[Adopted 6-5-1939]
No structure shall hereafter be erected in the
Town of Highlands, outside the Village of Highland Falls, unless a
septic tank or outside privy is installed for the disposal of human
excreta in the manner described in this Part 1.
No installation of any septic tank or outside
privy nor the construction or erection of any structure intended for
human occupancy shall be commenced until an application duly filled
out, in triplicate, on forms supplied by the Town Clerk, and drawings
showing the intended location of the septic tank proposed to be used
in connection with such structure, shall have been filed in the Town
Clerk's office and approved in the manner hereinafter prescribed.
A fee, as set by resolution of the Town Board
from time to time, shall be paid to the Town Clerk simultaneously
with the filing of the application.
A.
The Town Board of Health shall appoint a competent
Sanitary Inspector who shall be responsible to the Town Board of Health
for the performance of the duties hereinafter mentioned, and whose
appointment shall be held at the pleasure of the Town Board of Health.
It shall be the duty of the Sanitary Inspector:
(1)
To receive applications filed with the Town Clerk;
(2)
To promptly investigate, before and after installation,
any proposed disposal devices indicated in said applications;
(3)
To see that the provisions of this Part 1 are observed;
and
(4)
To issue to the applicant a certificate of approval
permitting the use of such installations that conform to the provisions
of this Part 1.
B.
No such installation shall be covered until it has
been inspected and approved.
C.
One copy of the application shall be returned to the
Town Clerk with a duplicate of the certificate of approval issued
by the Inspector. In case such certificate of approval is not issued,
another copy of the application shall be given to the applicant with
the certificate of approval or with reasons for declining to issue
the same.
If the Sanitary Inspector declines to approve
any proposal installation, the applicant may appeal to the Town Board
of Health, whose approval or rejection shall be final.
No septic tank or outside privy shall be installed
unless every part of such installation shall be more than 50 feet
from any lake, reservoir, stream or watercourse not protected by rules
enacted by the State Commissioner of Health; nor shall any such installation
be located on the direct line of drainage to not less than 50 feet
in a horizontal direction from any well, spring or any source of water
supply. If the minimum distance specified cannot be complied with
due to the limits of the property, the Sanitary Inspector may allow
an installation at a distance less than the minimum specified, provided
that such installation does not or will not create a dangerous, unhealthful
condition.
No person, firm or corporation, either as owner,
lessee or tenant of any property, dwelling, building or place in the
Town of Highlands outside the Village of Highland Falls, shall construct
or maintain any privy, cesspool, sewage disposal system, pipe or drain
so as to expose or discharge the contents or other liquid or matter
therefrom to the atmosphere or on the surface of the ground nor so
as to endanger any source of drinking water; nor shall any such person,
firm or corporation discharge into any watercourse, storm sewer, drain
or body of water any sewage or sewage effluent from a cesspool, sewage
disposal system, pipe or drain or any excreta from a privy vault or
other receptacle for the storage of excreta.
A.
Septic tanks.
(1)
Settling or septic tanks for single- or two-family
dwellings or for small institutions with a population of less than
25 persons shall have capacities below the flow line of not less than
one day's flow of sewage based on the per capita rates of 50 gallons
per person for small dwellings, farm houses and summer cottages; and
75 gallons per person for large dwellings, boardinghouses and hotels.
The minimum size of approved septic tank is to be of 300 gallons'
working capacity. At camps, boardinghouses, hotels, institutions,
restaurants and public eating establishments, a grease trap shall
be provided on the kitchen waste line ahead of the septic tank.
(2)
All factories and all institutions, hotels, boardinghouses
and other structures occupied at any time by more than 25 persons,
or with facilities for occupancy by 25 or more persons, must conform
to the minimum rules and regulations for systems of sewage and waste
disposal as published from time to time by the Division of Sanitation
of the State Department of Health.
(3)
Septic tanks must be outside foundations of buildings.
Drains from buildings to septic tanks must be watertight and equipped
with a house trap and fresh air vent. They must have a diameter of
not less than four inches. No roof leader or floor or cellar drains
are to drain to septic tanks. Septic tanks effluents shall be disposed
of by discharging to subsurface tile systems, leaching cesspools or
by such other means as may be approved, in writing, by the Sanitary
Inspector.
B.
Outside privies.
