Sewer ordinance rescinded

A county ordinance regarding septic system tests has been rescinded to the state level, following a Jan. 31 county commissioner's meeting.

In 2010, the ordinance read that any landowner who installs a septic system on less than three acres must be regulated by the Moniteau County Health Center. Presiding Commissioner Mac Finley explained the issues with this ordinance.

"There were very few and very little building that goes into those sized parcels within the county," Finley said. "The state's turnaround time on doing the tests were unacceptable, essentially. Now, there is so little of that going on in the county, we feel we can turn that back around to the state."

Finley went on to explain that the regulators of the sewer systems were part-time employees of the Moniteau County Health Center. The work was not enough to keep the ordinance running, center supervisor Andrea Kincaid said.

"We were maybe doing one permit a year," Kincaid said. "There just weren't very many at all. So, we figured it would be easier to just give it back to the state."