Professional Engineering and On-site Sewage Disposal in Nova Scotia

The On-site Sewage Disposal Systems Standard as it relates to the Practice of Professional Engineering.

SPECIFIC THINGS THAT REQUIRE AN ENGINEER

The following is my personal interpretation of the Standard. I am a Professional Engineer who has been practicing in this field since 1985, and also teaches on-site sewage disposal to Engineers.  

The Standard describes minimum requirements for selection, design, and installation on on-site sewage treatment for sanitary sewage in Nova Scotia. It can be found here:

https://novascotia.ca/nse/wastewater/docs/On-site-Sewage-Disposal-Systems-Standard.pdf

Only Engineers can design systems less than 1000 L/day

Only Engineers can design systems greater than 1500 L/day

Backwash from water treatment devices is only allowed when an Engineer has accepted them as part of a designed system.

Clearance distances are provided for parts of a system that apply to non-engineers in every case, except where the Standard allows non-engineers or non-geoscientists to design and specify groundwater cutoff membranes in order to protect water supplies and foundation drains from untreated effluent and lessen those clearances. (this is a questionable activity in relation to Nova Scotia Engineering and Geoscientist legislation). 

The Standard and Regulations allow non Professionals to select types of septic systems from pre-engineered tables, and then to certify that they are installed correctly. Currently, it is possible for an on-site sewage disposal system for a single family home to be selected, accepted by NSE, and installed, with no review by a Professional Engineer at any point. About half of Nova Scotians are served by these systems. If something goes wrong, like the effluent from a system contaminating groundwater and making people ill, the responsibility for this is undetermined, and may lie with the Municipal Engineer for the Municipality that issued a building permit, regardless of whether they, personally, even knew the system was going in.

DESIGN

There is a separate section that applies to Professional Engineers doing design for new systems.

A Professional Engineer must design a system using the “Low” permeability rates for ATU effluent in Table 3. There does not seem to be a release from this when a design manual for a product that uses a different soil classification system is applied. Table 3 should still apply, regardless, as it was developed for Nova Scotia conditions and uses the same classification system for soils as the Standard.

A non-engineer must use pipe hole spacings as provided in Table 12. An Engineer can design the pipe distribution system.

A Professional Engineer must use design criteria provided in a separate section of the Standard that non-engineers are not permitted to use or reference. This includes the design of systems that use engineered products (ATU’s) and sloping sand filters, a highly engineered type of sand filter. 

The normal design section for Engineers requires that there be enough capability on the property to infiltrate the design flow. No excess discharge is allowed. Clearances must be met to comply with the Standard. This is for new construction.

MALFUNCTIONS

There is a separate section for addressing malfunctions and replacement or repair thereof. It is here that we see the main issues Professional Engineers have with the Provincial Department of Environment.

A non-engineer is permitted to do the work of assessing a malfunction and deciding if it can be repaired or needs to be replaced, and in cases where the lot size is adequate and all clearances can be met, they can propose a selected system solution. 

On properties where the land area does not allow the normal required clearances to be met, a Professional Engineer must design a system.

The Standard then details a series of conditions and a protocols that the Professional Engineer must follow in order to remain compliant with the Standard. Those conditions are laid out in the final four paragraphs. The direction given is similar to standard engineering design protocol for most disciplines, providing an orderly hierarchy of issues to be addressed in the design process, in order to remain compliant with the Standard. That hierarchy is as follows:

Protection of groundwater, and mitigation of treated effluent flow to bedrock or high permeability soils is primary. This is required. 

Horizontal clearance to water wells or surface watercourses is the secondary concern over other features where clearance is normally specified (i.e. lot lines).

When forced to compromise horizontal clearance distances to water supply and watercourses, locations where the effluent is released from the system to the natural environment are given priority over parts of the system where the intent is confinement. (i.e. keep effluent trench as far away from risk as possible, even if it means having a septic tank, pipe or pump chamber closer to a well or watercourse than the limits prescribe in a new system design).

