On Jan. 1 2011, a new law in Florida aimed at cleaner groundwater supplies mandates septic system inspections every five years. But faced with a public outcry over inspection and pumping costs – estimated to average $500 – legislators vow to repeal the law.

State Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, and Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville argue requiring inspections is unnecessary and an expense that shouldn’t be leveled on homeowners in the current economy. In several news accounts this week, homeowners, a homebuilder and even a pumper questioned the required inspections.

“It's costly and unnecessary for everyone,” Dan Young, owner of AA Young's Septic Service Inc. in Sebring, told Tampa Bay Online. “People can't afford what they are doing … they (residents) are calling me, fussing over it and I have no control.”

But Tom Higginbotham, Highlands County director of environmental health, estimates 1,000 of the county’s 45,000 septic tanks are considered bottomless and those, in addition to thousands of other tanks in the state, don’t meet environmental standards.

These outdated bottomless systems send effluent directly into the groundwater, which produces the state’s drinking water. “It goes straight into the aquifer,” Higginbotham told Tampa Bay Online.

State Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, who proposed the clean water law, told the Pensacola News Journal that complaints about inspection costs miss the most important point.

“People should fix their septic tanks when they're broken,” he said. “This is something that harms all of us. It's important, and they're not getting it. This is important to our future. This is polluting our rivers and our streams and our springs.”

A huge thread of reader discussions can be found here: http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/nov/07/mandatory-septic-tank-pump-outs-worry-homeowners/news-metro/

So what do you think of the Florida inspection law and efforts to repeal it? Send your comments to me at editor@pumper.com and I will share them in future blogs.