DEQ Just Published the Playbook for Flood-Resilient Septic Repairs — Here's How to Build It Into Your Next Job

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has released its Project Application Resiliency Measures Checklist for decentralized wastewater treatment systems — the official list of approved resiliency measures for septic repairs and replacements funded through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund's Helene Decentralized program.

This matters to every installer, contractor, and soil professional working in Helene-affected counties. The state has $22.5 million set aside specifically to improve the flood resilience of septic systems, delivered as zero-interest loans with principal forgiveness available — which for many eligible projects means the homeowner's repair is effectively grant-funded. Local government units and nonprofits administer the funding and pass it through to homeowners for repairs and replacements. Your job is to design and install systems that qualify.

Here's the key requirement: every project receiving these dollars must incorporate resiliency. Not "should." Must. The federal appropriation directs the funds toward improving the resilience of decentralized systems to flooding, and DEQ's checklist is how you document that your project does exactly that.

The good news? Most of what's on the list is work you already know how to do. You just need to specify it, check the box, and describe it in the application.

The Five Categories of Approved Measures

DEQ organizes approved resiliency measures into five sections. Let's walk through them the way you'd walk a site.

1. Protecting Systems from Rising Water

This is the largest category, and it's where most repair and replacement jobs will find their qualifying measures. Approved options include:

• Elevation and setback. Raise the elevation of any system component, or increase its distance from streams and rivers. If you're replacing a tank that sat in the flood path, moving the new one up and back is a resiliency measure — document it.
• Better landscape position. Moving a system from the floodplain to a toe slope, from a toe slope to a side slope, or from a concave to a convex slope all count. Soil professionals: this is where your site evaluation directly drives funding eligibility.
• Anchoring buoyant components. Fiberglass tanks, air-filled textile filters, and pump basins float when the water table surges. Anti-flotation anchoring is an approved measure — and after what we saw following Helene, it should be standard practice near any waterway regardless.
• Grading against scour. Regrading to direct flows away from manhole covers and tank lids, plus swales, curtain drains, and fill caps that divert stormwater and groundwater away from the system during heavy rain.
• The small stuff that counts. Fibrous netting over drainfields, bracing components for saturated soil conditions, elevating electrical components above base flood elevation, rerouting gutters and downspouts away from the drainfield, and gasketed bolt-down covers to keep floodwater out of underground structures.

One note on the plantings measure: erosion-control planting with shallow-rooted native species near drainfields is on the approved list, but DEQ specifically asks applicants to consult with the Division of Water Infrastructure team beforeplanning that activity. Call first.

2. Protecting Against Power Loss

Pump systems fail when the grid does. Approved measures here are straightforward: backup power systems or connections, emergency power shutoffs, and elevated or waterproofed electrical components. If you're installing a pressure system or drip dispersal in a flood-prone area, backup power isn't just fundable — it's the difference between a system that recovers and one that surcharges.

3. Reducing Flood-Related Failure Risk

Two measures, both simple: install fixtures that reduce wastewater flow into the system (low-flow plumbing counts), and make sure stormwater — including sump pumps — is not connected to the septic system. Every installer in the mountains has found a sump pump tied into a tank at least once. Disconnecting it now qualifies as a fundable resiliency measure.

4. Adding Capacity for Flood Conditions

Larger tanks, additional tanks, holding tanks, and additional wastewater lines are all approved. So is elevating drainfields for more vertical separation, or specifying alternative dispersal — shallow pressurized drainfields or drip dispersal with backup power — that lets a system return to normal operation faster after a flood event. If you've been wanting to spec a better dispersal solution but the budget wouldn't stretch, this funding changes the math.

5. Consolidation and Septic-to-Sewer

For cluster system projects and septic-to-sewer connections, approved measures include off-lot cluster systems sited on more resilient ground, shared cluster systems that pool resources for better management, advanced treatment for reuse, and direct connection to centralized treatment. If you're working on one of these projects, DEQ's instructions say to skip straight to Section V of the checklist.

How the Checklist Works in Practice

The process is refreshingly simple. The checklist pages get submitted with the project application. You check every box that applies to the project, then provide a detailed description at the bottom — specific equipment, flood elevations, grading descriptions. The more precise your documentation, the smoother the review.

Two more things worth knowing:

The list can grow. If you have a resiliency approach that isn't on the checklist — a product, a design detail, a construction method — DEQ included a New Resiliency Measure Approval Request Form in the same document. Fill it out, attach drawings and cut sheets, and submit it with the application. Approved additions get added to the official list in red. This is a real opportunity for contractors in the field to shape what the state recognizes as best practice.

Check the source. DEQ maintains the current version of the list on its CWSRF Helene Decentralized webpage, and the document also tracks measures that were requested but not approved — worth reviewing before you propose something borderline.

The Bottom Line for Your Business

Homeowners across western North Carolina are still living with flood-damaged systems, and many of them can't afford the repair on their own. This funding closes that gap — but only for projects designed with resiliency built in. The contractors who know this checklist will be the ones local governments and nonprofits call when they need qualified installers for funded work.

Read the checklist. Keep a copy with your bid documents. And when you're standing on a site doing your evaluation, start thinking in DEQ's categories: elevation, position, anchoring, power, capacity. That's how repair dollars become resilient infrastructure — and how your next quote becomes a funded project.

Onsite Wastewater Professionals provides training, certification, and advocacy for licensed onsite wastewater professionals across eight states. For courses on system design and installation, visit owpnc.com.