Meigs County septic services.

The Meigs County Board of Health took its vertical separation to the bottom of the range Ohio allows: six inches where a seasonal water table is present, with six inches of in-situ soil, and one inch where effluent is pre-treated to less than 1,000 fecal coliform per 100 millilitres. Operation permits run ten years for anything installed or altered after 1 January 2015, and five years for NPDES discharging systems installed after 2007.

No building department in Meigs County is certified for residential work except the Village of Middleport. Under Residential Code of Ohio section 101.5, where none is certified the owner is not required to seek approvals or inspections. So wiring for an aerobic unit or pump carries no county electrical permit; the health district's septic permit is the only one.

Meigs County is unglaciated Western Allegheny Plateau, and two soils cover most of it. Upshur, about 40 percent, is high-clay with slow permeability, high shrink-swell and a slippage hazard on slopes over 15 percent. Gilpin, about 30 percent, reaches bedrock at 20 to 40 inches; the county soil survey says it does not adequately filter effluent and that effluent entering rock cracks can pollute groundwater. Across the uplands NRCS rates absorption fields poorly suited to generally unsuited.