Cottonwood Claims Gianforte & DEQ are Violating State Constitution by Letting Yellowstone Club Pollute Gallatin River
Lawsuit claims tests show effluent used to water Yellowstone Club golf courses contains over 60,000 times DEQ guidelines for total coliform and total nitrogen almost 8 times over limit
By Denise Rivette
A lawsuit filed July 29 and amended October 3 of this year in Gallatin County District Court alleges Governor Greg Gianforte, in his role as the top ranking official of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), and the DEQ are failing to support, protect and defend the Montana Constitution by refusing to investigate blatant violations of the Montana Water Quality Act allegedly committed by the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky.
The complaint, filed by John Meyer representing Cottonwood Environmental Law Center (Cottonwood), accuses Gianforte and DEQ of looking the other way as Yellowstone Club exceeds the limits DEQ set for total coliform and total nitrogen levels in the treated sewage (effluent) used to water their golf course. Cottonwood filed a complaint with the DEQ on August 3, 2023, asking the agency to investigate its claims that the Yellowstone Club is polluting the South Fork of the West Fork of the Gallatin River with treated sewage. According to the filings, Cottonwood believed no investigation had occurred as of the filing dates.
Unless DEQ grants a specific exemption, it limits total coliform allowed in irrigation water at 23 CFU/100 mL. CFU is an acronym for Colony Forming Units. According to lab results provided by the Yellowstone Club and included in the filing, one sprinkler tested was spraying treated sewage with a level of 1.4 million coliform CFU/100 mL. 1.4 million is 60,870 times 23.
Reuse of Wastewater at the Yellowstone Club
In an August 26, 2019 letter to the DEQ, Scott Buecker, PE and Senior Project Manager for AE2S, requested on behalf of Yellowstone Club permission to deviate from the Nutrient Management Plan for the wastewater from Big Sky County Water & Sewer District used at Yellowstone Club because the wastewater is stored in open ponds subject to contamination from the elements and wildlife.
He wrote, “The current disinfection requirements consist of monitoring for total coliform and the 7-day median number of total coliform organisms must not exceed 2.2 colony forming units (CFU) per milliliters or 23 CFU in any sample. The District proposes to change the disinfection requirements to consist of monitoring for E. coli and an E. coli limit of 2 CFU per 100 milliliters in 75% of samples within a given month, and no more than 126 CFU/100 mL in any single sample.”
Buecker concluded, “The Big Sky County Water and Sewer District requests the use of E. coli monitoring in lieu of total coliform monitoring to provide a more direct indicator of public health risk from recycled water that is stored prior to use.”
A test result from 2022 submitted with the amended lawsuit shows a total of 520 CFU/100ml of E. coli present in a single sample.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, excess “nitrogen and phosphorus in the water causes algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle. Significant increases in algae harm water quality, food resources and habitats, and decrease the oxygen that fish and other aquatic life need to survive.” Testing done on a sample collected in Yellowstone Club August 4, 2022 showed 39mg/L of nitrogen, 7.8 times the DEQ limit of 5 mg/L.
Wastewater has been used to irrigate in the Big Sky area for decades. Yellowstone Club began a pilot program using treated wastewater for snowmaking in 2011 and received DEQ permission to use treated wastewater for snowmaking in public areas in 2021. According to a 2021 DEQ Environmental Assessment, Big Sky County Water & Sewer District was generating and treating approximately 155 MGY (millions of gallons per year) of wastewater. The Big Sky Sustainable Water Solution Forum (2016-2018) predicted that by 2035 that amount would increase to approximately 450 MGY.
The Environmental Assessment for the Yellowstone Mountain Club Snowmaking project sets a maximum daily limit for E. coli at 12.6 CFU/100 mL and states “The MPDES permit includes effluent limits, monitoring requirements and other permit conditions that will ensure the water quality standards and beneficial uses are protected.”
Meyer explained, “The volume of treated effluent produced by the Big Sky Water & Sewer District vastly exceeds Big Sky’s disposal capacity, but if treated sewage isn’t disposed of, the owners of the Yellowstone Club won’t be able to connect any more lucrative sewer hookups for hotels or vacation houses in Big Sky. The result is a ‘closed’ system bursting at the seams with excess wastewater. Cottonwood has documented treated sewage running down the road in the Spanish Peaks development, which is owned by the same investment firm that owns the adjacent Yellowstone Club.”
What Cottonwood is Asking of the Court
The Gallatin County District Court lawsuit asks that the Court determine that Greg Gianforte and the DEQ have violated the Montana Constitution and the Montana Water Quality Act and that reasonable litigation costs and expenses incurred by Cottonwood be reimbursed. It also requests that the Court grant “such further and additional relief as the Court deems just and proper in order to remedy the violations of law alleged herein and to protect the interests of the Plaintiff and the public.”
When asked about the lawsuit, John Meyer of Cottonwood Environmental Legal Center responded that he learned late last week that between the time his original lawsuit charging lack of investigation was initiated in July 2024 and before filing his amended complaint on October 3, 2024, the DEQ issued a closure letter on the matters raised by Cottonwood on August 3, 2023. Cottonwood was not provided a copy of the closure letter, but did obtain a copy of the Field Investigation Report (see end of article) for an investigation conducted on August 29, 2023 that ended with “Recommendations: No discharge was observed. Additional data from the complainant [Cottonwood] would be needed to specifically link the cause of the increased nitrogen levels to the use of reclaimed wastewater at the golf course.” Meyer stated that, had he been notified, he would have gladly provided an isotopic analysis of the stream on the golf course showing the algae contains treated sewage, lab results from Yellowstone Club’s required testing showing elevated E. coli and nitrogen levels, and he would have pointed out the pipe in the golf course water hazard that is discharging treated sewage.
Meyer ended by saying, “The Governor and DEQ’s lack of enforcement is becoming an all too-common theme. The DEQ investigators learned the Big Sky Water & Sewer District provided it with falsified records in a related investigation and has done nothing. Governor Gianforte is sending the message that it is okay to pollute our rivers and falsify data because the state will look the other way. We will not let the Governor and his polluting friends run roughshod over the Montana Constitution.”
Governor Greg Gianforte’s office did not respond to a request for comment emailed on Tuesday.
