It seems everything in onsite is going national — except the industry as a whole. There’s a national process (NSF Standard 40) for certifying aerobic treatment units and other small package treatment plants.
There’s a national credential for installation professionals (National Environmental Health Association Certified Installer of Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems). There’s a national onsite association (NOWRA). There’s a national group of regulatory officials (State Onsite Regulators Alliance).
There’s a national Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. EPA and a collection of onsite industry and water-quality partners. There’s a national Consortium of Institutes for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment, which sponsors nationally applicable training curricula.
There even have been moves toward establishing national regulatory schemes (the NOWRA Model Performance Code and the U.S. EPA’s Voluntary Guidelines). And yet the industry remains subject to a patchwork of state and county regulations and practices. Would anyone care to argue that this is doing anything besides holding the industry back?
So much the same
Common sense says there is no need for 50 distinctly different sets of state onsite regulations and who knows how many sets of rules at the county level. Why does that seem so obvious? Well, because no matter where you happen to be, water runs downhill, water soaks into a given soil the same way, and the process that goes on inside a treatment unit doesn’t change.
Soil structure is soil structure, texture is texture, mottling is mottling, no matter where. And the knowledge needed to design a system and install it correctly doesn’t magically change at the state or county line.
Sure, in different states you find different soils, different terrain, different land features. But BOD is BOD, TSS is TSS, coliforms are coliforms, and basic treatment principles always apply.
So we come down to the age-old question: Why can’t everyone just get along? Well, in part because people are people. We hold certain loyalties to our ways of doing things, attachments to our political entities, and pride in things we’ve created. Regulators are no different. The mere fact that pride of authorship and territoriality aren’t rational doesn’t mean they aren’t real.
So, no, we’ll never see a time when regulators agree to set aside their states’ or counties’ traditions and preferences and adopt a single, national regulatory code for a national onsite industry. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
Where to start
On the other hand, there is a great place to start in that direction, and it’s the NEHA national credential. As Brian Scheffe of Front Range Precast Concrete observes in this month’s cover story, the credential carries weight. The exams come backed by peer review from experts from all over the country. There’s a training curriculum behind it, built by recognized authorities in the onsite profession.
It is in every respect a national credential, in the same manner as Certified Health Technician, Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian, or Registered Hazardous Substances Professional.
Anyone who earns the basic or advanced onsite credential has learned the essentials of installing and has passed a rigorous exam. Anyone who keeps it has earned 12 credits of continuing education every two years.
There are moves afoot in some states not only to have state regulatory agencies recognize this credential but to make it mandatory. That may be a steep uphill slog, at least in some states, but practically speaking, where is the downside?
I don’t see it.
And the next step ...
The next step toward a truly national onsite industry would be universal recognition of NSF certification for treatment units. It’s easy to understand states being picky about who gets to install advanced treatment technologies, and where, but it’s hard to justify states rejecting technologies themselves, or having to approve them, one by one, state by state.
All this seems to do is limit homeowners’ treatment choices and restrict the ability of qualified onsite designers and installers to match the right technology to a specific set of site conditions. Where is the benefit in that?
Universal recognition of the national installer credential and of nationally tested and certified treatment technologies would go a long way to elevate an industry and advance the professional practice of onsite treatment.