If there is a case where none of the clearance distances can be met, they are to be maximized based on the above hierarchy. (do as good a job as you can).

Finally, and most wisely, the last paragraph of the Standard provides the ultimate direction to a Professional Engineer under the Standard, again, in order for the Engineer to remain compliant. 

“A professional engineer must consider site specific conditions and incorporate protective measures in the system design to ensure that the repair or replacement will not cause an adverse effect.”

PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING PRACTICE AND THE STANDARD

With this final clause, the Standard becomes applicable to all possible situations. It guides Professionals and non-professionals alike in a clear and responsible manner when site conditions are normal and new systems are being constructed.  It provides a clear, cogent and orderly process for a Professional Engineer only to follow when addressing the rare instances when the normal requirements of the Standard cannot be meant. Most important, with the final clause, it acknowledges that, in some cases, all that remains to serve the public good, and protect the environment and public health, is the application of good engineering practice. 

What is important is that Professional Engineers experienced in this Engineering design work understand and interpret this last clause as clear direction from within the Standard that once they have exhausted all other options, and they can only design a system where treated effluent must discharge to a surface water location off the property, if they design to “ensure that the repair or replacement will not cause an adverse effect”, their work remains compliant to the Standard because they have followed the Standard. They are not only permitted, they are directed to practice Engineering in the Standard.

The problem facing Engineers Nova Scotia now is that inexperienced, or non-engineering staff, in the NS Environment Department are interpreting that this, the only solution short of abandoning the home, somehow lies outside the Standard, despite direction in the Standard that clearly licenses the Engineer to do as best as they can in applying Engineering Judgement and care. That is, to do their job. Recently the courts tossed out their attempts to charge a Professional Engineer for practicing Engineering, but did so without establishing a precedent to protect Engineers from such future malfeasance on the part of NSE (being laughed out of court is, unfortunately, not recorded for posterity). 

The distinction between when a design for an on-site sewage disposal system can proceed under a Notification or whether it requires an Approval can be simply described by the following test. If it is improving the environment and public health - for the public good - it is a Notification. If it isn't - allowing development where there is none now, and the standard (with no malfunction) cannot be met, then it has to be considered by the Minister for an Approval.  After all, the "do nothing" alternative would exist. In the case of a malfunction, it does not.

A Professional Engineer wrote the Standard. In it we see a carefully constructed document focussed on ensuring that malfunctioning systems of any type are addressed as soon as possible and not subject to long wait times for Approvals that cause adverse effects to continue unchecked. Interpreted as it was intended, the Standard can continue serve Nova Scotians well. 

How Dysfunctional can a Government Department Get?

The answer to the question posed in the title of this post is explained in episode form. This is just the experience of one company. I am sure it is repeated and amplified throughout Nova Scotia. 


This is the story of one Nova Scotia Environment Inspector and their interactions with one company in Southwest Nova Scotia and the Annapolis Valley.  If incredible waste of your tax dollars is something that sickens you, I suggest you stop reading now. If you don't have an appreciation of what a self governing profession is, I suggest you familiarize yourself before continuing. If you do, prepare to be amazed. The main thing to keep in mind here is that the NS Department of Environment is tasked with reducing the number and severity of adverse effects to the environment. That is their main objective. They have clearly lost their way.

Episode 1 - The Oil in the Well

Someone was unhappy with being evicted from their apartment building. That someone decided to get back at the landlord in a very irresponsible manner, by breaking the cap off the drilled well that served the building and dumping a quart of motor oil in. In time, people living there noticed and called the landlord, who called our Kentville office. This is a good reaction, as working in that office is a very experienced Professional Engineer, someone with a Masters Degree in Public Health Engineering, who had, for about 30 years, been the senior technical resource for all public health and environmental concerns for the Valley area in the Nova Scotia Department of Health and later, when the government stopped providing Public Health Engineering (you didn't know that, did you? NS is one of the few jurisdictions in North America without a chief public health engineer), with the NS Department of Environment.

