THE LAST THING that comes to mind when visiting the shimmering landscape along Tomales Bay is wastewater, but the people that live and work there think about it often.
Marin County officials are revising wastewater regulations for thousands of septic systems in coastal West Marin, prompting debate among homeowners and business operators over maintenance costs, environmental protections and aging infrastructure along Tomales Bay.
The county is hosting in-person community meetings to receive feedback on the regulation updates. The next meeting will be Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Bolinas Firehouse at 100 Mesa Road.
The conditions in coastal zones pose unique challenges, like a lack of space, exposure to marine ecosystems and obsolete designs.
“We spend $250,000 a year to maintain our septic system,” said Wade Nakamine, general manager of Nick’s Cove, a cluster of a dozen vacation cottages and a restaurant on state Highway 1 just north of the town of Marshall. “We get pumped out weekly.”
A septic system is a concrete or fiberglass tank buried on a landowner’s property that accepts all the wastewater coming from the house — showers, toilets, washing machines. The solids settle at the bottom of the tank, while the liquids overflow into a system of perforated pipes that allow it to percolate into the soil, which naturally removes harmful bacteria or viruses.
Sewer systems, by contrast, collect wastewater and treat it in centralized facilities designed to manage large volumes.
Every piece of land in West Marin has a different geology, soil type and slope, so a uniform approach is not practical. That’s why the county is revising its Local Agency Management Program, a process that has been in the works since 2014. According to the county’s website, if the county does not complete an approved LAMP by 2026, the Board of Supervisors will need to go with less flexible one-size-fits-all state regulations.
Up until now, septic regulations in Marin County have been ad hoc. Older buildings have been grandfathered in, while new construction requires costly permits. All of Tomales Bay is designated as a coastal zone under the California Coastal Act, which established the California Coastal Commission to protect marine habitats. Coastal development permits from the county are required for projects within the coastal zone.
Long septic struggles
The properties that sit on the edge of Tomales Bay present a living laboratory for septic systems that work and don’t work.
Hog Island Oyster Company, founded in 1983, operates the old Marshall General Store and a restaurant called Tony’s Seafood, which they took over in 2017.
“A lot of the properties had funky septic systems that were not operating that great and maybe polluted the Bay,” said John Finger, CEO of Hog Island Oyster Company. “There were little redwood boxes underneath houses that are built on the side of the Bay.”
“There was an illness outbreak in ‘96 or ‘98,” he said. “We had been trying to work on water quality issues on the Bay, whether it was people camping out on the national seashore without bathrooms or the substandard septic systems in some of the homes.”
That’s when the county stepped in with grants and low-interest loans to develop a community septic system in Marshall that pump their effluent through pipes under the highway and up the hill to a seep field around to a dairy. The county administers the community system with tax assessments on properties.
Assessment costs for Tony’s Seafood restaurant range around $20,000 a year and are passed down through the lease to Finger.
An outside contractor handles monitoring by using equipment that can be accessed remotely, and the leach fields themselves need to be looked at on a regular basis, said Finger.
The high cost
Disputes have arisen over cost burden and what constitutes normal versus abnormal maintenance.
For example, Tony’s Seafood and another business, the Marshall Store, were cut off from the community system in 2022 due to excessive fats, oils, and grease levels. Finger estimates his company spends about $3,000 a week to pump its own wastewater.
“So, that’s about $10,000 a month, which is all the profit and then some,” said Finger.
The Marshall Store owner Shannon Gregory said he pays about $7,000 a month to pump twice a week, while they wait to pass approvals.
Solutions being explored include installing additional grease interceptors and using bacteria-based grease digestion products. Finger said he is going back and forth with the county.
“It was a little opaque, trying to figure out what was included in the maintenance of the system and what wasn’t,” he said. “That’s a bigger issue that the whole community is dealing, having a little bit more visibility from the county.”
Lately, Finger tried mixing bacteria that eats the grease into the system. He said it worked phenomenally and suggested the county adopt it more widely.
County staff hope to complete community outreach by June and bring the updated local regulations to the Marin County Board of Supervisors for approval in fall of this year. There will be another round of community input after the LAMP has been implemented for two years. All the LAMP updates will require approval from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.
They have scheduled a special meeting just for business owners on Monday at 9 a.m. People can email Liz.Darby@marincounty.gov for the Zoom link.
Besides Wednesday’s meeting in Bolinas, there will be additional meetings on May 19 in Mill Valley at the Muir Woods Park Community Association Clubhouse; and on May 20 at the Dillon Beach Resort.
