DEP Applies Anti-degradation Requirements to In-Ground Septic Systems
The Environmental Hearing Board (“EHB”) recently sustained a DEP rescission of a sewage planning module after DEP determined it should have properly required a hydrogeologic study to determine whether there would be any adverse impacts to an Exceptional Value (“EV”) watershed.
In the case Lipton v. DEP and Pine Creek Valley Watershed Association (“PCVWA”) the Board sustained the DEP’s rescission of a planning module that DEP had approved nearly one year earlier. DEP’s basis for the rescission was that it failed to require an analysis of the potential impacts of the proposed septic systems on an EV watershed. The proposed septic systems are ground discharge systems. As part of the planning module approval, the developer had a hydrogeologic study performed to ensure that the proposed septic systems would not result in nitrate loadings above the safe drinking water standard, which was the standard imposed by the DEP at the time the planning module was issued.
The DEP’s Anti-Degradation Manual identifies ground discharge systems as a non-discharge alternative. Despite the fact that the systems are neither point nor non-point discharges to surface water, the EHB determined that there may be a potential for the systems to have an adverse impact on the Pine Creek and the wetlands which are hydrogeologically connected thereto, all of which are classified as EV, special protection waters.
