[adamgordonbell]

In the book, as far as I've read, the focus on septic violations was an effort by the county to get people off the land. They often gave 10 days to get a septic in place and daily fines after that, when getting someone to put one in if you had the money would take months and you needed a permit to do so which was often denied.

The reasoning was the people who lived in the towns around there didn't like off-griders buying the land on the flats and moving in, so were trying to push them out however they could.

In the book there is a group suing the county for it, but they can't really afford lawyers and also are sort of free-men-on-the-land loons, so it doesn't go well.