 Everyone generates wastewater. The treatment and management of wastewater is a basic issue for all communities. Central wastewater treatment plants are built to stringent site and design requirements and are governed by a discharge permit, which specifies the level of treatment to be achieved on a continuing basis. We understand that there is no such thing as a maintenance-free central treatment plant. Ongoing competent management is key. If management should stop, even the most technologically advanced plant would quickly cease meeting its design standards with potentially serious consequences. Like central treatment plants, on-site, decentralized wastewater treatment systems also require competent ongoing oversight and maintenance. States regulate the siting design and construction of on-site systems and usually require continuing compliance. But in many instances, ongoing maintenance is left to the individual system owner. Continued performance to design standards is not assured. Unseen small problems can grow into big problems. With centralized, decentralized, or on-site systems, what is not known can be harmful. Today, innovative communities recognize this and plan, implement, and operate a Community On-Site Management System, or OMS. They have assessed their on-site systems, made needed upgrades and repairs, and now carry out management policies and procedures to ensure ongoing performance. By conforming to the special requirements decided by community consensus, property owners are assured of ongoing compliance with state requirements and that their health, the environment, and their property values are being protected. States and counties certainly regulate the permitting process and ensure that the appropriate technologies are put in the ground. But for the duration of the life of the system, there is very little regulation, ongoing management, oversight, or maintenance. And that's why we have on-site management systems to ensure the integrity of a system from cradle to grave for its entire life cycle. An on-site management system may be implemented in areas with low density, as well as more populated areas. They may include advanced wastewater treatment technologies, along with conventional septic systems. Services of the responsible management entity overseeing the OMS should be performed by competent people, such as licensed or certified private contractors. Ongoing record keeping is essential, periodic inspections, monitoring of water quality and renewable operating permits are tools which may be used by an OMS. Responsible management entities include a utility district, a health department, a homeowners association, a rural electric cooperative. Often existing statutes enable communities to create an OMS. The responsible management entity and the services of the OMS will vary from place to place. Every on-site management community is unique. It is different because working within the guiding ideas of the OMS, it determines for itself what it's committed to and how it will operationalize that commitment based on its policy position. Each community determines an approach based on its own situation and resources. suburban Hamilton County, Ohio surrounds the city of Cincinnati. Like many places in the 1950s and early 1960s, rapid housing growth created demand for wastewater treatment infrastructure. Thousands of on-site mechanical aeration units were installed. Many had been marketed as maintenance free. With no management oversight in place, neglected unmanaged systems led to a major public health threat in the late 1980s. Citizens demanded changes. A turnaround was achieved by the development of a community OMS with the Hamilton County General Health District as the responsible management entity. It oversees the 20,000 on-site systems serving 40 suburban townships and municipalities. They'll fill that out when they come out to the site. Health district staff evaluate the siting, design and construction of the systems and do the regular periodic inspections required for renewing the operating permit. Owners within the OMS are very cooperative with the responsible management entity. We have an extensive computer database system that helps us manage these systems and it's been integrated into our geographical information system. That allows us not only to see when the next system needs to be inspected, but also which townships, which political jurisdictions are having problems. Renewable operating permits are required for conventional septic systems as well as for mechanical systems. People will do the right thing. By far, the majority will do the right thing. If they understand the importance it is to them, their family and to their neighbors, they will. Increasing population has had an impact on the estuaries and shores of the Gulf Coast. In Charlotte County, Florida, 30,000 lots front the waters flowing into Charlotte Harbor. The challenge was to protect the harbor without a costly sewer extension. The largely retired population opted to enable a community OMS with Charlotte County Health Department as the responsible management entity. If we have a lot that's 10,000 square feet or less, or if we have surface water within 100 feet of the drain field, we require an advanced system that is an aerobic treatment unit and a drain field. Advanced systems require more comprehensive management. A system's location and performance are entered into a database which generates notices for subsequent inspections. Twice a year we visit them to make sure that they're being run correctly and twice a year they're required to have a maintenance entity service them. Pollution of surface water is also an issue in the Great Lakes. On Washington Island, Wisconsin, the 650 permanent residents decided that the creation of an OMS was preferable to building the recommended central treatment plant that would have piped a fluent into the lake. We have a grave concern of protecting the waters around us as well as the water systems here that the people have to rely on to drink. So this is a very important tool for us to have the overall management of these on-site systems. With citizen input and state approval, the town organized a municipal wastewater utility district as the responsible management entity to oversee the OMS in upgrading septic systems and carrying out ongoing management. The utility district itself is actually managed by the town board of supervisors. The five of us have actually separate meetings under the utility district umbrella versus the town umbrella. The management entity has two half-time employees, a secretary and a certified inspector. An agreement with the county enables the management entity's inspector, directed by the county sanitarian, to inspect the wastewater