That engineer went to the property and confirmed that there was a problem, and took samples that showed there was oil in the water. He then immediately advised the owner to open all the taps and pump the well down and keep pumping. This makes a lot of sense, because one quart of oil is not a lot, and most of it was probably not in the groundwater, and may never have left the casing of the well, other than to go into the plumbing.

In time, tests showed that there was no hydrocarbon residual and the Engineer, as the rules require, made up a report summarizing the event, the remediation, and documenting the success of the remediation.

This should have been the end of it. But in that office of the NS Department of the Environment, there exists someone apparently not very well versed in the technical aspects of their job, nor in an understanding of what a Professional Engineer is, and the laws and practices that govern the Profession of Engineering. This person, who we will call M, refused to accept the report because it was not done by a hydrogeologist. When it was pointed out to them that the qualifications of the Engineer in this case were more than enough to satisfy the regulations, instead of going, "ooops, my bad" they doubled down and dug in. Attempting to have the residents of the apartment building evicted and threatening to lay charges.

Their supervisor, the person who should have been there to bring common sense to the situation, was nowhere to be found. This despite their having worked with the Engineer for years and having relied upon them for similar advice for most all of that time. Instead, an unqualified new employee inspector was allowed to continue their baseless attempt to win some strange argument with the Profession of Engineering in Nova Scotia.

In the end, legal action and the direct involvement of Engineers Nova Scotia staff finally made this annoyance go away, but not until a lot of time, some of ours, and a lot more of the government employee's time (you were paying them to act like this) was wasted over nothing. There was a small adverse effect here that was properly addressed and mitigated by the actions of an experienced, qualified Professional. With no continuing impact. When that Professional signed their report, they were certifying that what was in it was true. There was no reason not to believe them.


Episode 2 - The Case of the Random Warning

This one actually involves me. It is without a doubt the most incredibly stupid thing I have witnessed in over 35 years of dealing with government. I really wish this had happened to more Engineers so that they would be more likely to believe me.

A good friend owns a farm, on which they were going to operate a small bakery. They would be generating about 5 gallons a day of water when washing up their pots and pans and work area. Knowing that I know a fair amount about septic systems, they asked me what they should do when they built the bakery. I told them that they could get an approval to hook a toilet and hand wash into their home septic system, but that the flour in the wash water would definitely plug up their field bed if allowed to go into that system. They asked what to do as they were considering just having a 5 gallon bucket and carrying it out to spread on the garden, but in winter that would not be practical. I suggested they might put in a holding tank for that sink only and have it pumped out on occasion. I gave them a sketch of what a holding tank would look like, and suggested that the Department of Agriculture might be able to help them to make sure that what they were doing was OK, as this is a farm ancillary business.

Flash forward to 6 months or so later, and I stop in to get some bread and visit. There is a nice new tank installed and I am advised that the neighbouring farmer come over twice a year to pump the tank out, and he mixes it with manure and spreads it on his hayfield. Very cool. Total proper sustainable agriculture and environmental responsibility to the point that it was a model of how to manage such a small, simple waste stream that really did not need to go to waste. They had had a local licensed installer put the tank in. So, as far as I knew they were kosher.

Then they decided they wanted to be able to sell bread at the roadside, to tourists and locals. Nice. But to do so, they were told by the licensing people that they had to have a proper toilet and hand wash. They had not yet done so. They built a piece on to their bakery, and I designed a way to connect that to the house system and it was approved. The flour water tank was there all along doing its job.

This approval prompted a visit from "the authorities", in their new police like uniforms.  Instead of being concerned about the actual system that had health and environmental concerns, the toilet waste, the NSE Inspector obsessed about the 5 gallon a day holding tank for the flour washwater. They went home and issued a directive stating that it had to be 1000 imperial gallons (it was, apparently only 1000 US Gallons) and directed that it be pumped not for re-use on a farm field with animal manure, but to a human septage lagoon where it would take up space intended for septic tank solids. The NS Department of Environment actually directed someone to take clean re-useable bakery waste and pollute it by adding it to a septage lagoon. They ordered the creation of what is, by definition, an adverse effect.

