An interdepartmental group of Island County staff members identified five high-priority properties with code violations, all of which involve sewage tanks leaking or sewage being directly discharged onto the ground, wetlands or even a beach.

The list includes two mobile home parks outside of Oak Harbor city limits, a North Whidbey property with people living out of RVs, a single RV parked on property in Freeland and a beachfront house on Camano Island.

During a meeting last week, several department heads presented the list to county commissioners and discussed the responses. Public Health Director Shawn Morris explained that the Case Review Team is made up of staff from Public Health, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Planning, Public Works and Human Services. The team looks at the most complex cases and works together to resolve issues that endanger the health and safety of residents.

Morris said the county takes a stepwise approach in working with property owners to gain voluntary compliance. Enforcement is a last resort, but the county has several different kinds of notices that can be sent to property owners, depending on the issue and the danger to human health. He said the county’s health officer, Dr. Howard Leibrand, looks at the issue through an “equity lens” and is reluctant to force low-income people from their homes before other solutions are explored.

If all else fails, the county can go to court to force a property owner to comply; in some cases, the county can clean up the property and then bill the owner. The county has filed lawsuits against property owners over code violations twice in the last couple of years.

The commissioners expressed frustration with the challenges in enforcing compliance with county health codes and the length of time it can take to fix the problems. Commissioner Jill Johnson, in particular, questioned why people living illegally in RVs on a property on Country Lane near Oak Harbor couldn’t just be removed by the sheriff’s office. The property is one of the high-priority cases identified by the staff.

Heather Kortuem, the Environmental Health manager, explained that the owner of the property passed away, and her sister is living in a house with a failed septic system. Before she died, the previous owner allowed people to live in RVs on the property. The RVs are direct-discharging sewage and gray water into a large, environmentally important wetland while garbage is accumulating on the site. Since the people in the RVs refuse to leave, the sister is working with an attorney to try to evict them.

But Johnson pointed out that the county code doesn’t currently allow people to live in RVs in this manner, let alone discharge sewage into a critical area.

“There should be zero reason that these people have to get an attorney because we have all the authority right now in our code to say, ‘Get off the property, this is illegal,’” she said.

Johnson said the people in the RVs are trespassing and that a call to 911 should fix the problem. Planning Manager Mike Beech said that the people may have established tenant rights, but all three commissioners said that simply wasn’t true for people living somewhere illegally to begin with.

Johnson questioned why the sheriff’s office should get large amounts of funding if deputies are unwilling to respond because they are worried about interpretations of law.

“If we’re too afraid to do law enforcement, I’m going to take that money and put it somewhere else,” she said.

The staff explained that a “health officer order” was sent to the property, which is currently in probate. Such an order, Morris said, is the most direct way that Public Health has to compel compliance.

Another high-priority case is a mobile home park on Heller Road, just outside Oak Harbor city limits. Kortuem explained that the entire concrete lid on the septic tank fell inside, creating a health hazard.

“There was enough exposed that a very large human could possibly fall in,” Kortuem said, explaining that the county immediately took action to require a fence around the tank.

Public Health also issued a notice of septic failure and a health officer order. The good news is that the owners hired contractors to install a new system and are working with the state on permits, according to the county.

A third case also involves a mobile home park in the Oak Harbor area that has 56 mobile homes. Valley High Mobile Home Park has a failed drainfield for the septic system and drinking water problems.

The problem has been ongoing for several years without a resolution. Public Health, Human Services, the county planning department and the city of Oak Harbor have been working with the property owners for years to find a solution, Morris said. The city has given the property owners options for hooking into the city sewage system, but the owners decided against it, apparently because of the cost.

“We’ve exhausted voluntary compliance options,” he said.

Johnson said the county even offered to find grant funding to help with the cost of sewage hookup since it would serve low-income people. She said the property owners have a “different vision” for the property, which the zoning does not support. The county issued “notices of violation” to the mobile home park, which has a provisional status that expired at the end of the year. The owners must confirm their corrective plan or face escalation, according to the county.

Yet Johnson said the county should help to find new housing for the people who live in the mobile home park before the county takes any action that would shut it down. She pointed to an ongoing housing project that the county is funding on Oak Harbor Road as a possible solution for the residents. The other commissioners agreed.

A fourth case involves an RV being used as a dwelling on Moonlight Drive in Freeland. The resident has been dumping solid waste and sewage on the ground. Beech said the man living in the RV has been suffering from mental health issues for many years. The ultimate solution, he said, may be for the property owner to evict the man from the land.

In addition, a home on Maple Grove Road on Camano Island has a cracked septic tank that is leaking on the beach, likely contributing to the high E. coli levels in the area. Commissioner Janet St. Clair said she was frustrated to see that people are still living in the home on weekends in violation of a county order. The staff said the people are likely the owner’s adult children, who are not allowed to be there.