EPHRATA - The state is requiring Grant County to obtain permits for several of the fairgrounds' septic systems.

In a letter sent to the Grant County commissioners, Richard Benson, a state Department of Health on-site septic system program lead, stated the county needed to get an initial permit by next month. The permit will include all of the fairgrounds and last while the department collects more information about the septic systems.

"After discussing jurisdiction with Department of Ecology, Department of Health has agreed to take the regulatory lead for sewage treatment at the Grant County Fairgrounds," Benson wrote. "If contamination in Moses Lake is ever conclusively linked to fairgrounds on-site sewage systems, authority will transfer to Ecology."

The department is charging the county $930 for the initial permit. Benson stated the amount is based of an peak amount of 78,000 gallons per day during the 2011 fairgrounds.

Fairgrounds Manager Vern Cummings disagreed with the amount, saying Benson took into account water used for irrigation and to fill water trucks for the rodeo grounds. Both use city water, and were included in the amount.

Benson listed four concerns and observations about the septic systems on the fairgrounds, starting with the fact that several systems are at the fairgrounds. He claimed the current operator doesn't have adequate training, and isn't considered qualified according to state law.

"Flows are not routinely tracked and no monitoring has occurred to verify existing on-site systems are functioning properly and sewage is adequately treated," Benson wrote. "(Septic systems) constructed since 2008 don't appear to be functioning as designed. Meter readings recorded at our request during fair week indication that two of the five systems received over 86 percent of the total flow."

Cummings said the readings were skewed since the readings were taken from the city's water system.

"I don't know what Richard was expecting from us. All we did was log the run times (of the septic systems)," Cummings said. "There are several meters that you read on the septic systems. That was the monitoring that we needed to write down, we sent that to everyone, but I don't know, he may have not seen it. (The systems) have been looked at on a monthly basis since we started using the bathrooms."

Cummings also pointed out none of the systems exceeded their limits. He agreed with the additional monitoring, saying no one has laid out the guidelines necessary for monitoring.

"The commissioners don't want to see the fairgrounds be a pollutant to the lake," he said. "All of this design work was done to the worst case scenario, the week of fair. The whole thing hardly runs the rest of the year ... It's a darn good system."

As part of the permit process the county needs to hire a qualified operator by Oct. 31. The contract needs to include monitoring and maintenance of all septic systems, ground water sampling and annual maintenance and monitoring reports. The reports need to be submitting to the department before the permit is renewed each year, Benson wrote.

To fulfill the requirement, the commissioners met with Kevin Lindsey, a GSI Water Solutions' hydrogeologist.

"If you were to hire us to do it, my first thing would be to do a real quick background on what we got and go over and get the DOH guys at the table, (and say,) 'Here's what I think is going on. Here's what I think we want to do. What do you guys think?'" he said.

As part of the meeting, Lindsey said the county and the state needed to agree on a plan for the fairgrounds.

Representatives from DOH and DOE previously said the county may need to drill three monitoring wells, one "upstream" and two "downstream" from the fairgrounds.

"I've had less than great experiences on projects where both parties didn't actually agree," he said. "So the monitoring didn't actually get both parties where they actually wanted to be."

Usually, groundwater monitoring is done using monitoring wells, Lindsey said. Usually the wells sample the top of the water since the pollutants don't go deep into the water.

"Anything coming off the bottom of the septic system is going to hit groundwater and probably not mix much. It's just going to move off on top of the groundwater, so the best sampling is going to be on the top of groundwater," he said.

If the county needs to drill monitoring wells, they possibly could cost as much as $20,000 a piece, Lindsey said.

The county is likely going to need to develop a monitoring plan as well, he said.

"If I was to write the plan right now, I would probably monitor quarterly throughout the year for several years because you want to get up gradient, down gradient and then any variation through the year, so that if there's something that is going on, we can pick it up and we can show it is this and it is this big when it happens versus the normal condition."

After discussing the situation with the commissioners, he suggested the commissioners could drill under the systems to see if enough moisture is present to carry the chemicals through the soil.

"It would be interesting also, before a monitoring program is designed and negotiated with DOH ... is there a better way to monitor effluent impacts than going to groundwater," Lindsey said. "By the time the impact gets to groundwater, the horse is out of the barn."

Commissioner Carolann Swartz said the county's goal is to make sure the fairgrounds septic systems aren't polluting the lake. Commissioner Richard Stevens agreed.

"It isn't that we're defending ourselves. We are being proactive," she said.

Lindsey will submit a plan for his services by Friday, he said.