For the protection of the home owner

The Van Buren County health department recently decided to increase the bonding requirements of contractors installing rural septic systems from $1,000 to $10,000. Even though there was no enforcement for the $1,000 bond they would begin to enforce the $10,000 bond for the “protection of the home owner”, or so they claimed. One contractor took exception to these efforts claiming he had liability insurance and should not be required to be bonded as well.

The Van Buren county T.E.A. Party started looking into this matter by reviewing the authority of local public health under Iowa code chapter 1036. Iowa code clearly states that.

137.104  Local boards of health — powers and duties.

Local boards of health shall have the following powers and duties:

1.  A local board of health shall:

a.  Enforce state health laws and the rules and lawful orders of the state department.

b.  Make and enforce such reasonable rules and regulations not inconsistent with law, the rules of the state board, or the Iowa public health standards as may be necessary for the protection and improvement of the public health.

While bonding requirements seemed a bit of a stretch as “necessary for the protection and improvement of the public health”, we also found the following.

 (2)  Rules of a county board shall become effective upon approval by the county board of supervisors by a motion or resolution as defined in section 331.101, subsection 13, and publication in a newspaper having general circulation in the county.

(4)  Before approving any rule or regulation the local board of health shall hold a public hearing on the proposed rule. Any citizen may appear and be heard at the public hearing. A notice of the public hearing, stating the time and place and the general nature of the proposed rule or regulation shall be published in a newspaper having general circulation as provided in section 331.305 in the area served by the local board of health.

We then set out to prove the bonding requirements had been adopted in a lawful manner. When asked for copies of the local rules and regulations covering this we were at first given copies of the County Board of Health meeting minutes from Sept. 1991 and April of 2011. To the credit of the local Dept. of public health, with sufficient time they were able to produce the 1991 rules and regulation as well as copies of the required newspaper notifications. The local Board of Health had taken all the necessary steps in 1991 to pass their regulations, but do not appear to have taken those steps in 2011 for the changes.

Upon review of the 1991 “Van Buren County on-site wastewater treatment and disposal system rules and regulations” we discovered under section 3b “$1000 bond or letter of credit is required to be filed with the Van Buren County board of health for each calendar year”, and under section 3c “any individual who has on file with the Van Buren County board of health……risks forfeiture of his or her bond or letter of credit to the Van Buren County board of health”. While forfeiture is due to lack of compliance to permitting the salient point is that the money does not go to the home owner, as was repeatedly claimed,  but to the local Dept. of public health. This forfeiture is in addition to simple misdemeanor charges and state fines.

We then set out to find if the County Supervisors had passed the Health Boards regulation. To date the only evidence provided is county ordinance 96-1 that was passed in 1996 enacting Iowa administrative code 567, enforcement under Iowa code 455B.172(4), and penalties under Iowa code 137.21. Ordinance 96-1 does not even reference the local board of health regulations.

Great credit is due the county public health dept. and auditors office for providing the information as requested.

UPDATE: It seems the county supervisors and county board of health do not think they are required to follow state law in approval of local board of health regulations, we will see what the county attorney advises them to do.