Board of Health - Regular Meeting

Hello everyone. It's March 10th at 2:00. We will now open we will hereby open the hearing for Alpenflow OWTS variance request hearing that was continued from March 2nd 2026 when testimony was heard from staff the applicant and members of the public. The procedure to be followed in this hearing will be as follows. The board will disclose any exparte communications. The county staff will make an initial presentation on new information that pertains to new evidence. The applicant may then make their presentation on new information that pertains to the variance application. After that, any other persons either supporting or opposing the applicant may present evidence on the new information. Such presentation shall be limited to three minutes. Supporting and opposing witnesses may be questioned by the board. Once questioning is concluded, no further questioning is permitted unless granted by the chair. The applicant may then present any rebuttal evidence. Parties and witnesses are asked not to submit evidence other than the the new evidence and not to submit redundant, irrelevant or cumulative evidence. If someone has already made the point you wish to make, simply say so. The chair will also require that all comments be made to the board and that there be no dialogue between the applicant and members of the audience. At the conclusion of the evidentiary portion of the hearing, the chair will entertain a motion to close the evidentiary portion and the commissioners will discuss and weigh the evidence. The board of health health will then retire. That's not applicable. Uh the board of health will then make a

motion.

The motion may take the form of one of the following recommendations. Approve the application with no conditions. Approve the application with recommended conditions. Approve the application with newly identified conditions or deny the application. Community Planning and Development shall make a record of any substantial discussion on the motion and include that in the record. The board's decision will be in the form of a finding of fact. Are there any objections to the jurisdiction of this board or the form or substance of these proceedings? Hearing none, I will now ask that each board member if if you've had any exparte communications to disclose and if so, please disclose them now.

I've had none. Nor have I. County staff may make its initial presentation.

Thank you so much. Um at the continuation of our last hearing, um the uh board of health was asking for clarification regarding um what type of well permitting is allowable on the subject parcel for um the 60 acre parcel, roughly 60 acre parcel that the um they're asking for the variance on. And so I've had an email conversation with Jeff Davis. I believe the applicant has as well. So I sent the following email and asked for him to provide some response. So based on the the conversation that he and I had um it was determined that three different types of wells would be um available for parcels greater than 35 acres. A domestic well permit which provides for up to three household households and the ability to irrigate one acre of ground and if that was put into an acre of blood that would be roughly 3 acre feet. um a commercial exempt well permit which would limit commercial use to 108,400 gallons per year. That's roughly a third of an acre foot. Or a non-exempt well permit um which is required when the development plan exceeds the commercial usage described um at the 108,400 gallons and includes the need for an augmentation plan. We also talked about the commercial exemption worksheet form. Um uh so uh it provides guidelines that's the form for the uh commercial exempt for that we talked about. Um it includes guidelines or rough estimates for types of consumptive use. For instance, overnight lodging would assume things like bathrooms with showers, sinks, and toilets along with other um potential kitchen uses. The commercial well is monitored by a flow meter to ensure the usage never exceeds 108,400. Um and then he and I specifically talked

about a campground not operating year round having four flushable toilets and two handwashing um sinks may not generate as much water as the estimates in the form. Um and if that's correct, could an applicant apply with different calculations that they acquired from a design professional? Um, and so, uh, Jeff responded that everything, um, that I had outlined as far as the well permitting is accurate. Um, and that he would note that exempt domestic wells that allow for three single family dwellings, an acre of lawn and garden, and the watering of livestock and domestic animals are not limited to an acre foot amount, but are just limited to the uses allowed. Um, also concerning non-exempt permits, in this specific case, they may need a non-exempt permit if the commercial permit doesn't provide enough water for their business, but non-exempt permits are usually for parcels less than 35 acre um, created after 1972. A second well on the parcel that already has an exempt well permit or a well that provides more uses than those allowed by exempt permits, such as for municipal, crop, irrigation, or industrial uses. A non-exip permit could be sought if the 108,400 gallons is not sufficient to cover their needs. Um, and anyone can can always hire a professional, but we don't require that. Um, usually they just verify the calculations are correct on the form and that they are under the 108,400 gallons. Um, and he said that he'd have to check with a supervisor before issuing a permit if the numbers are different than the recommended uh recommendations on the form. um and all businesses may vary a little bit. So the recommended amounts on the form may not be as accurate for all businesses. Um so basically the um subject parcel would be eligible for any one of those three permits just depending on what the demand what the uses are. Um and and

that aligned with the information that I received directly from Jeff and I can afford those that email as well. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Ann.

