State lawmakers are still attempting to pass a uniform state septic code, but a township in Antrim County isn’t waiting for the state to implement septic regulations.
The Torch Lake Township Board unanimously passed a time-of-transfer septic ordinance, which requires wells and septic systems to be inspected before a residential property can be sold.
Bob Cook is the township supervisor. He said the inspections will help catch failing or faulty septic systems, reducing contamination in Torch Lake and residents’ groundwater.
“If your neighbor's system is leaking into the soil, all these homes that are getting their water from wells - and what's going down through the earth, ultimately, will find its way coming up in a well,” Cook said.
The ordinance is modeled after a similar rule in the neighboring Milton Township, but Cook said it goes one step further and requires properties with no record of inspections to be checked in the next three years.
There are over a million septic systems in Michigan. The Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council estimates that at least 10 percent have failed and more than one-third are not functioning properly.
Four state bills were introduced earlier this year that would mandate septic inspections every five years, but past state proposals have failed.
“The state is very slow in putting together something, and we just decided we're going to take proactive action and pass it," Cook said. "Then whenever the state does get around to it, all we have to do is modify it to meet the statute requirements.”
Thomas Joseph is a board member with the Torch Lake Protection Alliance, which advocated for the ordinance. He said he hopes other townships follow suit and implement their own septic policies.
"We're going to get the message out to as many of the townships as we can, and if it happens to be a bottom up effort, so be it," Joseph said. "It's not perfect, but it is better than nothing."
Torch Lake Township joins only a few Michigan municipalities and counties with time-of-transfer or point-of-sale rules.
