Stokes says his department would 

 not have permitted the plan, had it 

 fallen under his jurisdiction. "We 

 would base our judgment on the poten- 

 tial use of the system," Stokes says. 

 "The state just looks at the engineer's 

 plans that say the system holds so 

 many gallons, and that's how many 

 they'll allow. We think there's too 

 much going into that system now, and 

 we believe there may be some risks to 

 shellfish waters there. But it's very 

 hard to prove. We've met numerous 

 times in Raleigh with the powers that 

 be, but our hands are tied." 



Richard Koonce, sanitarian in On- 

 slow County, says that developers in 

 his area do occasionally try to use sep- 

 tic tanks to avoid the state's authority 

 over larger treatment plants. But they 

 often do so, he says, because they don't 

 want the red tape of dealing with the 

 state. He confirms that pressure for 

 new buildings is intense in his county, 

 but he points out that his office has 

 turned down hundreds of lots because 



the soils were inadequate for sewage 

 treatment. 



Stan Taylor denies that Environ- 

 mental Management imposes a burden 

 of red tape on builders. "We've got to 

 approve the request or deny it within 

 ninety days," he says. "The plans and 

 specifications have to be done by an 

 engineer, but the requirements are 

 simple." 



Various drafts of legislation aimed 

 at closing The Loophole have come to 

 grief in the state legislature. One of 

 those still kicking is a measure drafted 

 on behalf of local health departments, 

 and was inspired by the problems in 

 coastal counties. The measure, if 

 passed, would put all decisions on sub- 

 surface sewage disposal under the 

 jurisdiction of the local health depart- 

 ments. 



Environmental Management of- 

 ficials are battling the plan. They say 

 that proposed changes in their own 

 regulations would help close The 

 Loophole. One of the changes would 

 allow the use of innovative new 

 systems employing low-pressure 

 pumps and mounds. The proposals 

 would also relax regulations that now 



ban the direct discharge of wastewater, 

 even treated wastewater, into shellfish 

 waters. The revision would permit 

 some such discharges, but only if 

 Shellfish Sanitation certified that the 

 discharges did not jeopardize 

 shellfishing. Environmental Manage- 

 ment says the revisions demonstrate 

 that the division is making an effort to 

 tailor its rulings to local conditions. 

 But Stan Taylor says the division may 

 actually withdraw some of the 

 proposed revisions, if the health 

 departments manage to get their bill 

 passed. 



The Coastal Resources Commission, 

 charged with protecting the environ- 

 mental health of the coastal region, has 

 also spoken up on The Loophole. The 

 Commission supports the 3,000-gallon 

 threshold, but recommends that 

 developments like condominiums be 

 treated as "design units" and therefore 

 be required to meet the guidelines of 

 Environmental Management. So far, 

 this support has materialized as a let- 

 ter to the feuding agencies. 



The commission recently beat a 

 hasty retreat from its "30-inch separa- 

 tion" rule, which governed the vertical 

 distance between septic systems' 

 drainlines and the seasonal high water 

 table in soils near estuaries. The rule 

 was withdrawn, little over a month af- 

 ter it took effect, when the commission 

 decided it did not have the facts it 

 needed in order to defend it. The rule 

 would have stopped much of the 

 development in places like West On- 

 slow Beach, where the water table is 

 often only about a foot under the sur- 

 face. According to Liz Lance, the com- 

 mission's information officer: "We 

 thought it was a good rule, but when it 

 came down to it, we didn't have the 

 hard data we needed to support it." 



(A current Sea Grant project by 

 Bobby Carlile, Craig Cogger and Mark 

 Sobsey is designed to help determine 

 vertical and horizontal separation re- 

 quirements for the state's barrier 

 islands. See page 7.) 



But few are betting the commission 

 will stay on the sidelines. Rob Moul, 

 field consultant for the commission at 

 Wrightsville Beach, says his agency is 

 waiting to see if Health Services and 



Environmental Management can 

 resolve their differences and close The 

 Loophole. 



"We're hoping they can find their 

 own solution," Moul says, "one that 

 protects the shellfish waters and water 

 quality of the area. If they don't, I 

 have enough faith in the commission to 

 believe we will step in." 



As if the ring weren't crowded 

 enough, the U.S. Environmental 

 Protection Agency is there too, 

 mustering evidence for its environmen- 

 tal impact statement for the state's 

 barrier islands. The agency announced 

 in 1980 that six major sewage plants 

 planned for the state's barrier islands 

 would require the agency's impact 

 statements. All of the six proposed 

 plants, which are integral to their 

 counties' "201" plans, would depend 

 heavily on federal funds. (The plants 

 are planned for Dare, Carteret, Onslow 

 and Brunswick Counties.) 



But recently the agency has aban- 

 doned the idea of individual impact 

 statements in favor of a single, 

 statewide study grafted onto the 

 agency's barrier islands impact state- 

 ment, which is keeping various con- 

 sulting firms busy investigating 

 everything from coastal construction 

 to waterbird populations. 



Meanwhile, the treatment plants are 

 waiting, and so are most of the com- 

 munities, many members of which 

 have long viewed central sewage dis- 

 posal as the neat way to clean up the 

 septic-tank mess. 



One of these plans, which would 

 serve Atlantic Beach and Pine Knoll 

 Shores, carried an $8 million price tag 

 a year ago, a price that doesn't include 

 an expensive ocean outfall for offshore 

 disposal, through submerged pipes, of 

 treated wastewater. 



While construction is delayed, large 

 sections of Pine Knoll Shores are being 

 developed with new land-based 

 "cluster systems," and some residents 

 of the area predict the community may 

 now elect not to use the central 

 system, if and when it is built. 



Environmentalists have objected to 

 central treatment systems because, they 

 say, they concentrate huge quantities 

 of wastes into a single system that 

 could, if it broke down, produce dis- 

 astrous levels of contamination. But 

 they also object on the grounds that 

 the systems encourage high-rise resort 

 development, along beaches, with the 

 attendant problems: contaminated 



"Wherever you have this rampant development with septic tanks, 

 you're going to find closed shellfish waters" — Stan Taylor 



