Upper Missouri Waterkeeper Petitions EPA after Montana Legislature Guts State’s Water Pollution Standards

Petition Seeking Rulemaking In Response To Water Quality Standard Rollbacks for Big Polluters Threatening Drinkable, Swimmable, and Fishable Water

UPDATE: MONTANA COURT DISMISSES CASE TO PROTECT BIG HOLE RIVER (HEARING CANCELLED; RESPONSE HERE)

(BOZEMAN, MONTANA) — Upper Missouri Waterkeeper is petitioning the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect clean drinkable, swimmable, and fishable water in light of recently enacted legislation violating the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) delegated authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Waterkeeper’s petition calls on EPA to recognize that “recently adopted statutory changes to the State of Montana’s water quality standards under Montana House Bill 664, House Bill 685, and House Bill 736, do not meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”)” noting that the new laws “fail to protect aquatic life, fisheries, recreational, and other existing and designated uses of Montana waters.”

“The EPA has a responsibility and legal obligation under the Clean Water Act to ensure Montana agencies protect our waterways and water resources from harmful pollution if the Montana Legislature won’t,” said Upper Missouri Waterkeeper Executive Director Guy Alsentzer. “Pollution standards must be science-based and enforceable. From healthy fisheries and drinking water supplies to agriculture and the outdoor economy, billions in economic activity and countless jobs and businesses are on the line.”

“This is, unfortunately, deja vu as EPA rightly rejected the previous effort by the 2021 Legislature to abandon Montana’s clean water,” Alsentzer noted, referencing EPA rejection of narrative standards in 2022.

The petition focuses on three new laws that seek to eliminate science-based numeric criteria standards for measuring and restricting pollution, that weaken legal restrictions on large polluting activities, and that allow point-source polluters an off-ramp from protecting water quality and existing users through investment in speculative non point-source management practices not even within the same river. Where once Montana was recognized as a national leader in setting science-based standards for river protection, now Montana is a leader in seeking rollbacks to the same scientific restrictions on pollution.

House Bill 664 attempts to eliminate science-based numeric nutrient water quality criteria for undefined narrative standards; House Bill 685 would weaken nondegradation policy decisions for new or expanded pollution sources; and House Bill 736 would establish an open-ended trading regime for water pollution without necessary sideboards capable of protecting local waterway health or existing uses of rivers.

As outlined in the petition, “HB 664, HB 685, and HB 736 under Montana law are contrary to the requirements of the CWA and EPA’s rules. Each of these laws fly in the face of robust scientific record supporting numeric nutrient criteria as protective means for maintaining and restoring water quality and uses of water in Montana.” Further, revisions to Montana’s antidegradation by the enacted legislation “lack a scientific basis and do not …satisfy CWA requirements” and would fail to stop “the discharges of pollutants to waterways” and would not protect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of surface water needed for river health.

“Rather than following the law and protecting clean water for all Montanans, these bills are indicative of how the Montana Legislature is shirking its duty to protect and maintain a clean and healthful environment, causing ongoing delay in measurable river protection and restoration work,” said Alsentzer.

The threat these bills pose to clean water is already apparent in the show cause hearing for Upper Missouri Waterkeeper v. Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), rescheduled in Montana’s First District Court in Helena next week at 9 a.m. June 12, 2025. At issue in that case is DEQ’s rejection of an impairment designation for nutrients on the Big Hole River and its dismissal of five years of data by the Big Hole River Foundation showing impairment based on numeric nutrient criteria and river surveys.

Waterkeeper filed the lawsuit on May 9, 2025, after DEQ denied their February 13, 2025, petition. DEQ’s denial letter cited no issues with the data provided, but instead explicitly refused to apply numeric nutrient criteria, citing the passage of SB 358 in the 2021 Legislative Session. Like the more recent HB 664, SB 358 sought to eliminate numeric nutrient standards, but was rejected and disapproved by the EPA in 2022 as contrary to federal law. Waterkeeper also responded to a DEQ motion to dismiss the case, noting that DEQ’s citation of HB664 for a decision before the bill’s passage was inappropriate and would set a disturbing precedent. Waterkeeper’s April 30 letter to EPA noted.

“Waterkeeper’s mission is to protect Montanans’ drinkable, fishable, swimmable water and its rivers, the lifeblood of our outdoors heritage. Montana’s citizens, its wildlife, and its economy, from agriculture to small businesses, all depend on clean water, all of which are threatened when our Legislature makes decisions based on politics, not science,” said Director Alsentzer.

More details on this Triumvirate of Pollution Bills from the Montana Legislature.

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