By Michael Howell
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has approved a wastewater discharge permit for a proposed large Retail Store to be located on Blood Lane and Highway 93 south of Hamilton. The permit application was received last June and the agency held a public meeting and a public hearing in Hamilton to take public comment in mid-September. The public comment period closed on October 15. DEQ’s final decision to issue the permit becomes effective on January 1, 2015.
The permit is being issued to local realtor Lee Foss although the property is currently owned by another party. Foss has told DEQ and the press that he is seeking the permit to increase the property’s market value and denies that there is any large retail store directly involved in the venture at this point in time. DEQ states that the permit, once issued, may be transferred to another party.
DEQ received hundreds of public comments on the permit application and recently released its response to those comments along with its notice of approval. Some changes were made in the final permit based on information provided during the public comment period. One change involved reducing the amount the annual maximum effluent limit for total phosphorus from 150 lbs/year to 139 lbs/year based on information about the location of a spring downgradient from the discharge system and the subsequent reevaluation of the phosphorus breakthrough analysis.
Multiple commenters questioned the EA analysis of impacts on light pollution, noise pollution, air emissions, traffic, traffic safety, the cost of traffic signals, vehicle noise, aesthetics, the scenic degradation of a 156,000 square foot retail store, the destruction of quality of life in Bitterroot Valley, residential neighborhoods, commercial activities, downtown businesses, the tax base, jobs, soil, and the wildlife corridor.
In its response, DEQ stated that, “the scope of the EA is the construction, operation, and maintenance of the proposed wastewater treatment system. The majority of comments DEQ received on the EA are outside the scope of this permitting action.”
In response to many comments concerning the potential impact on the Bitterroot River and the need for downgradient monitoring, DEQ notes that although the law does provide that monitoring may be required at the downgradient boundary of the mixing zone where there is an overriding site-specific impact-related reason to require monitoring, they found no reason to do any downgradient monitoring in this case.
“DEQ did not require groundwater monitoring at the downgradient boundary of the mixing zone boundary in the permit. Instead, DEQ will rely on conservative effluent limits to protect water quality. Furthermore, the compliance point for the draft permit is at the last point of control prior to discharge into the drainfield. Downgradient monitoring locations are not an appropriate compliance point to assess permit effluent limitations because there are numerous possible causes of downgradient exceedances,” it states in the document.
The agency is requiring the permitee to do monthly self monitoring of the effluent at the drain pipe and claims the permittee “is required to report any incident of noncompliance affecting the environment as soon as possible, but not later than 24 hours from the time the Permittee first becomes aware of the circumstances of noncompliance… The Permittee must comply with all conditions of the permit. Any noncompliance is a violation of the Montana Water Quality Act that may result in an enforcement action.”
Kelsey Milner of Bitterrooters for Planning, whose organization is currently involved in a lawsuit over the recent renewal of a wastewater discharge permit for the nearby Grantsdale Addition subdivision, said he was not surprised that DEQ is issuing the permit.
“Given the current rules and regulations and how DEQ chooses to interpret them their approval was not unexpected,” said Milner. “The DEQ responses clearly display that they are not doing their job, in particular its refusal to acknowledge the connectivity of groundwater and surface water, its refusal to consider cumulative effects, their claim that monitoring is not necessary and their reliance on the developer’s data and self-monitoring. All this indicates that the approval process is a sham.”