SepticRecord

Jefferson County

Septic services in Empire, Ohio

Operators based within 12 miles of Empire

Listed by where the business is, not by who it says it serves. Every operator here was on the ODH 2026 sewage treatment system bond lists on the date its record shows, and the address it is placed by comes from that same list, so this is a checkable claim rather than a service-area promise. An Ohio bond covers work in any health district in the state, though each district registers its contractors separately, so operators further out can work here too; these are simply the ones closest to you.

Soil and septic suitability around Empire

The USDA has already rated this ground for exactly one use: a septic tank absorption field. Within 4 miles of Empire — 32,044 acres across 104 soil map units — it rates 81.9% of the land very limited for that use and 2% somewhat limited, and almost none with no limitation at all.

What the limitation actually is

A rating on its own tells you nothing you can act on. The reasons do, and around Empire the leading one is slope on 71.3% of the mapped area, followed by depth to bedrock on 62.4%. In full:

Limiting featureShare of areaWhat it means on site
Slope71.3%The ground is too steep for a conventional field
Depth to bedrock62.4%Bedrock is too shallow to fit a trench above it
Seepage, bottom layer32.7%The layer beneath the trench is porous enough that effluent could reach groundwater without being filtered
Slow water movement20.4%Water moves through the soil too slowly for a drain field to keep up
Depth to saturated zone11.6%A seasonal water table sits too close to the surface

Shares overlap: most soils here are limited for more than one reason at once, so these do not sum to 83.9%.

The soils themselves

The named soils and land types that make up most of the ground around Empire. Berks alone accounts for 26.4% of it.

Soil or land typeShareDrainageSlopeDepth to bedrockSeptic rating
Berks26.4% Well drained 3 to 70% 22 in Very limited
Gilpin18.5% Well drained 3 to 25% 20 in Very limited
Westmoreland7.3% Well drained 3 to 70% 41 in Very limited
Morristown6.6% Well drained 0 to 70% None in profile Very limited
Hazleton3.7% Well drained 25 to 70% 53 in Very limited

“None in profile” means SSURGO records no bedrock or other restrictive layer within the depth it describes, not that none exists.

Area of interest: a 4-mile radius around the USGS Geographic Names centre point for Empire (GNIS 2398831, 40.5117, -80.6261), chosen because five of this state's communities are unincorporated and have no boundary to use, and because the lots that need a septic permit are in the ring around a town rather than inside it. Soil from USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO interpretation “ENG - Septic Tank Absorption Fields”, area-weighted by mapped acreage and by each component's share of its map unit. Survey areas: Jefferson County, Ohio (2025-09-02), Brooke, Hancock, and Ohio Counties, West Virginia (2025-09-08). Retrieved 2026-09-18.

This is a survey, not an evaluation of your lot. The permit decision rests on the site evaluation ODH carries out for the specific parcel.

By service

Permitting in Jefferson County

In Jefferson County a septic (sewage treatment system) permit is issued by the local board of health, not by the state. The Ohio Department of Health writes the rules; the health district applies them and registers the contractors who work in it. See the Jefferson County detail →