systems on the island's 900 improved properties. Sand filters and other advanced systems are visited every six months, conventional systems every three years. The information that he's collected then is loaded into a database file here at the town hall and we're using that as our basis then to go forward for ongoing inspections of all of the systems on the island into the future. I think that there are tremendous benefits that we have enjoyed because of this. Individuals pay for their own wastewater treatment facility in their own house and then the management is paid for by a user fee structure which is very minimal. We're assured that we have done for our community the very best that we could at a cost that people could afford and that we have preserved the integrity of our rural environment by not digging things up and putting in huge facilities that we still look the same as we always did. We are just managing ourselves in a much more inventive and forward-looking fashion. Located on the Pacific Coast of northern California, Sea Ranch is a 10 square mile private residential community. Continuing protection of the natural environment was the major factor in the development of their community OMS. About 950 conventional and advanced on-site systems are currently in use. Through an agreement with the county authority, the Sea Ranch Homeowners Association is the responsible management entity. When a system goes in, the County of Sonoma oversees that system's installation through their environmental specialists and then it is turned over to us upon its final and we begin the monitoring. We notify the homeowner before their inspections. We open up the tank, we take measurements, we walk the fields, we check conduit, we check control panels, we check monitoring wells. We come back here to the office, I enter it in our database. I run the report for the homeowner and they get a copy of their permit. That permit tells them if there's something that needs to be done to their system, if there is, they have a time period in which they need to get that done. If they don't clear that, there is a non-compliance recorded and they have so long to get that taken care of or there is a hearing panel that they go before. We've had one in 10 years. Each homeowner that's on septic is assessed $105 per year for our services. That is on their tax roll and the county then reimburses us for our expenses through those tax rolls. So it really is member money that goes through the county and back to this program. Minnesota is endowed with thousands of freshwater lakes. Often shoreline communities are small and isolated. In Wabado Township, residents found a way to have their on-site systems monitored remotely from a location 35 miles away. On-site sensors transmit signals through the existing power grid to the rural electric cooperative. This creative approach originated in the mid-1990s. Residents on Little Boy Lake found that they were non-compliant with revised state septic codes and couldn't sell or improve their homes. Homeowners asked for help from the Township Board. They were tax exempt so they could find funding, they could ensure the system had a reasonable cost and they could get a lot of things done that homeowners would have no opportunity to do. Two environmental subordinate service districts were formed constituting the OMS. A cluster system for each of the two locations was proposed. Each would allow effluent from individual septic tanks to be piped to common drain fields in state-approved areas. One of the big concerns of the Town Board was we're a local government, we have no employees, we contract everything else. How much more additional work would there be for the Town Clerk who would be watching these systems if we put them in? And that's when we started looking around and we came across the local rural electric crowing power and light. The rural electric cooperative with facilities, personnel and administrative expertise was contracted by the Town to provide services to the OMS. Crow Wing agreed to oversee and execute management procedures including 24-hour remote monitoring of the systems, making regular inspections, hiring licensed contractors to perform maintenance, record keeping and billing residents for monthly fees. We monitor high water conditions in the lift station of both of these systems and also AC power so if the power goes out to the pumps we're notified whether it's five in the morning or five in the evening. Once the call comes in from the central station I would then contact the subcontractor up in that area to go over and check the system out and report back to me and he is a Class C operator and very familiar with both systems up there. In addition to remote monitoring the systems are inspected once a month. It's been an excellent program for us. I don't even know there's a problem till it's fixed. We haven't had to add any staff yet these systems are monitored 24 hours a day and we're very comfortable with how it's worked out for us. I guess the greatest compliment we've received is from some of these same people telling us that the water quality in front of their cabin is better now than it was before. At the federal level the money isn't there anymore to provide the grants and low-cost loans to put in municipal systems and the federal government is recognizing that and they're putting quite an initiative into on-site systems. There's a number of things going on now and looking to how to better encourage the use of on-site systems as a solution. The National Environmental Services Center has played an integral role in assisting the US EPA to disseminate on-site decentralized wastewater information, materials and resources along with a series of self-help tools for communities. Those tools really are there to assist the community, understand its current situation, to execute a community self-assessment process, to enhance its awareness of its current situation. There are a series of tools and exercises related to envisioning the future state of the community based upon the types of decisions which they may take and make. And there are other types of tools like an ordinance options kit which really shows them examples of different types of ordinances that have been crafted by communities across the country and the sort of sequential and logical approach that they might take to develop an ordinance for themselves at the community level. The specific activities within an OMS may be different for different communities. One size doesn't fit all, but resources are available to provide engineering assistance, training for management personnel, assessment of existing conditions, assistance for a community to find a good fit in an on-site management system approach.