Board of Health - Regular Meeting

Uh, okay. Uh, we're recording. Everyone's here. All right. The Lake County Board of Health will now conduct a public hearing. This statement I am reading shall be incorporated into and made part of the record on these proceedings. The board of health has jurisdiction to conduct three public hearings on variance applications under section 1.9 of Lake County onsite wastewater treatment system regulations. The purpose of these hearings is to consider whether the variance applications should be approved. In considering that matter, the board of health will address the criteria in section 43.4N of Colorado regulations number 43 and section 1.9 of the Lake County on-site wastewater treatment regulations. The procedure to be followed for each of the hearings will be as follows. One, members of the board will disclose any exparte communications. Two, county staff will make an initial presentation. Three, the applicant may then make their presentation. Four, after that, any other persons either supporting or opposing the applications may present evidence. Such presentations shall be limited to 3 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. The parties and witnesses are asked not

to submit redundant, irrelevant, or cumulative evidence. If someone has already made the point that 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 of the hearing and the board will discuss and weigh the evidence. Then there will be a motion to close the discussion phase of the public hearing. The chair of the board of health will entertain a motion on the application. The motion may take the form of one of the following recommendations. One, approve the application with no conditions. Two, approve the application with the recommended conditions. Three, approve the application with newly identified conditions. Or four, deny the application. The environmental health specialist 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 an official action record. Are there any objections to the jurisdiction of the board or to the form or substance of these proceedings? Hearing none, I will now ask each board of health member if you have any exparte communications to disclose and if so, please disclose them. Now

I have none. I have none. All right. I have none. County staff may now make their initial presentation.

Wait. Um, you need to share it. So I'll minimize it for a minute. I did not do that. Go back to the Yeah, there you go. Somewhere I have an agenda so I could say which one we have up first. Um it is up on the screen but um Tor's presentation I'll start with which one

we're going to start with 2700 County Road 6B parcel number 2747-040-00-026 applicant Carter Shaver. A building permit was issued in 2002 for permission to construct a two-story single family dwelling with a basement and deck. The improvements were constructed in the early 2000s, though no certificate of occupancy was issued. The parcel was sold to the current owners in July of 2024. The new owners are pursuing the issuance of a CO to run a commercial group camp with a maximum occupancy of eight persons for no more no more than 90 days consecutively or 180 days per calendar year. Together with zoning and building compliance, the structure requires a variance for alternative sanitary waste method approved by the board of health. Next slide, please. I'm just going to give a slight overview here. The property, as you saw there on the last screen, it's located on County Road 6B. Uh it's just on the other side of Empire Hill. And you can see here with their engineer designs as per Lake County regulations. This is going to be the existing structure that they already has a composting toilet at. And they're going to add a 1500gallon uh vault storage tank. Can you

Torston? Do you mind just clicking that top little one? It's like a bar. Yeah, thank you. Out of the way.

Uh, move on to prohibitions for granting variances according to Colorado regulation 43.4N. Uh, section A, no variant shall be issued where a property can accommodate a conforming OWTS system. staff found that an conforming system would require reasonable access for installing it. The access to this property via either county road 6B or county road 6B would require a high clearance 4x4 vehicle. Both of these roads are unmaintained county access road with multiple points of constraint. Uh the access to the property significantly limits the ability of conforming OWTS to be installed. We'll skip ahead to section C here. No variant shall be allowed for solely economic gain. Saff found the property is to be used for a commercial group camp with occupancy of eight persons. The property does have a well installed. You can see the location of the existing well right there. Uh however, it does not have access to electric utilities to run the well. Further, the location of the well on the northern portion of the property um while the structure is further south and is on a considerable slope. The property has limited access by unmaintained county roads and is unable to install electric utilities to run the well. This is the basis of the request and is not based upon economic reasons. and staff found the rest of the prohibitions to not be applicable to this property. We're going to move down to the composting toilet standards on the bottom of page two there. Uh again, like I said, they'll be using an existing composting toilet, the

