When people living near the River Rock subdivision’s wastewater lagoon outside Belgrade started getting sick in 2007, they began asking questions about their drinking water.

Officials told residents of the River Rock and neighboring subdivisions not to drink their tap water.

Though they hesitated to blame the elevated levels of nitrates and E. coli bacteria in the wells solely on River Rock’s wastewater treatment facility, state officials told the water and sewer district it must upgrade its system.

The issues around River Rock serve as just one example of several wastewater systems in Gallatin County that are not up to snuff.

One of Amsterdam-Churchill’s treatment lagoons has been leaking, so has one at Hebgen Lake Estates.

In December, a state inspector found that a lagoon at Riverside Country Club – not far from the East Gallatin River – was faulty, leaking as much as 7 million gallons of insufficiently treated wastewater into the ground each year.

The same inspector in September found that a system serving Bear Canyon campground east of Bozeman was leaking partially treated wastewater – though nearby wells do not appear affected.

And residents of the Bridger Pines subdivision by Bridger Bowl are seeking a fix for their wastewater system, which has been failing for decades. Meanwhile, other communities without public wastewater facilities want answers to their water quality concerns.

Fast growth with too little oversight

The issues stem, in part, from rapid growth during a period when environmental safety wasn’t highly regulated. Many of the now-substandard systems were built before statutes protecting water quality were adopted, such as requiring wastewater discharge permits.

Lack of oversight, scattered information and poor communication between local and state authorities are of most concern, Alan English, Gallatin Local Water Quality District manager, said last week.

But regulators are beginning to address the murky issue.

English and other Gallatin County officials have been inventorying public wastewater systems, while state regulators have begun inspecting them, and communities like Gallatin Gateway are working to raise funds to install public systems where individual septic systems threaten water quality.

However, there may be more systems officials don’t know about, said Tim Roark, Gallatin City-County Environmental Health director.

“We have some systems that are still of concern,” he said. “We don’t know what we don’t know yet.”

For the most part, Gallatin County’s drinking water is safe, English said, though he wants to get a handle on wastewater disposal before it becomes a serious concern. Accordingly, he’s working on a study to determine if water quality is being compromised.

“Any one septic system is probably not a problem, but we don’t know where the tipping point is,” English said.

Getting a handle on what’s out there

In 2010, more than 80 people were sickened with campylobacter gastrointestinal illness after drinking contaminated water at Campfire Lodge Resort. The resort and campground on Hebgen Lake closed for the season and upgraded its water system.

That incident and the one at River Rock made county health officials wonder about the safety of area wastewater systems. So Gallatin City-County senior environmental health specialist Denise Moldroski was tasked with reporting on how many public wastewater systems exist and where they were.

Moldroski dug into Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Gallatin County records. It wasn’t easy.

Wastewater documentation is housed in several different DEQ divisions, depending on the type and size of the system — large municipal facilities or small subdivisions, for example, said Steve Kilbreath, DEQ program manager for subdivision and public water engineering.

Moldroski “spent an inordinate amount of time trying to track down the documents,” said Roark, her supervisor.

Her inventory was a jumping-off point for English to conduct his own study, Roark said.

“For a while we didn’t even know how many public systems were out there and where they were,” he said.

Gaps in the system

In conjunction with Moldroski’s work, English produced a 127-page technical report in 2010 on each of the county’s public systems — defined in state statute as one that serves more than 25 people or has more than 15 connections.

English found 140 of the 147 public systems discharge to groundwater or use spray irrigation for disposing of treated wastewater. Only 16 of those 140 systems — 11 percent — have groundwater discharge permits, English wrote in his report.

Additionally, 59 percent of those public sewage systems “are basic septic systems” that “do not provide any better treatment of wastewater than individual septic systems,” English reported.

There are six surface water discharge systems in Gallatin County, and all have permits or pending permits, the report continues. Bozeman, Three Forks, Manhattan, Willow Creek, Big Sky and the Holcim cement plant at Trident all use surface water discharge systems, meaning they pump treated wastewater directly into nearby waterways. DEQ inspects these larger systems at least every five years, some annually, Kilbreath said.

Unpermitted groundwater-discharge systems don’t have permits because they were built prior to 1998, when discharge permits became a requirement for DEQ approval.

Before then, many of the groundwater-discharge systems used treatment lagoons approved by DEQ regulators. Some were built before DEQ approval was required.

“Some of these old lagoon systems were the system du jour back then and pre-date DEQ approval and oversight,” Roark said. “They happened and no one had the authority to go back and look at them. There are probably hundreds like it throughout the state.”

Even systems that were approved never had follow-up inspections, English said.

Riverside’s faulty system was discovered in December, when, as part of the state’s stepped-up efforts to regulate wastewater systems, an inspector found the leaking system “is in need of some major attention,” DEQ environmental engineer Michele Marsh wrote in a letter to the district’s president.

“DEQ was involved in design review,” Paul LaVigne, DEQ state revolving fund manager, said. “But it was up to the engineers and developers to build and operate it properly.”

But English said if an agency approves a system, it should confirm it was built to specifications.

“There’s no routine inspection process,” he said. “Once they’re built and operating, there’s been limited oversight to ensure they are working properly.”

Riverside, English said, was a classic example of lack of oversight.

“DEQ approved it but no one ever came out and ensured that it was constructed as approved and it’s been operating like that for years,” he said.

DEQ is undertaking a small-scale pilot inspection program in Gallatin County, but the agency’s resources are limited, Kilbreath said.

“We’re just trying to squeeze it in where we can,” he said. “I would love to send engineers out to inspect these smaller systems, but we simply don’t have the time and money.”

Before the pilot program, DEQ hadn’t been doing a very good job communicating with local agencies when a problem was identified.

Former inspections were “not coordinated with (Environmental Health Services) and there is no procedure in place to make sure EHS is provided with a copy of the inspection reports,” English wrote in his 2010 report.

DEQ was aware water near River Rock’s treatment facility had elevated nitrate levels, “but we didn’t know about it,” Roark said. It wasn’t until people in a subdivision downgrade from River Rock’s system got sick that local authorities began looking more closely.

Communication between DEQ and the county has improved dramatically over the past year or so, Roark said.

Where we go from here

In his report, English made several recommendations. Among them were making it easier to access state-held documentation of public systems, conducting more routine inspections, increasing oversight of septage disposal and effluent discharge, and improving communication between agencies.

He also believes inspections could be shifted to county health departments rather than relying on the overburdened DEQ. However, that would require legislative action.

“I don’t care if it’s the state or the county who does it, but these systems should be inspected routinely,” English said.

Though comprehensive, English’s report did not say whether treatment systems are causing significant water quality problems. It’s a question he’s working to solve now.

Even if he does find contaminated water, English said it’s difficult to tie that to wastewater systems. Nitrogen comes not only from sewage but also from fertilizers, animal waste and even storm water runoff.

Current standards only require testing for nitrates, fecal coliform and a handful of chemicals, Kilbreath said. There are no standards for pharmaceuticals or myriad other chemicals.

That concerns English.

“The biggest general concern is that there could be contaminants in wastewater that we aren’t measuring for and don’t know the health impacts of,” English said. “Septic systems do a good job of breaking down biological wastes, but they’re not designed to deal with Liquid Plumber, nail polish remover, pharmaceuticals … the list goes on.

“So if you see nitrogen in the water, you have to do more homework,” he continued. “But if you see pharmaceuticals in water, along with elevated nitrogen, you have increased evidence it’s coming from wastewater.”

Jodi Hausen can be reached at jhausen@dailychronicle.com or 582-2630.