Informal Comments on SB 325 – More Polluter Exemptions

We’ve submitted comments to DEQ on its draft implementing rules for Senate Bill 325 including, notably, another “variance” rule that would exempt certain polluters from doing their part to reduce pollution to Montana waterways. The effect of SB 325’s variance rule…

Oppose the “Regulatory Accountability Act” – URGENT LEGISLATIVE ACTION

Montana! We want to alert you all about a bad federal bill making its way through Congress that, if passed, would make it much harder for environmental agencies to create rules protecting clean water and healthy landscapes. Senate bill 951, the “Regulatory…

Smith Mine Update

This November 2016 Tintina Resources – the Australian backed company proposing a new copper mine in the headwaters of Montana’s famed Smith River – applied for a Clean Water Act Section 404 Permit (AKA, a dredge and fill permit) to…

Lawsuit Challenges EPA Approval of Weak Montana Pollution Rule

Earlier today Upper Missouri Waterkeeper sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its approval of Montana’s weak, so-called ‘variance standards’ for nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. These variance standards displace strong, science-based pollution limits Montana earlier found necessary to protect waterways and fisheries….

Hot Topic: SB325 state workgroup

SB 325, originally sponsored by Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, prohibits the Board of Environmental Review (BER) from establishing water quality standards stringent enough to protect Montana’s rivers and streams, and will have a particular impact on irrigators on southeast Montana tributaries,…

Beaverhead River Turbidity and Intense Algal Blooms

Beaverhead River Suffers Pollution Event for Second Consecutive Summer For the second summer in a row the Beaverhead River became markedly cloudy and its banks and back eddies were covered in intense algal blooms, including toxic blue-green algae above and…

New Wastewater Facility for Gallatin Gateway

Montana DEQ has a proposed wastewater discharge permit for the town of Gallatin Gateway out for public comment until September 16, 2015. Click here to download the proposed permit and read the state’s rationale for allowing this new wastewater facility….

Lawsuit Challenges Pollution Loopholes & Exemptions in New, Federal Clean Water Rule

For Immediate Release, July 22, 2015  Contact: Guy Alsentzer, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, 406-570-2202, guy@uppermissouriwaterkeeper.org Tina Posterli, Waterkeeper Alliance, 516-526-9371, tposterli@waterkeeper.org Adam Keats, Center for Food Safety, 415-826-2770, akeats@centerforfoodsafety.org Brett Hartl, Center for Biological Diversity, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org Lawsuit Challenges Pollution…

Montana’s Proposed Nutrient Pollution Rules

Montana’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Board of Environmental Review (BER) have proposed a new strong, science-based rule package addressing the threat nutrient pollution poses to our communities, waterways and economies. Overall, we support the state’s movement towards stronger…

EPA Proposes Huge Step Forward in Clean Water Protections

Today the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a federal rule to close loopholes in the Clean Water Act that leave more than half of America’s streams and millions of acres of wetlands at risk of…