Sunmar Centrics 3000 here. Um the model is NSF and ANSI standard 41 certified. The manufacturer rates the toilet's composting capacity for nine adults or a family of 11 for weekend and vacation use. The power supply to the toilet will come from a 12volt battery that will be monitored weekly and charged when necessary. It is community planning and development's belief that the existing composting toilet meets the requirements of the regulations and does not pose any risk to public or environmental health. Moving to staff response here. With the above in mind, community planning and development is requiring that OWTS to be installed to treat all waste water remaining after removal of toilet waste. As the property does not have running running water, the only additional waste water generated by the structure would be what is hauled in and used for hand and dishwashing in a bathroom and kitchen sink. The waste water will be plumbed and directed into the vault tank. After discussion with the applicant and engineer, it was decided to uh plan for a larger tank to account for the possibility that the full occupancy is used in a 90-day period.

Mhm.

The tank is intended to be used as a vault to hold all non-toilet waste water until such time that it's 75% full. Uh the float valve for the vault tank will be powered by a 12volt battery and monitored weekly. The owners intend to pump the tank quarterly or when the tank reaches 75% full. This will be done using a 4x4 vehicle with a high flow pump and tank in the bed. The waste produced by the Sunmar centric composting toilet is non-hazardous and can be disposed of at a a landfill as the non-toilet waste water generated by the property will be minimal due to it being hauled in accessibility and lack of water utility. Staff suggests the proposed tank of 1500 gallons is appropriate and meets the occupancy calculation of two gallons per person per day. Further, the wastewater being held and transported is non-hazardous. The risk to the public and environmental health would be considered minimal and not basis for denial. On the last page, we'll have staff recommendation as well as the suggested motions there. The application details how the property has been in existence for the last 20 years with the issuance of the original building permit in 2002, but no certificate of occupancy completed. As the primary access is two unmaintained county roads, the property does not have reasonable access for anything other than a high clearance 4x4. The property does have an existing well that was drilled in 2002. It was never put into service and is without electric utility. The location of the structure is inaccessible for heavy equipment due to the slope of the property. In addition, the existing access is further limited by privatelyowned mining claims, rendering it unrealistic to expect road improvement to allow equipment access. The applicant has satisfied all

notification requirements and staff has not received any comment from adjacent land owners in regards to this application. Staff believes the applicant has successfully shown compliance with state and local variance regulations and has established the basis for alternative system for commercial group camp structure. Staff recommends approval of the variance. Uh next we go into questions. All right. Um, does anyone on the board have any questions for staff? No.

Is Is there a way to use a hand pump with that well? How deep do you know how deep it is? It's 230 ft deep. So, no. Not easily. And the slope is way too steep for a for a absorption field. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It would it would require quite a bit of benching which is antithetical to what we want to do for the backount zone. We want to try to minimize that disturbance as much as possible and the slope of the location of the house and the structure which is dictating where that septic or the needs to go and pretty massive benching which I don't think that we want to do in the back country.

Cool. So you found someone to come up there and pump it. He's got a four-wheel drive is the um backount yurts. They use the honeydew which is a small truck with a pump in the back of it. They can get up to the yurts and so they've got they could probably access ours as well. In the meantime, my background is actually engineering and so hydraulic engineering and petroleum gas industry. So pretty capable of designing my own pump and tank system to be able to pump that remotely as well. Okay.

No further questions for me. Did you want to add anything else? Jason, sorry to add that. I thought you did a good job covering all the points that we have discussed and thanks for working with me to get everything included. So, absolutely. And I think Ann, you suggested leaving all the deliberations and decisions to the end after these presentations.

Actually, um I you and I had talked about that. Um, so whatever you would like to do, if you'd like to act on each one of these files individually, or you can hold your deliberations to the end and do all three at once, um, one right after the other, but certainly up to you if you'd like to just actually, as I was going through, I thought it would be easier if you just did them, um, individually. And you prefer that the chair make the motion? Um, that's what I'm saying. The chair will entertain a motion.

Entertain. Thank you. Um I have a question for staff and this might be this is because I'm relatively new at this so I just want to be extra clear. Um no variance shall be allowed solely for economic gain.

