St. Louis County Imminent Health Threat SSTS Abatement Program
St. Louis County's Comprehensive Water Management Plan Update 2010-2020 identifies providing financial assistance to qualifying homeowners to upgrade or replace failing septic systems as a Priority 2 action. Funds from the FY-16 Clean Water Fund Projects and Practices Grant will be used to provide funding to low-income homeowners to repair or replace SSTS identified as Imminent Threat to Public Health (ITPH) within the following watersheds: Lake Superior South, St. Louis River, Cloquet River, Mississippi River-Grand Rapids, Vermilion River, Little Fork, Rainy Lake and Rainy River Headwaters. Those systems identified as straight-piping or surface discharging will receive higher Project priority status, thereby eliminating direct sewage discharge to adjacent water bodies; wetlands, lakes, streams, rivers or groundwater. Homeowners not meeting the minimum qualifications for the St. Louis County (SLC)/MN AgBMP Low-Interest SSTS Loan Program and have incomes below 90% of the median household income for SLC will qualify for grant funding. These low-income homeowners have no other means to finance repair or replacement of the ITPH systems. Currently, SLC Environmental Services Department (ESD) has listed 27 known residential ITPH SSTS identified through point of sale compliance inspections, formal complaints or referred by the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (AEOA) through their Single Family Rehab Program and Home Investment Partnerships Program. ESD is partnering with the SLC Housing and Rehabilitation Authority (HRA) to contract with the AEOA to process applications and screen homeowners for household income and to administer funding mechanisms to repair or replace the ITPH SSTS. [When the list was developed in 2012, ESD identified 29 families as having ITPH systems, 21 of the systems have been replaced, yet ESD currently has 27 homeowners listed with ITPH systems, demonstrating a need for continued program funding.]
See http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/aboutbwsr/index.html and http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/aboutbwsr/boarddirectory.pdf
See http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/aboutbwsr/index.html
Marcey Westrick
Projects and Practices 2016: Laws of MN 2015 First Special Session Chapter 2, Article 7, Section 7
This project resulted in an estimated annual reduction of 2789 lbs of BOD5, 68100000000000 CFUs e. Coli, 25 lbs of nitrate, 119 lbs of nitrogen, 243 lbs of phosphorus. Additionally, 1200 preventative pollution practices (with no associated estimation calculator) were installed as part of this grant project.
LOCAL LEVERAGED FUNDS