No decision made on county letter

Saying it would pit Custer County against the City of Custer, Custer City Council alderwoman Peg Ryan implored the Custer County Commission at its Dec. 14 meeting to reconsider sending a formal letter to the city opposing the city’s plans to relocate its wastewater plant effluent discharge to French Creek.
The commission tabled the letter as it looks to gain more information on the issue, including discussing the issue with the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks (GFP). The commission indicated it would decide at  its next meeting Dec. 28 whether or not to ask the city to reconsider its planned move of effluent discharge from its current location on Flynn Creek to just past the Glen Erin Schoolhouse on French Creek.
One of the key issues of the discussion continued to center around the city’s and the engineer’s notification—or lack thereof, depending on perspective—to landowners and other stakeholders regarding the planned location change for the effluent discharge. While a group of landowners who live downstream from the proposed new discharge area, a group that calling itself “Preserve French Creek,” concede the city met state requirements for receiving permits for the project, it also contends the city and engineering firm did not meet the spirit of the requirement and feel they were left in the dark with regard to the project.
Todd Konechne, who has served as the spokesperson for Preserve French Creek, said at the meeting it’s clearly stated in the contract between the City of Custer and DGR Engineering that the engineering firm would communicate with property owners who have a vested interest in the project.
“That was not done,” Konechne said. “There are many people even within the City of Custer we talked to who were not aware this was going on.”
For the city’s part, Ryan said the process has complied with every regulation the state has set forth, and the permit has been approved by every state agency that needs to review the permitting process.
“They are comfortable with what we are doing. So now what this does is ask us as city residents to fund an extra $4 to $5 million to redo a permit that already complies with everything that state is asking,” she said.
Konechne said the socioeconomic study the city was required to do for the project was required to determine whether discharging the effluent to French Creek would degrade the creek, and that the study did not include any of the potential impacts to the creek. The only reason the study moved forward, Konechne said, was because no one was aware of it and no one commented on it.
“We would have been having this discussion a year and a half ago if they had been notified,” commissioner Mark Hartman said.
Konechne reiterated his belief that the required legal notices in the Custer County Chronicle were insufficient, arguing a small percentage of county residents subscribe to the newspaper.
Ryan conceded many of those in the Preserve French Creek group may not read the newspaper, but claimed those on the commission did read the paper, and cited “public hearing after public hearing after public hearing” at which commissioners or other people had a chance to voice concerns, while also commenting on the dozens of times stories about the project have appeared in the Chronicle. Ryan said Trent Bruce of DGR Engineering, who is leading the city through the project, has also offered to talk to anyone about the project as needed.
“Three years and all these public hearings and articles in the paper, and all of a sudden these objections come up,” she said. “And I just have to wonder where everybody has been.”
The commission was told of the project earlier this year at one of its meetings, when county highway superintendent Jesse Doyle presented and recommended approval of a right of way application made by the city for the project. This occurred at the commission’s March 30 meeting, and the commission unanimously approved the application, which stated it was “for a treated wastewater force on Lower French Creek Road,” and that the “project location is 16A/Lower French Creek to the old schoolhouse and running to French Creek.”
Konechne addressed Ryan’s comments and said when it came to the cost of the project there “are options there that are being ignored that are very close cost-wise to the French Creek option.”
“We’re not trying to make the county against the city. We are county residents,” he said. “We’re trying to get our county representatives to support our position and our cause that we do not think this is the right thing for the county, for the property owners in that area, for Custer State Park, for tourism and for the State of South Dakota.”
Konechne also reiterated the group is not against the city’s plans to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility or the way in which the waste is treated, but rather, the change of the discharge location. The city chose the new location backed by a new treatment option called a Submerged Attached Growth Reactor (SAGR) system DGR, the city and state says will treat the waste enough for the effluent to be discharged into a coldwater fishery such as French Creek. The French Creek location was a cheaper option than others explored at the outset of the project.
Ryan said as part of the city’s application it has to monitor the quality of the water, and that the application has a five-year renewal provision.
“We are just as interested in the water quality in the area as everybody in the area is,” she said. “Throughout this meeting we have heard about growth in this area. We have to think about that growth. Our system now is old and it’s failing. Having to use what we have now would be worse to the water quality of the area than improving the system with state-of-the-art engineering, which it (the SAGR system) is.”
Commissioner Craig Hindle said while he wasn’t at the previous meeting at which the commissioners first considered Preserve French Creek’s request for a letter, he has since spent a lot of time gathering information, including spending a great deal of time on the phone with Bruce and other officials about the process. Craig said he trusts Bruce “wholeheartedly” and learned about all the positives of the proposed changes, while asking about the possible negatives, with Bruce saying there weren’t any.
“I do think we need to keep an eye on it,” Hindle said, saying the bacteria in the discharged effluent would be minuscule and cleaner than what comes out of Stockade Lake. “The train has left the station, in my book. The wheels are turning. It’s already starting. Let’s keep an eye on what’s going on and what’s going to happen.”
“I believe the train has left the station like you said, but once it has left how are we going to stop it if contamination does happen? That’s the problem. If the water is degraded, how are they going to fix it? How is the city going to deal with that?” asked commissioner Travis Bies.
Hindle also pointed out Custer State Park already dumps effluent into French Creek from Blue Bell Lodge as well as Sylvan Lake Lodge. Konechne has argued those are much smaller amounts than what the city will discharge. Hindle said some GFP officials have said they are excited about the prospects of the effluent’s positive impacts on fish in the creek, and it was mentioned that the state, even up to the attorney general, has reviewed the permit and is on board. Custer State Park officials were met with as the design options unfolded and did not have any concern with the selected discharge area.
Konechne reiterated there are other subject matter experts who are opposed to or concerned about the degradation of French Creek, including Dr. Scott Kenner of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, who Konechne said has focused his career on stream quality.
“He is very much opposed to it,” Konechne said.
Konechne said he himself is an engineer who worked in environmental remediation and cleanup as well as manufacturing. He added he had not talked to anyone from GFP who had reviewed the project. When he spoke to officials at the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DANR), he said, he was told beneficial use for the creek is partial immersion and said he was told if it was used for swimming, which it can be, DANR would have to relook at calculated discharge numbers because it would require more stringent numbers than partial immersion.
Dana Foreman of KLJ Engineering, which is working with the city and DGR on the project, was also on hand at the meeting, and said the new treatment process will meet zero flow limits for the creek, meaning even when there isn’t other water flowing in the creek to dilute the effluent it will be clean enough to meet required standards.
“We feel we have done things the right way in the process and we’re going to meet all the regulations,” he said.
Hartman said he didn’t understand why the city could discharge the effluent into French Creek below Stockade Lake, but couldn’t just dump it into the creek right where it runs by the wastewater treatment facility above Stockade Lake. Foreman said that was a state requirement.
Asked by Hartman if DGR, the city or KLJ reached out to landowners along the creek below the proposed discharge area to inform them of the project, Foreman said impacted stakeholders were notified and that it was debatable as to who would be considered affected.
“If I were a landowner (below the proposed discharge) I’d be offended,” commission chairman Jim Lintz said. “If it was going to happen to my creek, I would want to know.”
Hartman said while the letter many not have any legal strength, if passed it could state the county doesn’t believe French Creek is the best choice for the discharge, but could stop short of saying the county would support any sort of legal challenge to stop the project.
“I don’t think the state is going to listen to what we say anyway,” commissioner Mike Linde said.