It's something that has been stated and the property is to be used for a commercial group camp. But the it is also stated that the basis of the request is not based on economic reasons that doesn't line up in my head but I could be misinterpreting. Could you elaborate a little bit on that for me? So the main basis of the request is the lack of access and lack of ability to make a conforming system there. Um it's not economic reasons as to why you can't put it in there. It's it's the fact that you can't get heavy equipment in there. You can't get it down on the slope. Like uh Carter was saying, it would take a lot of benching on a pretty miserable slope to get the uh the conforming OWTS in there. It's not that it's too expensive, it's that it's not possible or desired and and and it's and that the finding um suggests that it's solely that's the you know that's the basis of why you coming in and and it being the sole reason is for the fact that it would be cheaper to um go with an alternative system than putting out the full WTS. And so to suggesting that the evidence shows that that's not the sole basis of this ask. So the specific wording of it is that it is um um for more than more than that. It's not there is going to be obviously as a group camp a financial benefit. This is a commercial operation but it is not the sole benefit. Okay.

Of the area. It's because of how gnarly it is to drive in and out of there with heavy equipment, not because Oh, I'm going to save some money by doing it this way. Kind of Okay, cool. Thank you for clarifying that. All right. Okay. A motion, chair.

Um I think uh are we skipping applicant presentation? I have anything to add other than um we've been working with Dan to get this property into conforming status for the last probably 18 months something like that um when it became you know a possible reality that we purchased this property and we just got it last July and so a lot of this is inherited right so we're trying to follow to get this thing into a conforming status with everybody um and so thanks an for working with us to get us to this point this is a major step for us and we'll uh hopefully here in the next month we'll go through the next process on the CD as well. Um but yeah, thank you guys for entertaining this. Also, it seems like there's precedence in the county that this is the way that these sort of structures are moving forward on this self-contained um tank that we can get pumped out. Um so, I'm glad that we're not trying to scratch new areas here and we're just trying to stick to what we've done in the past that seems to be successful.

Cool. All right. Well, I'll make a motion to approve variance request to variance allowing. Hold on. I think we got to open public comment just for procedural sake. Mhm. Close the public hearing. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Two people entered the waiting room. Should we make sure they are available before we open public comment? You're in the zoom already? Yeah. Just

just click got it. That's why I can't see. Okay. All right. So, is there any public comment on 27 the uh variance application for 2700 County Road 6B? Uh if you're online, you can raise your hand. If you're in the room, you can raise your hand. All right. I see no public comment. Um now, I'll call for motion. Motion to close public. Oh, sorry. I don't have that room. I'm sorry. That is okay. Um move to close public hearing. I'll second the motion to vote. I

I I All right. And try again. I will make a motion to approve the variance request of variance allowing the continued use of the existing composting toilet and installation of a vault tank for graywater collection and offsite disposal for the property known as 2700 County Road 6B. Parcel 2747-04- Z00-026 Colorado seconded. All right. Any board deliberation before we go to a vote? No. All right. Do a vote. I

I All right. So be it. Thank you guys. Carter, can we find some oil and gas in this county? Preferably on county property going through. There's no gas up here. Don't think so. Geology is not quite right. Can you find some hot springs? I was just going to ask that. Jeez. Only property. Yeah, let's go. For sure. Go deep enough. Thank you, Carter.

All right. Thank you, Torston. All right, moving on. Um, do I read the full script that each No, that is awesome. We were trying to get it so that you had to read it once. Okay. U moving on to the next uh which property do we have up? I can probably Silver King. That's our next correct. Okay. All right. addresses here about 7142 Silver King Group parcel number 2747-044-00-30. Applicant Andrew Burgerer.

Perfect. If you're ready for me, staff presentation. Oh. Um, has anyone on the board had any export communications regarding this property? No. Done. Done myself. All right. Staff presentation by RIP.