Not to be outdone, this inspector (did I mention it was M again?) saw that the baker had used the sketch I had given them of another holding tank, and that it had an unsigned, undated photocopy of my stamp on one corner. It was the sketch I had given her to show her what a holding tank looked like in general, but was not at all what they ended up installing.

This inspector called me, and I happily explained to them what I had, and had not done, and that I was working under the assumption that the baker had permission under the Department of Agriculture for their tank, and that in my opinion, an elegant solution had been worked out.  I said I would contact the baker and offer to help them with complying to this new (silly) order. I then immediately sent the baker an email to that effect.  Still, in absence of any evidence, with no other correspondence or application or communication from me, the Inspector decided to write up an official warning under the Environment Act to me directing that I essentially go on to private land owned by someone else, and fix this tank "problem". When I had yet to do anything related to the holding tank other than, years prior, suggest that might work.

I was moderately unhappy with this. After all, in 35 years of doing this work, I had received one warning, over something I did that was clearly better than the practice at the time, and that was subsequently adopted as standard practice when the Department (which had knowledgeable people running it at the time) realized my way was better.  I was upset, but I just blew it off to some junior ex-military inspector being overly officious and demonstrating no ability to exercise judgement or common sense, and let it go.

Having heard nothing back from my email to the baker, I sent another email. Still nothing.  Then one day they called me, telling me they were being interviewed by M who was trying to find a way to charge them and me, under the Environment Act. (remember, this is all about 5 gallons a day of flour detergent and water, basically what a camper throws over the lawn). Their attack on me was that I had lied to an Inspector because I had told them I would contact the baker to offer help but did not. I told the baker that yes, I had emailed them twice with no response, and assumed they had gone away for the season on a cooking gig. While we were talking they checked their email, and on my suggestion checked their junk mail. Oooops! There were my emails.

The baker then contacted the Department, showed them the emails, and told them what had happened. I had already copied one of them to the inspector, but they would not believe me. And this is important. As a Professional Engineer I have cannot mislead or lie to them under the Act that actually governs my practice. Yet this fool continued to try to entrap me, and wasted hours and hours of their time trying to enforce a directive that made things worse.

This is a case were was never any adverse effect nor was there ever any chance of one, yet one civil servant wasted days and days of time pursuing this tiny, environmentally responsible activity that performed far better than what they were trying to force upon the bakery.

Their supervisor, the person who should have been there to bring common sense to the situation, was nowhere to be found. It was all about their paper bureaucratic slavery to bureaucracy, and had nothing whatsoever to to with protecting the environment or serving the public. In spirit, anyway, this inspector was violating two Provincial Acts, the Public Service Act and The Environment Act, and, because they are not a professional Engineer, by trying to direct a Professional Engineer to do a specific task, possibly violating the Engineering Act.

I took this as far as the Deputy Minister, along with some other issues. When lip service was all we received, I followed up with the Department, accusing them of "dancing around a bonfire of bureaucracy". For this horrible statement, I did get a response, an hysterically funny warning terming that term to be abuse of their staff. I cherish that letter. It demonstrates how utterly useless and what a waste of time that Department now is.

And oh yes, this inspector is still at it. Apparently with full support of their masters.


Episode 3 - The Attack on the Cancer Kids

My company did the design of the road, some of the layout and the sewage treatment for Brigadoon Village children's camp at 50% rates - we don't have much cash to contribute, but sometimes we can do so "in kind".  Because the occupants of this facility are sometimes on active chemotherapy treatment, it has some design choices that are not normal and there is someone at the camp whose job it is to keep it working.

