the county website.

Garner said the department has also significantly reduced fees for other permitting pathways that allow private environmental health specialists to evaluate properties for septic systems. In those cases, customers can get their permits approved faster by paying a fee to have a private investigator evaluate the property, and then get that report verified by the county.

Most recently, the department took a major step and finalized contracts with two outside agencies to help alleviate the permit backlog, Garner said. The contracts are with Agri-Waste Technologies of Apex and Soil Services PLLC of Raleigh and cost the county just under $100,000 each, County Manager Wayne Vest said. The agreement runs through next June.

Garner said the contractors will primarily focus on working with environmental health staff to process permit requests from the oldest to latest applications on file, with the goal of processing 10-12 more permits per week on average. Though the contractors will only work one to two days a week, Garner said their assistance “helps tremendously” with the backlog.

Next Steps

In the short term, Garner said he plans to focus on recruiting more resource staff, refining the permit dashboard and increasing communications with the public. He said there have been “preliminary discussions” about performance-based pay for staff.

During his presentation at the Board of Commissioners meeting, he advocated for offering competitive salaries to attract and retain staff in the future.

“A lot of times, we’re in direct competition with other counties and other county health departments there as far as salary goes, so if I could advocate for that, I certainly would to make us competitive and be able to recruit and retain those environmental health staff,” Garner said.

“It’s a little bit of one-upmanship across the board,” he added.

Commissioner Nick Picerno, who has prioritized tackling the backlog, agreed. He said it was “imperative” to “get us at a competitive rate so we can get these positions filled and get these services done.”

“I just think this is a very important issue that we need to stay on top of until we get it resolved,” Picerno added.

Garner reiterated the importance of keeping an open dialogue with information flowing. He mentioned a roundtable discussion back in May as an example of this.

“One of the things that’s been important throughout the process and attacking the backlog and working with the community is having a dialogue with our various stakeholders throughout the county — that would include your builders association, that would include your realtors association, all your other county departments that are involved in permitting and inspections and building,” Garner said. “(It’s) important to start that dialogue and important to define what the expectations are, what we can do to work together in moving forward.”