Perfect. Again, this is going to be for 7142 Silver King Group applicant Andrew Burgerer. The Silver King Silver Queen Oklahoma and Boulder Slide Load Mining Claims, further referred to as the Silver King Group, is located on the east facing slope of Empire Hill above Beaver Lakes Estate. There is an existing improvement of a 10x 21 structure that was constructed in the early 2000s by the previous owners. The current owner purchased the property in September of 2019 and has made no additional improvements to the land or existing structure. The owner is seeking a backcountry permit at subsequent certificate of completion for the existing structure. The structure is intended for owner use only with no more than 90 days consecutive or 180 days per calendar year. Uh the owner only intends to use the structure for short-term visits of one or two nights for less than 30 nights total per year. Again, we're kind of going with the composting toilet, graywater storage tank. This will be located in an outhouse structure away from the existing cabin. You can see the outhouse structure here. It will have a single handwash basin in it. This will be the only source of gray water for the tank. And we'll move into the prohibitions for granting variance. Section 43.4N. Section A. No variant shall be issued where the property can accommodate a conforming OWTS. Again, this would require reasonable access for installing a system. The access to this property is via a single lane unimproved 4x4 road that requires a high clearance 4x4. This road goes through both private and US forest land and is currently

sorry. This goes through both US forest and private land significantly limiting the access to installer forming OTS. Can we go back to the last slide real quick? This um I don't know. Anyways, this road comes off of a dry Union Gulch and goes up towards Empire Reservoir. It's the same road that goes up to the yurts, the light back country yurts up there.

Rowdy look to worry about it too much, but we'll move on to section C. No variant shall be issued for no variant shall be allowed for solely economic gain. This property is to be used for a private backcountry structure with temporary occupancy of two persons. It does not have a well or access to install a well. Access for a normal pumping truck or other heavy equipment is limited due to the road due to the road conditions. The property has limited access by unimproved roads through private land and is unable to install the well. This is the basis of the request and it is not based upon solely economic reasons. And again, staff found the rest of the prohibitions to not be applicable to this property. So, we'll move on to the composting sto toilet standards. At the bottom of page two, they're going to be using a Sunmar XLNE. This model is NSF and ANSI standard 41 certified. The manufacturer rates the toilet's composting capacity for five adults or a family of seven for weekend and vacation use. There are no electrical components on the XLN and it is designed to want run without electricity. It is community planning and development's belief that the proposed composting toilet meets the requirements of the regulations and does not pose any risk to public or environmental health. And this is just a little blurb from the website stating it needs no electrical capacity connection. We'll move on to staff response here. With the above in mind, community planning and development is requiring that OWTS be installed to treat all waste water remaining after removal of toilet waste. As the property does not have running water, the only additional

waste water generated by the structure will be what is hauled in for hand washing in the about house. The waste water will be plumbed and directed into a vault tank. The vault tank uh the size of the tank is 500 gallons and is the minimum required for vault storage tanks in Colorado. The tank is intended to be used as a vault to hold all non-toilet waste water until such time that is 75% full or yearly with power being provided by a 12volt battery that will be monitored and changes the power for the the float valve in the vault tank at which point the owners will pump it into a 4x4 truck mounted storage tank or equivalent means and dispose of at an approved RV dump station. As the non-toilet waste water generated by the property will be minimal due to backcountry use standards, accessibility, and lack of water utility. Staff suggests the proposed vault tank of 500 gallons is appropriate and meets the intent of the variance standard for consideration. Further, the wastewater being held and transported is non-hazardous. The risk to the public health and environmental health would be considered minimal and not basis for denial of that variance. read the staff recommendation. The application details how the property has been in existence for the last 25 years. It was never issued a certificate of occupancy as the primary access is an unimproved single lane road heading towards uh Empire Reservoir. The property does not have reasonable access for anything other than a high clearance 4x4 vehicle. The property does not have an existing well or access to a water utility and the location is inaccessible for well training equipment. In addition, the existing existing access is further limited by privately owned and forest

service land, rendering it unrealistic to expect road improvements to allow equipment access. The applicant has satisfied all notification requirements and staff has not received any comment from adjacent land owners in regards to this application. Staff believes the applicant has successfully shown compliance with state and local variance regulations and has established the basis for alternative system for temporarily occupied backcountry structure. Staff recommends approval for the variance. I see the motions on the bottom of page four as well. Is there any questions for to the board? None for me. None for me. Thank you.

