By Michael Howell
The community meeting room at Hamilton City Hall was packed last week with citizens concerned about the proposed development of a large retail store on Blood Lane and Highway 93 south of town. The proposed development came to light when the Department of Environmental Equality (DEQ) made public a wastewater discharge permit application from local real estate broker Lee Foss for a wastewater system designed to serve a 156,159 square foot “Retail Store” at the site.
The meeting was sponsored by Bitterrooters for Planning (BfP) to address a full range of concerns about the development including potential impacts on water resources, the local economy, and the social fabric of the community. The meeting was co-hosted by the Bitterroot River Protection Association and the Hamilton Downtown Business Improvement District.
The meeting began with an informational presentation by Dave Schultz of the Bitterroot Water Forum. Schultz said that before the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, there was a mish-mash of different laws varying from state to state. The Clean Water Act brought national standards to bear along with a standardized process for implementing the law. In 1974 the Environmental Protection Agency delegated that process and standards to the states and in 1975 Montana pulled together its own water quality regulations
According to Schultz, Montana classifies its waters according to “beneficial uses” that fall into three basic categories. The water may support aquatic life, including insects, fish and waterfowl, or it may provide a water supply for either domestic, municipal, industrial or agricultural purposes, or it may support public recreation. A single water body may support any combination or all of these beneficial uses.
The states were charged by the EPA with examining their waters and designating the beneficial uses. Once that is established a standard is set defining the upper limit of any sort of pollutant beyond which the water’s beneficial use would not be adequately supported. This is called the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of the pollutant, whether it is sediment, metals, nutrients or other pollutants.
Point source pollutants, such as municipal waste water treatment plants, are regulated by DEQ through a permitting process. Non-point source pollutants such as that produced by residential septics and agricultural practices are not regulated.
A TMDL for the Bitterroot Watershed was recently released that identifies 11 “impaired streams” in the valley. The Bitterroot Water Forum not only helped DEQ in identifying these impaired streams, but is also helping with remediation by working voluntarily with landowners, businesses, and other non-profits to find ways in which a willing landowner may reduce pollutants through various voluntary practices.
“It’s all done through cooperation and incentives, there is no enforcement,” said Schultz.
The BWF has also worked with DEQ and many other organizations and agencies in developing a Watershed Restoration Plan for the Bitterroot in which priorities are set for action that might yield the biggest bang for the buck, according to Schultz. Remedial plans are already in place and gaining momentum on Rye, Cameron, and Three Mile Creeks. Next on the list are Sleeping Child, Burnt Fork and Skalkaho Creeks.
Schultz said some restoration work has already begun on Skalkaho Creek, in the vicinity of the proposed retail store development. He said a systematic monitoring program is crucial to the restoration process and BWF was hoping to put together a systematic monitoring program for the watershed that could produce valuable data for the future. He said there is some concern about the potential for negative impact on that area by this proposed development. He said right now Skalkaho Creek is not impaired by nutrients.
Michael Howell, Director of the Bitterroot River Protection Association (BRPA), said that what got his group involved in the ‘Big Box’ issue was the drain pipe at the end of the proposed wastewater treatment system.
Howell asked the audience to imagine a large black box with a pipe going into it at the top and a pipe going out of it at the bottom.
“DEQ is examining this box,” said Howell, “but they refuse to look at the community and businesses that surround the pipe going into the box just as they refuse to look past the drain pipe to see where that stuff is going. We believe it’s going to the Bitterroot River.”
Howell was critical of the environmental analysis being conducted by DEQ on the proposed wastewater system.
“We have a dysfunctional agency. They are not doing their job on the ground and they are not doing their job in the office,” said Howell. He recalled how, at the public meeting on the permit application, a neighboring ranch manager had asked if they had seen the ditches and the spring in the immediate area only to be told by the official that he had seen the site for the first time that day and, no, he did not notice any ditches or a spring. He asked the ranch manager to draw a map and submit it.
“I was shocked,” said Howell. “I’m sure the ranch manager was shocked. They didn’t go out on the ground and examine the area and they are asking him to draw them a map. That’s a deficiency in the process. The agency should be doing that.”
Howell said the EA was deficient in other respects as well. He said the purpose of an EA is to examine potential negative impacts, such as potential impacts on surface water in the nearby Bitterroot River, but they don’t. He said the agency merely assumes that there can be no impact to surface water because the effluent is being discharged into ground water. The ground water above the treatment facility is being analyzed. Then, based on the engineer’s design and claims for the treatment system, the contribution to the groundwater is calculated. Then, assuming a standard “mixing zone,” it is concluded that the added nutrients will be filtered out and diluted to “acceptable proportions” before leaving the mixing zone.
Howell said there are a lot of reasons to doubt the application of a standard mixing zone in this case. He displayed a few maps from the Bureau of Mines. One shows a picture of the bedrock shaping the floor of the Bitterroot Valley, a second shows the Deep Basin Aquifers, and a third map shows the Shallow Basin Aquifers in the watershed. He quoted from the narrative on the maps:
“Although aquifers in the deep basin fill may not be contiguous over large areas, there is sufficient hydraulic continuity between the sand and gravel layers to be considered a single entity in terms of ground-water flow on a valley-wide scale. Ground-water flow is regional, with water moving from the valley margins toward the Bitterroot River where it discharges by upward leakage to shallow unconfined aquifers and ultimately to surface water or evapotranspiration.
