Nebraska septic rules

Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment (DWEE, formerly NDEE), Onsite Wastewater Program. The state Onsite Wastewater Program administers Title 124 directly: it sets design standards, certifies onsite professionals, reviews subdivisions, permits larger or special systems, and requires every constructed or modified system to be registered with the Department.

Under the Private Onsite Wastewater Treatment System Contractors Certification and System Registration Act (2003), anyone doing onsite wastewater work must be state certified. Pumping is done by a certified Master Pumper or Journeyman Pumper (or a professional engineer or registered environmental health specialist); a Journeyman Pumper must work for a business with a Master Pumper, engineer or environmental health specialist responsible for the work (Title 124, Chapter 9). Certification is by examination, and renewal requires at least twelve Department-approved professional development hours during the two-year certificate cycle.

Allowed disposal methods for domestic septage are discharge to a publicly owned wastewater treatment facility (with the facility's written permission), land application under the conditions in Title 124, Chapter 11, or other methods approved by the Department. Land application is limited to non-public contact sites such as agricultural land, forests and reclamation land, requires the landowner's written permission, setbacks, and injection, incorporation or lime treatment, and is prohibited on saturated, frozen or snow-covered ground.

The pumper must keep records of all domestic septage pumped for at least five years and make them available to the Department on request (Title 124, Chapter 11, section 010). For treatment plant disposal, each load records the date, facility, gallons, pumping date and owner name and address of each tank, gallons from each source, and the pumper's name, certificate number and signature. Land application records add the site location, landowner permission, acreage, application rates and per-load details.

Inspecting onsite systems is limited to certified Inspectors (and professional engineers or registered environmental health specialists) under Title 124, Chapter 9. No state point-of-sale inspection requirement was found.

Neb. Admin. Code Title 124, Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems (Chapter 9 certification, Chapter 11 tank pumping and domestic septage disposal)