LAKESIDE — A Flathead County District Court judge ruled in favor of Montana's Department of Environmental Quality in a case challenging a groundwater discharge permit for wastewater treatment system improvements in Lakeside.
Judge Danni Coffman issued the decision Aug. 10 in a case brought by Citizens for a Better Flathead and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes against the Lakeside County Water and Sewer District's planned wastewater treatment system improvements.
Coffman said DEQ "took a hard look at the direct, secondary, and cumulative impacts of the permit and came to a reasoned determination that there was no significant impact on the physical environment and on the human population in the area to be affected by the proposed action."
The court found that record evidence clearly established that the area to be affected is limited to the Delta Aquifer because downgradient pollution would be below significant values prior to exiting the mixing zone and non-detectable before it reaches surface waters. The court determined DEQ "appropriately limited the scope of its secondary, cumulative, and synergistic impacts to areas that will be subjected to the discharged pollutant, which is not surface waters."
The decision established as a matter of law that the Environmental Assessment adequately evaluated the known direct, secondary, and cumulative impacts of the issued permit and that the plaintiffs failed to establish that DEQ violated the Montana Environmental Policy Act.
The court rejected several claims made by the plaintiffs. A claim that the Environmental Assessment was insufficient in its evaluation of other nutrient loads was determined to be "patently false." A claim that the assessment failed to consider aquatic life and threatened species was also determined to be false. The plaintiffs had claimed the assessment "categorically dismissed any potential impacts to aquatic life and habitat," but the court record shows DEQ did consider aquatic life and responded to concerns raised about the topic.
"It is abundantly clear that DEQ explained that aquatic life will not be harmed because the record demonstrates the permitted discharge will not be detectable by the time it transits to surface water," court documents state.
The court also determined that expert reports contracted by the plaintiffs "do not actually contradict any of the data or modeling within the fact sheet or the Environmental Assessment," noting that "there is a difference of opinion behind the data collection methodology and mounding model, but they include no contradictory models, values, or calculations that challenged Water Environmental Technologies' actual data." Water Environmental Technologies was a contractor used by the Lakeside County Water and Sewer District to construct and test wells in the project area.
Rodney Olson, General Manager of the Lakeside County Water and Sewer District, said the district worked closely with DEQ throughout the process.
"We worked closely with the DEQ in determining what the environmental impacts would be as a result of this expansion project," Olson said. "Following the proper process is important. We are thankful that the judge looked at the testing methodology used and the scientific data and agreed that we did our due diligence when creating this Environmental Assessment."
"We care just as much about Flathead Lake and keeping our water clean as anyone else in this community," Olson said. "We are very careful to follow the laws, rules, and regulations because protecting Flathead County's water resources is a major part of our mission."
The Lakeside County Water and Sewer District is a public utility district that has provided water and wastewater services to the communities of Lakeside and Somers since 1988. More information about the project can be found here.
