Chapter 6.20
PUBLIC NUISANCES*
Sections:
* For statutory provisions giving a county power to make and enforce all such police and sanitary regulations as are not in conflict with state law, see RCW 36.32.120(7).
6.20.010 Defined.
A nuisance consists of unlawfully doing an act or omitting to perform a duty, which act or omission either annoys, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health or safety of others, offends decency, or unlawfully interferes with, obstructs or tends to obstruct or render dangerous for passage any lake, navigable river, bay, stream, canal or basin, or any public park, square, street or highway; or in any way renders other persons insecure in life or the use of property.
(Vol. R p. 423 (part), 1937).
6.20.020 Designated.
The following are declared nuisances and forbidden by these rules:
(1) No person shall knowingly or negligently cause or permit pollution or contamination of any sort to enter any lake, pond, river, creek, stream, reservoir, irrigation canal or ditch, well, spring, drain or drainage system within the limits of the county;
(2) No person shall deposit in any such body of water or upon the ground adjacent thereto:
(a) Any carcass of a dead animal or portion of such carcass, offal, garbage or refuse,
(b) Any human or animal excrement,
(c) Drainage from stables, barns, barnyards, hogpens, abattoirs, cesspools, septic tanks, dairies, milk houses or house sink drains;
(3) No person shall permit horses, cattle, sheep, swine or other domestic animals over which he has control, to have access to such above mentioned waters;
(4) No pit privy, cesspool or septic tank drain shall be placed or allowed to remain within two hundred feet of any waters of the state;
(5) Any person, firm or corporation employing others shall maintain a water supply which meets treasury department standards of purity for domestic use;
(6) Any person, firm or corporation which allows employees to camp or live upon the premises of the said person, firm or corporation, or allows the employees to camp upon the premises while working at seasonable labor shall maintain sanitary toilet facilities, said toilets to be so constructed as to be flytight. Toilets shall be provided for each sex, one toilet for every twenty-five persons or fraction thereof and said toilets shall be maintained in a clean and sanitary manner at all times;
(7) Any person who establishes a camp, erects a tent for the purpose of living therein, or parks or establishes a camp trailer with the intention of living therein, upon any state or county property, or upon any irrigation ditch right-of-way, or upon any railroad property, or upon any private or public property or highway, other than in recognized camps which are maintained for that purpose and which maintain a water supply of standard purity, toilets and sanitary facilities, shall be considered guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to arrest;
(8) All tourist camps, auto camps, auto courts, cabin courts, trailer camps, or any campground or recreational park which is open to or serving the public, shall maintain at all times, a water supply of standard purity, toilets and sanitary facilities as approved and specified by the State Department of Health;
(9) No person shall dump, throw or deposit garbage or refuse of any kind upon any public highway or public lands. Any person guilty of depositing refuse or garbage at any place other than an authorized dump ground shall be guilty of a misdemeanor;
(10) Public or private dumping grounds or sanitary fills shall not hereafter be established unless permission in writing is granted by the county board of health after duly published hearing, at which hearing remonstrants, if there are any, shall be heard. Any dumping ground or sanitary fill which is operating at this time without official sanction, as specified above, shall cease to operate upon three days’ notice from the health officer or any one of his duly authorized deputies;
(11) No stables, barnyards, hogpens, corrals, feedyards, rabbit hutches or other enclosures where domestic animals or poultry are kept and situate within three hundred feet of any building occupied by humans or within three hundred feet of any highway or within three hundred feet of any human residence, shall be allowed to become foul or nauseous or offensive and any accumulation of manure or litter shall be removed daily;
(12) No person, firm or corporation shall feed offal, dead animals, carrion or uncooked flesh to hogs or swine;
(13) Every owner of a dead animal shall cause the carcass of such animal to be interred or otherwise disposed of in a sanitary manner, and no such carcass shall be allowed to remain on or within three hundred feet of a public road, or building inhabited by human beings, more than twelve hours;
(14) Whenever the owner of a dead animal cannot readily be found and ownership of the animal has been established, and the dead animal lies upon public lands or roadways it shall be taken in charge and disposed of in a sanitary manner by the road supervisor of the district in which it is found and the cost of abating the nuisance to be assessed against the owner of the dead animal;
(15) The owner or owners of the property upon which a nuisance exists or upon which a dead animal lies shall be held responsible for the condition and shall abate the nuisance or dispose of the dead animal in a sanitary manner. If the property is leased, then the tenant or occupant of the property shall be held responsible for the abatement of the nuisance or the sanitary disposal of the dead animal;
(16) No person shall allow a pit privy to become foul, nauseous or offensive and shall move said privy when the vault has been or is determined to be above (topographically) or too near a domestic well or water supply;
(17) No person shall allow a drain from a house sink, a waste drain or the drain from a septic tank to flow in or through an open ditch or upon the property of another. Neither shall the wastewater from the kitchen be thrown upon the open ground within three hundred feet of any house or building occupied by humans;
(18) No person shall operate a peddler wagon, fish wagon, meat wagon or any other type of moving vehicle from which meats, fish or shellfish are sold to the public without first obtaining a permit from the health officer;
(19) In every instance where a dog bites a human, it shall be reported to the health officer. No dog, after it has bitten a human, shall be killed before fourteen days after the day the person was bitten. Every dog shall be quarantined for fourteen days after it has bitten a human. “Quarantined,” in this instance, means that the dog shall be chained or kept in an “escape proof” enclosure upon the property of the owner of the dog and under no circumstances shall the dog be allowed to run at large.
(Vol. R p. 423 (part), 1937).