Septic permit: Getting around the "water" issue

By early December, the water system was making good progress on the water rights issue. The public comment period was over, and wanted to get things started to see where the roadblocks were.

I submitted the application for a septic permit right before Christmas 2016 to Chelan County. Knowing then that the key issue would be water availability. Our water system commissioner filled out the water availability verfication truthfully saying water wasn't available *now* but would be soon, assuming the current process proceeded through to the end.

Of course, the health department predictably denied the initial application. Although I have to say here that the folks in the Health Dept at the Chelan County were very kind to work with, helpful and reasonable the whole way. They also recognized that I have a short building season and that it appeared likely I will have water available when I'm done. 

But in the end, I had to jump through a couple additional hoops.

I had to write and sign a hold-harmless agreement acknowledging that (a) they could not grant me an occupancy permit until water was legally available and hooked-up, and (b) I would not blame them or sue them for withholding an occupancy permit until that had happened. I also had to get our water system commissioner to send them an email confirming the details and status of the water rights process they are going through.

During the process, I got plugged in to a guy from the state DoH who threw everyone for a bit of a loop, insisting that just getting the water rights would not be sufficent. The system would also need to certify water capacity--at the cost of thousands more dollars to be paid to an engineer. 

That was not something the Yodelin system was counting on, but in the end it was good we found out. They've engaged with the same engineer who built the original system, and we are sure that based on current usage the system has ample capacity for new hookups.