Chapter III, Section 4 (g) of the Niagara County Sanitary code (Sanitary Code of the Niagara County Health District, 2022) charges the Niagara County Health Department with informing property owners who utilize a septic system that there is a requirement to connect to a sanitary sewer if one is available at the time of a property sale (or transfer). If sanitary sewer is not available at the time of sale, then the county health department must perform a test (tracer dye testing) of the existing septic system to ensure that the system is in good working order. Also, at times when an aging septic system is replaced, county public health engineers may be called upon to inspect and approve a new septic construction. Historically, GIS has played no role in this process.
The Niagara County Department of Public health has embarked on an ambitious multi-year GIS project; the goals include:
--> To map existing sanitary sewer pipeline GIS data (covering the entirety of the county’s 12 towns and three cities).
--> Append to the GIS data the layout and components of newly installed septic systems (using a high-accuracy GNSS receiver with RTK augmentation)
--> Provide a document management tool via a web map application/interface that will easily link the user to the project file of each septic system inspection or new installation.
The purpose of this session is to share our experiences thus far in in this process. We hope that attendees of this session will share their own in-house processes to fulfil county health code requirements. We aim to use GIS to improve access to, as well as the accuracy of our project records. While the process will take time, our end deliverable of this project will be a modernized record management tool and high precision mapping of the county’s approximately 18,000+ septic systems.
