Board of Health urges Sewer Board to keep project moving forward

Dear Mr. Boltz and Sewer Board Members:

The Missoula City-County Board of Health strongly and wholeheartedly supports the Seeley Lake public sewer project and urges the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board to take the actions needed to keep the project moving forward.

The concentration of homes and businesses using septic systems in the Seeley Lake area, combined with the area’s geology and groundwater movement, have led to elevated nitrate levels in the groundwater. In some places in the Seeley Lake community, nitrate concentrations in groundwater are above or close to the state standard of 10 mg/I. Nitrate is a concern because it can harm public health (can cause methemoglobinemia or blue baby syndrome). Nitrate can also degrade the lake, because nitrate acts as a fertilizer and can cause rampant algae and aquatic plant growth. Too much algae or too many plants can affect the oxygen levels in the lake and cause fish to die.

After learning about consistently elevated nitrates in Seeley’s groundwater, the Health Board created a Special Management Area to ensure that new or increased septic system use will not make the problem worse. In some cases, these regulations have restricted the ability for property owners to use or develop their property, because they have not been able to show that the proposed use will not cause or contribute to a violation of the groundwater standard.

In addition to ensuring that new use will not make the issue worse, the Health Board has authority and responsibility under state law to address existing violations of the groundwater nitrate standard. Seeley’s proposed sewer system is an excellent way to deal with the high nitrate levels in the groundwater, and public sewer has proven to be effective at improving groundwater quality in other areas in Missoula County. However, if the District Board rejects or stops progress on the centralized sewer system project, the Health Board will need to evaluate other measures to reduce the nitrate load in Seeley’s groundwater. Possible solutions range from requiring individual advanced treatment systems when existing septic systems fail, requiring working septic systems be replaced with advanced treatment systems by a certain date, or even requiring that the community connect to a centralized sewer system. Measures other than the one on the table may not come with the funding levels that the community currently has in hand and can be expensive for individuals in the community to implement.

The Seeley sewer project is the result of years of study and has included the evaluation of a number of alternatives for sewage collection, type of treatment and siting of the treatment plant. It is not easy or inexpensive to retrofit a community with public sewer, and we recognize and applaud all the hard work that has gone in to getting the project to this point. A good deal of funding has been secured, and other entities, like the Seeley Lake Community Foundation, have committed to looking for ways to make the project more affordable, especially for lower income residents.

We understand that new board members want to get up to speed on all the work that has been done. We also understand that the project is at a critical point. We urge board members to keep the project on track to ensure that the valuable and scarce funding is not forfeited and to put a permanent solution in place that will clean up the groundwater, protect future drinking water resources and reduce the degradation of Seeley Lake.