The Onsite Dept within the Municipality of Anchorage existed under the Dept of Health and Human Services (DHHS) up until the year 2000 when Mayor Wuerch decided that all engineers should be managed under one department and he chose Development Services.  This also enabled the expansion of the Hillside Wastewater Management Plan (HWMP) Boundary to expand to include the land for Prominence Pointe and swamp we call Goldenview Park.  This landowner made a sweet land swap with the MOA giving the City the swamp land that now supports Goldenview Middle School.  Because new schools requires public water and sewer, the Muni had to haul water and sewer lines to the school and allowed the development of Goldenview Park and Prominence Pointe at a much greater density than they would have been allowed with onsite water and septic.  The standards for mitigating runoff and drainage are much lower for public utilities than for onsite.  The neighbors of Prominence Pointe and Goldenview Park have been paying for this misdeed ever since it started- refer back to the Journal under the blog posting for Goldenview Park Drainage Problem.    

Had Onsite stayed under DHHS, the HWMP would have likely not been changed to accommodate this new private development.... but under Development Services it was easy, squeezy to just move that line a bit. AWWU has been working to increase their boundary by extending public water and sewer throughout the Hillside.  We fight the battles often and the death of Onsite is the nail in the coffin.  Check out the entries from other battles:  HDP Public Well Nitrate Tests, AWWU Public Utilities, and AWWU Water Tank.  

The problem today with keeping Onsite under Development Services is that we are not building enough new homes with Onsite to pay for our Onsite positions with new home permits and change of ownership permits.  Under DHHS we wouldn't expect the Onsite Dept to be self-supportive, but under Development Services they do.  The rest of Development Services can expand and contract with the development demands.  Onsite is different.

Onsite management just begins when a home is built with onsite well and septic.  The rest of Development Services only handles this building of a structure and then their job is done.  Onsite needs management for the life of the system.  Especially now that practically all new development on the Anchorage Hillside, Eagle River and Girdwood is utilizing the less desirable land and requires the newer high-tech systems that allows for a septic system fairly undesirable soils.  This makes the need for long-term oversight greater, not less.

The Hillside District Plan draft calls for an even greater role for Onsite in proactively testing existing septic systems to ensure the water quality for the surrounding wells.  This would come with an annual fee expected to about $25 per home.  Currently systems are only tested for quality when the home is built and then when it is sold.  In order to ensure the public health and long term viability of Onsite systems within the Municipality of Anchorage, we must manage to a higher quality standard.  It would only take one instance of people getting sick from drinking contaminated well water for AWWU to make and win their case for the need to put public water and sewer across the Hillside. This would end our large lot and privacy we now enjoy.  Why?  Because it would cost us each about $225K to pay for the improvements and would require most of us to split our lot to pay for it.

A few of the reasons it makes sense for Onsite to go back under DHHS- 

 

  • The code regulating Onsite is DHHS title 15, not Development Services title 21
  • The budget source for Onsite is Areawide account 101 and not the Development Services fee based account 181
  • Onsite management is for the public health and safety of the residents of Anchorage and is a long term requirement and not just when a home is built
  • We need checks and balances between Onsite and Private Development. We have the fox watching the henhouse right now.  The potential for systems being approved that are unsafe increases without proper knowledge of onsite systems and a the director looking for maximum utilization of the land.  There is speculation that this unavoidable conflict is at the root of the reason Dan Roth's position has been eliminated. 
  • The Hillside District Plan, once adopted calls for a greater role of the Onsite Dept for the long term preservation of Onsite systems on the Anchorage Hillside