WARREN, Ohio - A decade-old regulation that may have cost some Trumbull County homeowners thousands of dollars is coming to an end.

State Representatives Sean O’Brien and Michael O’Brien are holding a news conference on Friday to announce the lifting of a 10-year-old court order mandating how Trumbull County regulates septic systems.

Under the original decree, unless Trumbull County homeowners received permission from Ohio EPA, they were banned from allowing off-lot septic systems if it was possible for them to connect to a sewer line or if they could construct an on-lot system.

Under the law, if a private resident tied in to a municipal septic septic system line, neighbors could be ordered to tie in to that municipal line.

The regulation even applied to property owners whose current system was operating properly and may have just been installed at a cost of up to $20,000.

Residents on fixed incomes complained that the requirement posed a hardship.

The consent decree, instituted by the office of Attorney General Mike DeWine and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, came as a result of more than 20 years of failure by county officials to properly enforce septic system regulations but, according to Rep. O’Brien, “significant progress has been made by the health department to improve surface water quality through adherence to state sewage regulations.”

In addition to working with OEPA officials to abate many of the problems that led to the enactment of the decree, new statewide septic regulations were enacted in 2015 that now offer sufficient environmental protections for all septic systems in Ohio, according to a news release from Sean O'Brien's office.