The applicant may now make their presentation of any new information that pertains to the variance application. If you're ready.

Thank you. Um yeah, we have um a lot of the same information. Um, I have an email verification from Jeff Davis, uh, reiterating what I had understood from our prior conversations that we limited to that 108,600 gallons, the third of an acre foot per year. Um, if we were to go over that uh significantly, which based on the calculations that they provide from 5 gallons a day per person to 50, which we don't think it would be 50, but the 5 gallons a day, um, any way you slice it, it's still over that 108,000 gallons, 600 um 108,600 gallons. Um, again, we I think we talked a little bit last meeting about like using an 8 gallon a person per day estimation as an average of a flush toilet, like a a modern flush toilet. Um, so using that estimation is 480,000 gallons um per year. um using a calculation that was given by staff in different meetings at two gallons a day per person that would still be 120,000 gallons a year. um the augmentation. So we have we agree with uh Ann's reiteration of that division of water resources um plus which is something that I know but it was not in my head um our parcel does not sit in our the Lake County augmentation umbrella plan uh currently in the boundary. Um so that is additional additional that is big information I mean that's and you know that that should be that is known um

yeah so augmentation under currently is currently since it's possible um and then we yeah we don't have any necessarily new information has a letter that you could But it's not necessarily new information. It's just summarizing.

Um number four, any persons either supporting or opposing the applicant may present evidence on the new information. Such presentations on just the new information will be limited to three minutes. Please.

It's only me, I think, cuz you guys already spoke and the only thing I'll add is it's not necessarily new information, but our board had a conversation with the EC board yesterday. And we our concern is lodging sits at the very top of our what we came out of the retreat with recently on economic development and just the kind of crisis we're in currently. And we want to get into a more kind of problem solving creative space of how do we tackle this together and what we would offer as BEC is should for any reason we not get through where we are right now we would offer resources to help navigate like a consultant pay for it somebody to help us move we don't want this to get stuck stuck in a six month to a year process where we don't have the potential for lodging coming up this season so however the we seek a support, we would love to jump in and be that support mechanism to do that. Does that make sense? That's what I got for right now.

Go ahead, Sarah.

Just one more comment, I guess. Um, I I totally appreciate and and we have had this has been a part of our conversations with staff of like planning for the max, right? And that that is what Steph asks us to do and asks most applicants to do I think. So veering from scrutinizing our water estimations to what actual uses would be is a veer from the conversations that are typical and that we have had. We are asked to provide accommodations and plan for the max should we have that capacity every day. Okay. So I don't think do you have any questions? uh supporting and opposing witnesses may be questioned by the board. Once question is concluded, no further questions permitted unless granted by the chair. So if you have any questions,

no questions. I think that concludes the evidentiary portion. So, I'll ask for a motion to close the evidentiary portion of the hearing. There will be no further public discussion on the file. Um, I will call for a motion to conclude the evidentiary portion of this board of health. I'll second to vote. I

I That concludes the evidentiary portion of the meeting. We will now move into discussion amongst the board. Go ahead. Um, couple points that I want to address uh during just the discussion portion here. Um, is that uh the I want to express the board of health's appreciation for staff and the difficult job they've had with this. There's no cookie cutter process with these. We have codes, some of which are extremely old, um, could be considered outdated, and these are things that you guys are tasked with following even when they they work, even when there's gray area. And some of these things are even slightly contradictory depending on interpretations. So, I wanted to express my appreciation for your guys's hard work, your dedication to following these codes as best as you can, and how much uh the board of health and the county and in general appreciates your guys's hard work on all of that. So, I want to say that right right off the bat uh front and center there. Um, I have no other discussion items. Um, after talking this over with our county attorney, he made it clear that the intent of the rules and the regulations and all these things are to protect the public. And I think they've shown that this kind of kind of system which is

