A proposed septic inspection ordinance discussed — but never adopted — over the past 10 years has surfaced again.

County commissioners are scheduled to consider at their Aug. 14 executive committee meeting an amendment to the county’s environmental health regulations which would require point-of-sale inspections of sewage disposal systems constructed prior to 1972. That’s when health permits were first required.

The move was recommended by the septic subcommittee of the county Board of Commissioners, which voted 2-1 July 17, with committee chair Melinda C. Lautner opposed, to forward the proposal on to the executive committee.

In previous discussions, Lautner and commissioner Mark Walter had been in step and cited a wariness of government intrusion into private property rights in opposing inspections. But according to minutes of the subcommittee meeting, Walter supported inspections of all systems built prior to 1972, within 500 feet of a lake or stream and every holding tank. He also supported lifting a ban on holding tanks enacted in 2002 to reduce the amount of waste which at that time was applied to vacant agricultural land.

This spring, haulers collecting material from holding tanks have been required to take the waste to a disposal facility if one exists within a 15-mile radius. That has increased the cost of holding tank disposal from  some $130 to $250 per pump out.

The law requiring the move went into effect in October 2005. However, there was no septage facility capable of accepting holding tank waste at the time, though recent improvements were made to the Suttons Bay municipal sewer system, which is well within the radius.

Much has changed since commissioners and health officials began discussing waste disposal inspections in 1997. State regulations clamping down on the land application of human waste have been enacted. Meanwhile, three communities in the county have sought to establish a municipal waste system or study its feasibility.

Construction of a $15 million sewer system began in Northport this summer. Solon Township is seeking assistance from the state Revolving Fund to construct a much smaller system to collect waste from the unincorporated village of Cedar. Glen Arbor Township established an ad hoc committee to study the feasibility of a sewer in its business district.