Today we submitted technical comments to the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality concerning a proposed remediation plan for the old, closed City of Bozeman Landfill.
Click the following link to read our comment letter: Comment.BZNLandfill-Oct-24-2014.pdf
For decades the old City of Bozeman Landfill, now closed, has leaked pollutants into local groundwater, some of which are hazardous and toxic. Only when local residents began experiencing noxious gas transmission into households adjacent the old, closed landfill did the City begin to make amends.
Fast forward to Fall 2014; the DEQ has required the City of Bozeman to create a remediation plan.
Unfortunately, the proposed remediation plan is legally and practically flawed. Known as a “Revised Corrective Measures Assessment,” the Bozeman RCMA fails to address several key issues such as disparate vectors for pollutant transmission into local water resources, or crucial permit and clean-up requirements pursuant to state and federal pollution control laws.
Our technical comment letter lays out these and other inadequacies in the hopes that the DEQ and City will recognize the RCMA’s flaws, and correct them, all towards protecting local community and waterway health.
Creating technical comment letters that help inform local citizens of pollution issues, while using law and science to hold our decisionmakers accountable to clean up pollution, the right way, the first time, is one unique role Upper Missouri Waterkeeper serves in Southwest Montana.
As our communities continue to grow and, alongside, our impacts to landscapes and waterways increase, we need to stand strong in defending our waterways and communities from projects that don’t do enough to fix pollution problems, while also being ready to fight for and secure new regulations and protections that will provide critical defense and progress in the future.