Yesterday McHenry County Blog reported on the effort by the McHenry County Department of Public Health to obtain emergency control over the abandonment of septic tanks in Port Barrington as homes were being connected to the Northern Moraine Sanitary District.

As part of the defendants’ reply was what amounted to a legal brief from NOMO President Kenneth A. Michaels, Jr., a member of the board since 1994 and head of it since 2005. He outlined the history of district and the law that authorizes and regulates it.

Created in 1978 (I remember well the “Royal Flush” dedication ceremony in Island Lake), the district now has 23.5 miles of sewers in Lakemoor, 37.5 miles in Island Lake and over 7.2 miles in Port Barrington.

The NOMO Sanitary District boundaries near the Fox River.

Michaels says he can find no document that the County Health Department every “asserted that it had exclusive or any jurisdiction to issue permits for or to inspect the abandonment of septic systms associated with the sewer connections.”

“My belief is that the entire assertion of exclusive jurisdiction here is because McHenry County Health Department currently charges its citizens for issuing such a permit, while NOMO does not charge it citizens anything for this service incident to the new sewer connection.”