Okay. Um, is there anything the applicant would like to present regarding this property? Just that I'm trying to get in compliance and and get your blessing to be able to use it. All right. Is there any questions for the applicant? None for me. Thanks. None for me. Um, is there any public comment from anyone online? Anyone in the room? I see no hands being raised. All right. Um, I would call for a motion to close the evidentiary portion of the hearing. I move to close the evidentiary portion of the meeting. Seconded. To a vote. I

I I. All right. Then call for a motion of either approval or deny. I move to approve the variance request. A variance around allowing the use of a composting toilet and installation of a vault tank for gray water collection and off-site disposal for the property known as 7142 Silver King Group parcel number 27470440030 in Lake County, Colorado. I will second the motion to a vote. I All right. So be it. Congratulations.

All right. Thank you for the thorough presenting to them. Love it. All right, moving on. We have up next we got the rosette. Um, this will actually be Shiloh Rose was the Oh, sorry. First one. Oh, boy. Mr. Wine Gas. I have my stacks mixed up. It hasn't come to you yet. It's coming in hot. Thank you. There we are. Thanks for joining us, Jason.

All right. All right. They're joining us online. Um, does any of the board members need to disclose any exparte communications? None for me. None for me. All right, let's go ahead with Torston's staff presentation.

Perfect. This is going to be for 3330 Shiloh parcel number 2479244 008. Applicant Jason Wing Gas and Megan Gilman. The Shiloh property will construct a single family backcountry structure for temporary use of no more than 90 days consecutive, 180 days per year. It will be located on 10 acres of land near Tennessee Creek just south of Oski Cooper. The owners bought the property in late 2024. No improvements have been made to the land prior to their purchase. Excuse me. The owners are pursuing issuance of a variance for a non-conforming OWCTS system. They will use an incinerating toilet to dispose of solid waste as well as using a vault tank to collect gray water from a single wash patient. This is just engineered design for the property. I know it's a little hard to see you here, but this will be the cabin. It's zoomed in here and the tank on the northwest side of the property. You're going to have an exterior bathroom on the southeast side of the property here that will hold the incinerating toilet. And those are the specs for the vault tank right there. We'll move on to the prohibitions for granting variance section 43.4N. Section A, no variant shall be issued where a property can accommodate a conforming OWTS. This will require reasonable access for installing a system. The access to the property is either via Tennessee Creek Road from the south, which is narrow and requires high clearance 4x4, or through Ski Cooper's private property on the north end of Tennessee Creek.

Um, the road travels through both US service, US Forest Service and private land. The access proper the access to the property significantly limits the ability of a conforming OWTS to be installed. And we'll move to section C here. No variant shall be allowed for solely economic gain. This property is to be used for a private backcountry structure with temporary occupancy of 90 days consecutively or no more than 180 days in a year. It does not have a well or access to install a well. property has limited access by unimproved roads through private envir service land and is unable to install a well. This is the basis of the request and it is not based upon solely economic reasons. Staff found the rest of the prohibitions to not be applicable to this property. We move on to the incinerating toilet standards there in page two. The incinerating toilet to be installed at 3330 Shiloh will be a Cinderella Freedom NA. The model is NSF protocol P157 certified.

This is a new name. Cinderella, right? The Cinderella Freedom in particular is Yeah, it's got a poetic tension to it.

Yeah. Uh the structure will be fitted with proper ventilation to the outside as per manufacturer specifications. It is rated for up to four visits per hour. The propane will be supplied from 20 gallon propane tanks and replaced when necessary. It is community planning and development's belief that the proposed incinerating toilet meets the requirements of the regulations and does not pose any risk to environmental health. I'll move to staff response on page three here. With the above in mind, community planning and development is requiring that a OWTS to be installed to treat all waste water remaining after removal of toilet waste. As the property does not have running water, the only additional waste water generated by the structure would be what is hauled in and used for hand/dishwashing in a bathroom. The waste water will be plumbed and directed into a vault tank. The tank size of 500 gallons is the minimum required for vault storage tanks and is sized appropriately for temporary use. The tank is intended to be used as a vault to hold all non-toilet waste water until such time that it is 75% full. Power for the float valve will be provided by a 12volt battery and charged by a PV array on the property. at which point the owners will pump it into a 4x4 truck mounted storage tank and dispose of an approved RV dump station. The ash produced by the Cinderella incinerating toilet is sterile and will be removed in trash bags. As non-toilet waste water generated by the property will be minimal due to backcountry use standards, accessibility, and lack of water utility. Staff suggests the proposed vault tank of 500 gallons is appropriate and meets the intent of the variance

