With little incentive for onsite wastewater professionals to get regular training, the Arizona Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association is a relatively small group. President Suzanne Ehrlich, a senior environmental health specialist with the Yavapai County Development Services, says there are no requirements for certification or ongoing training for onsite professionals. But that doesn’t stop AzOWRA from educating its 35 members, representing most aspects of the industry from pumpers, installers and designers to regulators and manufacturers.

What’s the value of membership if there are no certification requirements?

Ehrlich: Because of the limited regulations, those people who choose to participate in AzOWRA are doing so because they want to be the best they can be. They are the most professional, they are the cream of the crop. When you look at Arizona, we are hot and arid in some places, mild and arid in others, and then we have places that get significant snowpack at high elevations – from incredibly arid to skiing. It requires that onsite professionals really know what they’re doing, but there is no requirement for a designer to have any particular credentials.

Our biennial conference gets high marks for its educational offerings. We’ve also decided to rejoin NOWRA (National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association) so our members got free membership in NOWRA for 2015, we paid those dues. Our members feel we need to have a voice in what is coming down from the federal level to the local levels. Lobbying is not something we’ve previously looked at. Membership in NOWRA will provide that representation and help us develop it at the local level. We would like to be able to capitalize on NOWRA’s efforts.

We are working to develop or amend rules to be more effective. We have members on the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) Onsite Wastewater Advisory Committee. They are not representing AzOWRA, but are individual members. As an organization, we have not been effective at getting a position. It is one of our goals. More membership would help with that. Right now, we don’t have enough active members to move things the way we’d like them to go.

What is the regulatory environment in Arizona?

Ehrlich: There is no requirement for certification or continuing education for those working on onsite systems, other than the larger commercial systems. There are rules for how a system is designed and installed, but no requirements for maintenance, pumping, inspection or report intervals. The rules broadly say you have to operate it in a manner consistent with the rule.

ADEQ has no program for homeowner education. We have a homeowners training course, a homeowners manual, and even offer membership to homeowners. We emphasize that property owners have the ability to do a lot of service and maintenance on their own and give them pointers on how to keep systems functioning for the longest time, how often they should be pumping, and how to manage their system. We’ve educated about 800 homeowners, which represents a small percentage of about a half-million septic systems in use in Arizona.

We do training for real estate professionals that is approved by the Department of Real Estate for their continuing education requirements. The transfer of ownership rule offers the one time that a system is required to be inspected. It is also the only time a system must be pumped, though there are a few exceptions.

The ADEQ announced it didn’t have the staff or funding to enforce the time-of-transfer rule so is looking at rescinding it or transferring responsibility to counties. What’s the reaction?

Ehrlich: Those folks I’ve heard from are asking where that would leave the rest of the program. If it is rescinded, does that signal a change in the whole program? We have acknowledged that there are flaws to the rule that should be corrected. All they need to do is open the rule and fix the program.

Do you think more regulation is needed?

Ehrlich: We would like to have better education requirements and higher qualifications for designers and installers in addition to verification requirements and penalties for “bad actors.” We want to make sure we’re not being overly burdensome but are accomplishing the goal of having functioning systems.

Thirty years ago, it was enough if effluent just went into the soil. But we had a population of about a million people. With a population much higher (6.7 million) and a lot more people living in rural areas, it’s necessary to have systems that provide better treatment.

We’re looking for more flexibility. The general permit is very proscriptive. Each technology that existed in 2001 has its own section of rule. There are new technologies, but the rule doesn’t allow those products, so we need to create language that allows for new technologies without a rule change each time. Maybe we get rid of all the proscriptions and have a permit that requires treatment to particular standards. Allowing new technologies is going to be something needed for the future viability of the state onsite program.

How does your water situation compare to the Western states like California that are suffering so much?

Ehrlich: Groundwater resources are particularly slim; we cannot afford to have them tainted. Our aquifers don’t recharge very well; we don’t have a lot of surface water. We are better off than California but not by much. We both get water from the Colorado River. We are downstream, so if California takes more water, we get less.

We have a fair amount of aquifer migration; water is taken out, pumped to individual houses and into the sewer system. The resulting effluent gets discharged to rivers and leaves the area. I have a great concern about that concept.

Is there any interest in recharging groundwater?

Ehrlich: The conversations are beginning. I was at a water reuse symposium last year and we’re definitely being better about attempting recharge and trying to improve and innovate the tools we have. The whole concept of recharging with onsite systems was something they hadn’t considered whatsoever.

In rural Arizona where we have our own wells and onsite septic systems, we’re pumping it, using it, treating it, returning it, all on the same property. We need to get policymakers to understand the value and relevance of that.

There is growing interest in reusing graywater. What’s happening in Arizona?

Ehrlich: It’s a big issue. Arizona has a particularly lenient position; it allows graywater systems with no additional permits for single-family homeowners. The question that has come up is if you remove as much as 60 percent of the flow, what does that do to the performance of your treatment systems?

One of our members asked his manufacturer about it. They didn’t know people were doing it (graywater) and said they needed to look at it. Two or three other manufacturers started looking at it also. The result of the preliminary reviews is that we are finding that we have high strength waste in places we didn’t realize. When you concentrate the effluent, the biological oxygen demand increases hugely. How is your system going to function in that environment? (Graywater reuse is) a pretty exciting concept; how does it change the world we’re working in?