Chapter 246-272A of the Washington Administrative Code gives local health districts the authority to “enforce OSS owner permit application, operation, monitoring and maintenance and failure repair requirements.” As such, the Snohomish Health District Environmental Health (EH) division issues permits for the design and installation of onsite sewage systems in Snohomish County.
Project proponents in Snohomish County desiring to install an onsite sewage system first apply for a design permit through the Health District. The design permit is valid for two years from the date of issuance. Once the project proponent applies for a building permit through their local authorizing jurisdiction, the design permit continues to be valid until a building permit is issued. Local authorizing jurisdictions have a set allotment of time for this process. Snohomish County is 12 months with additional extensions allowed. Once the building permit is issued, the project proponent has a set amount of time that permit is valid, depending on the authorizing jurisdiction. Snohomish County is 18 months, with one 18-month extension allowed. When the building permit is issued, an installation permit is issued by the Health District for the approved onsite sewage system. That installation permit is valid as long as the building permit is valid.
In order to promote economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic, many local jurisdictions are providing additional extensions or halting the tolling (the ticking clock) of permits. For example, Snohomish County halted their tolling for 120 days, effectively giving all currently open projects an extra 120 days toward completion. The City of Bothell and the City of Lake Stevens have passed similar extensions or halts in tolling, but the number of days is not necessarily consistent. Since installation permits are automatically valid for as long as the building permit is valid, the additional days provided by the authorizing jurisdictions, no matter how many days that is, is automatically provided to them by the Health District for their onsite sewage installation. No Board of Health action is needed to provide that extension.
The design application phase of the onsite sewage permit process is the only phase not automatically affected by tolling alterations made by authorizing jurisdictions. Permits in this phase are valid for two years and may get a two-year extension for $353.
EH would like to recommend an extension of 180 days (six calendar months) for all design permits active as of the signing of the declaration of emergency on March 4, 2020, and expiring before the declaration is lifted. Projects with application submittals since March 4, 2020, or expiring after the declaration is lifted, would not be eligible for the extension because the impacts to them by the COVID-19 pandemic would be considerably less burdensome.
It is difficult to provide an exact financial impact that would result from the passage of this resolution. Since March 4, EH has received five requests for extension on onsite sewage design permits at $353 each, for a total of $1,765. Presumably, these requests would need to be refunded. Extrapolating through the summer at five extensions every two months, the financial impact could be twice that, at $3,530, for a total impact of $5,295. If the emergency declaration continues beyond the end of summer, the financial impact is unknown.