standards for consideration. Further, the waste water being held and transported is non-hazardous. The risk to public health and environmental health will be considered minimal and nonvasive denial of the variance. Staff recommendation. The application details how the property has had no improvements done as the primary access is a unimproved single lane road from either Tennessee Creek or Ski Cooper. The property does not have reasonable access for anything other than a high clearance 4x4 vehicle. The property does not have an existing well or access to a water utility and the location is inaccessible for well well drilling equipment. In addition, the existing access is further limited by privately owned and forest service land, rendering it unrealistic to expect road improvement to allow equipment access. The applicant has satisfied all notification requirements and staff has not received any adjacent any comment from adjacent land owners in regards to this application. Staff believes the applicant has successfully shown compliance with the state and local variance regulations and has established a basis for alternative system for temporarily occupied back country structure. Staff recommends approval of the variance requests. Page four had motions and open it up to questions. Yeah. Questions for staff. Um this one uh I I noticed in the other ones they kind of put a number on how many people will be using the property um the structure and and the system that um the OWTS systems were looking at. Do we have was there any input from the um applicant as far as how many people will be using this? I believe Jason and uh Megan there said it was going to be four

people although there was no official number on their application. This is something we could uh we could add to the motion. Yeah the the engineering didn't wasn't based on a certain occupancy. It was not. No. But if 500 gallons um it is a comparison um to the one that you previously did for Mr. Burger, right? Yeah, water um tank would would to me be more appropriately sized for an occupancy of four. So maybe we'll hear from the applicant what their intentions are. Um but it is to serve a backcountry structure with a limited square footage of 600 ft. Okay. So it'll be minimal.

Just wasn't sure if that was something that was previously uh included as part of the application by the applicant. Um I will ask them next if there are Uh, no more questions for staff from me. Are there regulations regarding the disposal of the ash as far as bags and does our landfill accept the ash? It's is it still considered hazardous material?

It is not considered hazardous material as far uh as per regulation 43 recommends because it is sterilized by the incineration process. is be able to be um disposed of in any landfill. Is that new? Cuz 10 years ago, that's amazing what the manufacturing has brought forward on incinerating a composting boat. 10 years ago, you had to drive it to a special depository. Okay. Regulation 43 states that it can't be disposed of in any trash after the cooling cycle is completed, of course. Cool. Very cool.

Um, no more if there's no more questions for staff, let's go ahead and hear from uh the applicant if they have anything they would like to present to the board.

Yeah. Hi. Well, thank you for having us. My name's Megan. This is Jason. Uh, appreciate virtually meeting you all and uh having this set up for hearing and yeah um Torson was right. This is really uh for use of our family of four, two adults and two children um just for our personal use per the regulations on a part-time basis. So um certainly everything we've found with respect to the incinerating toilet as well as the holding tank um they should certainly suffice the use for uh for our family of four on a temporary basis. Okay. Um cool. Any questions for the applicant from the board?

None from me. None from All right. So, um, just for the record, you are stating that the property will be used by solely by a family of four. That's correct. Cool. Thank you. All right. I have no further questions. Um, let's go ahead and open up public comment. Anyone in the room? Anyone online? I see no hands raised. Uh, let's go ahead and call for a motion to close the evidentiary portion of the hearing. I move to close the evidentiary. Is it your turn? That's okay. I understand. We have to. I move to close the evidentiary portion of the hearing. I will second the motion.

All right. To a vote. I I All right. Um, and I would like to call for a motion to either approve or deny the application. I will call or I make a motion to approve the variance request. A variance allowing the use of proposed incinerating toilet and installation of a vault tank for graywater collection and off-site disposal for the property known as 3330 Shiloh. Parcel number 247924400008 in Lake County, Colorado. Seconded. It's a lot of zeros. Uh to a vote. I

I All right. So be it. Thank you guys. Thanks for joining us today. Okay. Um, we have just a motion to close. All right. And can we get a motion to close the board of health public hearings? I move to close the board of health public hearings. I'll second the motion. All right. To a vote. I I I All right. It's 10:12 a.m. We will conclude today's board of health meeting. Perfect.