By Michael Howell
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) came to Hamilton last week to hear from the public about a wastewater discharge permit for a large retail store to be constructed at the intersection of Highway 93 and Blood Lane south of Hamilton. The agency scheduled a meeting for question and answer followed by a public hearing to accept public comment on the draft permit.
It became immediately apparent in the question and answer session that one of the foremost questions on most people’s minds was not going to be answered. That question is, what business is proposing to locate here? Public speculation has been rife that Walmart is behind the development. At the meeting DEQ officials made it clear that they did not have the answer to that question. The permit is being issued to local realtor Lee Foss. Foss has not disclosed who the intended retail store owner is and he did not attend the public meeting.
The agency insisted that it had no idea who the store owner would be and that they were not examining anything about the proposed development other than the wastewater treatment facility. In a separate process the DEQ is also issuing a storm water discharge permit for the development and the state will have to issue a building license at some point.
Several individuals and organizations spoke against the issuance of the permit. No one spoke in favor of it. Major concerns included potential impacts on nearby surface waters, including Skalkaho Creek and the Bitterroot River, lack of ground water monitoring between the proposed drain field and the river, lack of adequate monitoring checks at the facility and negative economic and social impacts of the full development.
Kelsey Milner, President of Bitterrooters for Planning, was extremely critical of the Environmental Analysis (EA). He went through a litany of potential impacts on the many resources in the area and the agency’s failure to really consider them. He pointed to the EA’s analysis of potential impacts on water quality where the evaluation simply stated “unless exceeded water quality standards will be met.”
Kirk Thompson of the Bitterroot River Protection Association said there is no doubt the groundwater at this site flows to the Bitterroot River, so there is a connection between the system discharge and surface water.
“It may not be immediate, but it will occur,” said Thompson. He said he had documents from the Montana Bureau of Mines proving the connection. He said the nitrogen and other pollutants from the system will affect the water quality in the river and that cumulative impacts of these permits need to be considered.
Russ Lawrence, speaking as an individual, said if the agency did not know what kind of retail development was going in that they can’t know what kind of waste is going into the system and thus can’t know what the impacts would be. He insisted that effects on groundwater be monitored and suggested that the permit decision be delayed until the lawsuit recently filed over a similar permit in close proximity to this is resolved. He said it involves many of the same essential issues such as connectivity, cumulative impacts, and impacts on surface water.
“DEQ needs to serve more as a defender of the public’s interest rather than as an enabler for developers,” said Lawrence.
He said the finding of no significant impacts on the social morays and unique aspects of the community is “an insult to the thriving community of locally owned independent businesses that we have in Hamilton.”
Burk Gibbs, manager of the River Ranch, told the officials at the first meeting about the ditch systems in the immediate area and a spring located just below the development. Agency officials said they were unaware of those things and asked him to submit a map showing the location of the ditches and the spring. At the public hearing Gibbs said he thought going to the site and seeing what was there was part of their job, not his, but he would draw them a map “because I care about the environment.”
Dave Schultz of the Bitter Root Water Forum said that his organization was concerned about the potential impacts on lower Skalkaho Creek and ultimately the Bitterroot River. He said, “At this point there are too many unknowns for us to accept that there will not be impacts on local water resources.”
“This proposal would be the largest single wastewater treatment system in the valley,” said Schultz, “and there is no local precedent we know of to estimate its effectiveness.”
He said the Bitter Root Water Forum worked hard on developing a plan for the restoration of lower Skalkaho Creek for the benefit of bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout and it had been mentioned by a the manager of the River Ranch, located below the development, that there were surface water ways, like ditches and springs, that the DEQ had not considered and some of these do flow toward the creek.