allowed under state law, our laws are above and beyond and a bit ownorous and vague around a campground. It mostly pertains to to single family homes. Um, and so the intent, if the intent of the law is to protect the public safety, I think a commonly used fit toilet protects the public safety, fine. With some some conditions like they have annual inspections, it's obviously a a certified tank toilet. Maybe there's a sign that says, "Hey, if you see this overflowing, uh, you know, call call the county." So, I guess I'd just like to say that um you know that we're here to to make a decision based on the intent and and I think you know Andy luckily stopped the last proceeding before we made a decision because we all had a chance to look into it further and I think reconsider what what possibly could have and a different outcome. So, um there's a lot here. I'm not going to go through it all, but I think there's a lot of reasons for this and and very few against. These are these are findings of fact. Uh we there's a ton of them. So, yeah, like Commissioner Bollick said, I don't think we have time to go through all of them, but we could highlight a few of them that would back up a decision we would make. Um I jump one of the ones that jumps out at me uh is um the board finds that the applicant has demonstrated that the proposed vault system will provide equal or greater protection of public health

and the environment when compared with a conventional OWTS system under the specific circumstances presented at this site. Um, that was a good one that jumped out at me.

The other problem with these systems is that inconsistent use is really hard on them. They either have to be shut down or they have to be used a lot. So, they're just and this year in particular, there's a lot of frozen systems because there's no ground, there's no snow to protect the the field. So um so I I think meeting the intent you know meeting our obligation to protect the the welfare and the intent of the law is to protect everybody. I think I think this does that.

The um the findings of fact are those something that should be publicly available or well what we would do based upon your decision is we would draft findings of fact and then you would have to approve those at a subsequent meeting. Okay. Based on the outcome, yeah, it will become a matter of Okay.

And I'd also like to reiterate what Andy said. You guys as planning and zoning have your hands tied. And if you were making these kinds of decisions, you'd have people saying, "Well, you know, why can't you why can't you make this decision or that decision?" So, that's where we come in. But, we appreciate you holding the line. I think you guys do a great job of in this case, you did a great job. and uh you know maybe one of the conditions of approval is that the applicant starts coming back to the appropriate staff and and starts working with you guys in in good faith again. Maybe that was one of the issues. So that might be a request or even a condition of approval. we could just make that as a request and and just that it might feel like people are working against you um when they're just trying to do their job. And you know, I don't think anyone has any kind of like personal beef with anything. This is just government. It's how it works. It's unfortunate sometimes when it feels like you're being singled out for something.

Well, the stakes are are high, you know, or they're perceived to be high

when you put a lot of investment and then CPD staff has investment in in their jobs and their and the welfare of the county. So maybe this could just be a reset and we start over and and uh where is my Oh, there's the variance. Trying to get my my language straight for what exactly the verbiage I'm approving or asking for a motion to approve. See, I have it out. Okay. I think that in conjunction with

Yep. that.

Okay. Um I'm going to call for a motion to approve the Alpenflow OWTS variance. um with the conditions of approval being this variance shall automatically lapse if the conditional use permit for the Alpen flow campground is not approved or if the campground use ceases. The reason for that condition is because it's a little bit out of order like chicken before the egg um with the the variance before the cup. Um that was condition one. Condition two, the vault privy systems shall be installed in accordance with the engineering design submitted with the application and shall comply with all applicable construction setback and operational standards contained in Colorado regulation 43. Uh condition three, the vault tanks shall be pumped and serviced by a licensed septage hauler uh on a regular basis whenever the tank capacity alarms indicate the tanks are approaching capacity. Uh condition number four, the applicant shall provide an annual inspection by a third party. Um, a report. Uh, the applicant shall provide an annual thirdparty inspection report verifying that the fault tanks remain watertight, are not leaking, and are maintained. The inspection report shall be submitted to the Lake County Community Planning and Development. Uh, condition five, the applicant shall maintain records documenting the pumping and maintenance of the fault systems. Those records uh shall be made available

to the county upon request. And six, the the a sign shall be posted at each restroom facility providing contact information for Lake County Public Health so that any sanitation issues can be reported. I'll second the motion. Any further discussion or Andy before we call for a vote? I have none. Nor do I take a two vote. I I

It is hereby variance is granted and uh I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. I will make a motion to close this public hearing of the Lake County Board of Health. I'll second and take it to a vote. I I thanks for coming. Thanks for bearing with us and thank you. Thank you staff. Absolutely. Congratulations.