(1)
Where there are not water facilities for use in toilets,
a watertight vault privy, a movable receptacle privy or a chemical
toilet can be used if approved by the Sanitary Inspector and adequate
facilities are available for proper sanitary maintenance and disposal
of wastes.
(2)
The vault privy must be watertight and flytight and
constructed so as to facilitate maintenance in a sanitary condition.
A.
Nothing contained in this Part 1 shall be construed
to permit the installation or maintenance of disposal facilities which
are or may become a nuisance.
B.
The Town Health Officer may at any time by personal
inspection determine that existing sewage disposal facilities on a
property are inadequate or do not function properly, or that there
is not available an adequate supply of water for use in connection
therewith. In such cases he shall notify the owner of said premises,
in writing, of such fact, and a copy of such notice shall be sent
to the Town Clerk. Upon receipt of such notice it shall be the duty
of the owner, within 10 days, to make application to the Town Clerk
for a permit to reconstruct or alter such disposal system and to complete
such reconstruction or alteration within 14 days after receipt of
said notice. Unless such reconstruction or alteration as is required
shall have been completed within said 14 days, it shall be unlawful
and improper to use said premises for human occupancy until such reconstruction
or alteration is completed and approved. The fee for a reconstruction
or alteration permit shall be the same as that for a new installation,
and such work shall be inspected and approved in the manner provided
for new installations.
All garbage, kitchen wastes and other rubbish
at dwellings and business establishments shall be deposited in suitable
covered receptacles, which shall be protected from flies and emptied
and cleaned as often as necessary to keep them and their surroundings
in a sanitary condition and free from objectionable odors. The contents
shall be burned, buried or otherwise disposed of in such a way as
not to become offensive or insanitary or create fly breeding places.
No garbage, refuse, putrescible matter, decayed
fruits or vegetables, dead animals or material that pollutes water
shall be deposited in any tributary to such watercourses, nor on or
beneath the surface of the ground within 50 feet of surface watercourses
or tributaries, nor in such a manner that it can be washed by rain,
melting snow or otherwise over the surface or through the ground into
such surface watercourses or their tributaries.
All the provisions of the Public Health Law
and Sanitary Code of the State of New York relating to the preservation
of the public health, applicable to towns of the Second Class, are
hereby declared to be included in and made a part of the rules and
regulations of the Board of Health of the Town of Highlands.
[Amended 3-10-1998 by L.L. No. 1-1998]
A.
Any violation of this Part 1, either by the occupancy
of a structure without a duly authorized certificate of approval or
by the installation or use of a septic tank or privy, without compliance
with the terms and provisions aforesaid, or any violation of any of
the terms and provisions of this Part 1 shall, upon conviction of
the owner of the land whereon the same was installed or the tenant
or the person so installing the same, be punishable by a fine not
to exceed $250 or imprisonment not to exceed 15 days, or both; and
each day said condition exists shall constitute a separate offense.
B.
Any person violating any provision of this Part 1
or any part thereof shall, upon conviction, be punishable by a fine
not to exceed $250 or imprisonment not to exceed 15 days, or both.
C.
Any person found guilty of a violation of the Public
Health Law and the Sanitary Code of the State of New York hereby made
a part of the rules and regulations of the Board of Health of the
Town of Highlands, shall, upon conviction, be punishable by a fine
not to exceed $250 or imprisonment not to exceed 15 days, or both.
D.
Unpaid rents, rates, charges and penalties to be a lien.
[Added 12-27-2022 by L.L.
No. 2-2023]
(1)
Sewer rents, rates, charges and penalties thereon shall be a lien
upon the real property upon which the sewer is used. On or before
the day when, under the Town Law, preliminary estimates of expenditures
are required to be submitted, the Town Clerk shall prepare and file
with the Town Board a statement showing all sewer rents, rates and
charges, with penalties thereon, unpaid for more than 60 days, which
statement shall contain a brief description of the property for which
the sewer was supplied or upon which charges were incurred, the name
of the owner liable to pay the same, so far as may be known, and the
amount chargeable to each.
(2)
Such rents, rates, charges and penalties shall not be collected by
the Town Clerk after the filing of such statement with the Town Board,
but may thereafter be paid to the Supervisor until such time as a
statement of such unpaid sewer rents, rates, charges and penalties
is submitted to the Town Board for the purpose of levying the same
as a tax against the property affected.