In discussions with the operator of the treatment plant, discussing ways to manage freezing of some elements during a cold winter, I mentioned that there was an inspector working out of Kentville that he should try to avoid. I mentioned that the guy was apparently ex-military and pretended like he was some super cop, looking for any tiny infraction. The response I received was telling.

Here is what the Brigadoon operator replied:

"I am very much aware about the Kentville office issues as we had a directive sent to our lawyers in regards to our water treatment system because the inspector did not notify me he was coming so when he showed up and I wasn’t here he wrote us up for not producing the paperwork! That is now resolved but he would not audit the septic (when he was here) because that is a different audit!"

The NSE representative (surprise! This is M again!) showed up unannounced at a cancer kids camp and because the part time operator was not there, they actually went to the crazy extreme of sending an official directive to their lawyers!  Can you imagine anyone so self important and officious as that? Their supervisor, the person who should have been there to bring common sense to the situation, was nowhere to be found.

Episode 4 - The Sneak Attack

Nova Scotia Environment has regions in which there is a Manager, and an Engineer for each. Our Mr. M works in one of those. No one there seems to be overseeing his work, or caring what he is spending his time on. And if they are, well then they share the blame here even more than I am assuming.

So our Mr. M either on his own initiative, or under some direction from someone not thinking straight, or legally, began what we call "dumpster diving" - going back looking at projects done by us that were done or almost done, and trying to uncover misdoings. This is a technician (maybe not even that trained) investigating Professional Engineers in a selective manner under the guise of the enforcement of an Act that does not govern their professional practice.

In doing so, while digging in files not in his own district, but on the other side of the Province, he found a number of on-site sewage disposal systems that had been installed with what appeared to be discharges to a ditch, done without an approval, but under a Notification. Clearly, not understanding the technical aspects of the job was not a hindrance, as he, without talking to the area Engineer whose office had accepted the submissions to the Department, our Mr. M revoked the notification approvals. And get this, these were for systems designed by a Professional Engineer, submitted based upon the correct protocols, and already installed and functioning properly. They were for systems that addressed an ongoing malfunction - a risk to the environment and public health, that were dealt with  properly (they had to be done by an Engineer), and were installed properly, and being happily used by homeowners.

No Professional Engineer with the Department with any experience in this field responded to any questions from the homeowners or the Engineer. (the Engineer who had the on-site program dropped into their lap has virtually no experience, and only a casual understanding of the field).  The owner has all the paper from the Department and the Engineer they ever need, yet our zealot assumed he could just cancel them after the fact. In complete ignorance of the difference between Professional Engineering and someone with a backhoe that NSE allows to choose and install a standard system, he then was then allowed (by who?) to actually lay charges against the Engineer for practicing Engineering while following the Standard laid out for them to follow in their own legislation. No one looked at it who actually knew anything, apparently. And this will be going to court (more waste of everyone's time). So no one will say anything because it is "before the courts".  And remember, this is where there was an environmental impact happening that was identified, confirmed, and then fixed with the best available solution by a licensed installer following plans done by a Professional Engineer with the most experience of doing this work of any on NS, and it resulted in the elimination of the impact on the environment and risk to public health.

So in short, the Department is appearing to sanction to prosecution of Professional Engineers who follow their Standard and act to eliminate environmental harm and public health risk in a timely manner. And in addition, is trying to tell homeowners they can't use their septic systems?

The local engineer just gives the Hogan's Heroes Schultz defence "I know nothing! I see nothing!"

This is a civil "servant" being paid, running around trying to plug holes that don't exist. Why he is left to spend his time in such a detrimental manner, to the reputation of the Department and to the waste of the Department's budget is inexplicable.



Continuing Episodes

Yes, there is more. Lots more. Some even worse, where The Department is deliberately misinterpreting their own rules, to try to make some obscure point of control and authority over the Profession of Engineering, something they have absolutely no business doing, and again, as always, at the expense of the Public and to the detriment of the environment that, it seems so long ago, they used to protect.