“The most productive and extensive shallow aquifers within the shallow basin fill are in Quaternary sediments (alluvium, outwash, and alluvial fan sediments) along the floodplain of the Bitterroot River and its tributaries … The Bitterroot River gains water from the shallow aquifer and is the primary discharge zone in the valley.”
Howell said it is this documented connection between the ground water aquifers and the surface water in the river that requires consideration in the evaluation of the potential effects of the proposed point source pollution on the Bitterroot River. He said the maps also show that the soils in the area of the river are formed primarily of quaternary deposits that could funnel water in underground flows instead of filtering it.
Quoting from the recent Bitterroot Watershed TMDL, Howell stated, “Because two AUs (stretches) of the Bitterroot River were previously listed as nutrient impaired, local interests should be concerned with maintaining the unimpaired water quality status and continue monitoring the river and tributaries to ensure the current status is not changing.”
He said where the agency has no control it is urging volunteers and landowners to monitor for nutrients along the river, but where it does have control, over point source pollution, it doesn’t even follow its own advice.
Howell said that BRPA was interested in reforming the process so that projects get the kind of review that the law really requires.
“We need to get DEQ to look outside the box all the way to the Bitterroot River and to the community, businesses and culture that surround it as well.”
John Ruhndquist, a former Public Works Director for the City of Helena and a current Board member of the Montana Environmental Information Center, spoke about what he called the “Regulatory disconnect at DEQ that is encouraging increasing pollution in our streams and, in fact, subsidizing urban sprawl.”
He said that by allowing incremental “non-significant” contributions of pollutants like nitrogen to the ground water the agency is basically guaranteeing that the ground water will be degraded. He pointed to the recently approved (but challenged in court) discharge permit for the Grantsdale Addition subdivision in the vicinity of the Blood Lane permit site. He said testing has shown the water in the Bitterroot River measures 275 mg/l of nitrogen, well below the TMDL. But ground water in the area of the subdivision is measured at 670 mg/l. He said that is well below drinking water standards but well above aquatic standards which apply to surface water in the river.
“Our aquifers are already degrading our river and anything added is degrading it more,” he said. He said there is no way to tell if the mixing zone concept is working or not except by monitoring and the agency is not requiring that. He said if we hope to meet the goals embedded in the TMDL process we must reverse this trajectory of degradation and not continue to contribute to it.
Ruhndquist also noted that DEQ does not do any analysis of the cumulative impacts of these industrial scale discharge systems.
One thing he appreciates, he said, is that the agency is now doing a phosphorous breakthrough analysis. He said it means they have recognized that over time the ground in the mixing zone becomes saturated with phosphorous and new discharge forces the phosphorous out of the mixing zone. The problem, he said, is that DEQ allows a system to go in as long as it doesn’t break through to surface water in 50 years.
“But what then?” he asks. He said, “Filtering is OK so long as your filter isn’t clogged. But then it’s useless.” He said the taxpayer is the one who ultimately will pay the cost for these failed systems.
Russ Lawrence, Coordinator of the Hamilton Downtown Association, followed up, speaking about the economic and social costs of ‘Big Box’ retailing. He said the Big Box model was to “sell more stuff as cheap as possible with the fewest number of employees working at the lowest possible wage.” He said it doesn’t matter what Big Box comes in, maybe Walmart, maybe some other, but they all work on the same model.
“The inevitable result,” said Lawrence, “is long term job loss, wage depression, increased poverty rates, and commercial property in the downtown loses value leading to lower taxable values. Some people say, ‘not here,’ because of this or that, but I tell you it will. Show me where it hasn’t.”
He said what is being proposed is “a monster.” He said it was two and a half K-marts in size. He said, based on Walmart’s own information, the company expects to make $400 per square foot in sales. He said in this case that would be about $62 million being taken out of the local businesses in a year. He said some studies show that a Walmart of that size can attract people from outside the area to shop, sometimes up to 18% of sales.
“Let’s just say 20%,” said Lawrence. “That would mean only $51 million being siphoned off from local businesses.”
Lawrence said that local retailers are already struggling with on-line competition but a Big Box store will come in and “skim off the cream” taking a business’s best selling item and selling it under cost until the competition goes away.
Lawrence said the Big Box model not only destroys local businesses, it will destroy a local community. He said the social fabric of the community unravels when the economy is dominated by the Big Box model because it doesn’t give back to the community in the way local businesses do.
According to Lawrence, the Big Box model claims to bring cheaper prices, but it is mostly PR. If you examine the prices they are not cheaper, except in calculated items aimed at destroying competition. Then the price goes up.
Terry Marasco concluded the evening by inviting people to sign a petition being circulated that pledges the signer to not shop at a Big Box. The petition does not carry legal force, but it does send a message, he said. He said the one thing that can get even Walmart’s attention is too much bad PR, he said. He also invited people to sign a petition to be delivered to the County Commissioners, asking that a growth policy be developed.