Love and sewage

"I want you to really think," Al Harris said to the county commissioners. "Are you willing to put that kind of a risk factor in front of the drinking water of 45,000 people?"

The commissioners were not willing to take that risk during Tuesday's Board of County Commissioners meeting, when an amended conditional use permit for a new wastewater system at Love's Travel Stop failed for lack of a motion.

During the Planning and Zoning portion of the meeting, Land Use Director Eric Bingham presented Roserock Holdings LLC and Love's Travel Stops and Country Stores's amended conditional use permit for the travel center and truck stop's wastewater system.

"Love's is proposing to amend their existing conditional use permit to change from an underground injection sewage disposal system to a sanitary sewage treatment system which will be treated with an activated sludge waste water treatment system, and the treated effluent sludge will be sent to the Green River," Bingham explained.

The Planning and Zoning staff voted to recommend approval of the permit with added conditions, including requiring weekly water sampling.

The current injection sewage system has failed, according to Bingham, because there was a bad geotechnical report when they designed the system, and the soil in the area with the current leach field can't handle the septic system.

"Currently because this existing septic has failed, the applicant owner is having to pump and truck the sewage from the facility to the city of Green River's sewage system," Bingham said.

Under the amended permit and the new sewage system, the effluent sludge - the byproduct of wastewater treatment - would be discharged into the river upstream from the joint powers water treatment facility.

"You can imagine, there's been some concerns about that," Bingham said.

The concerns were expressed by Sweetwater County residents both before and during the commission meeting.

Green River's Public Works Director Mark Westenskow, Joint Powers Water Board General Manager Bryan Seppie and Green River City Engineer Andy Hooten all shared questions and concerns before the meeting, which were included in the Planning and Zoning presentation. Commissioner Jeff Smith noted he had received multiple comments through text and email.

About half a dozen Green River and Jamestown residents also attended the meeting and spoke during the public hearing to express their concerns about the proposed sewage treatment system.

Bryan Seppie from the Joint Powers Water Board questioned the cost of the new system, which was estimated to be about $2 million, asking if there were better ways to use the money to work toward a more permanent solution and pursue options that are better for the district and the environment.

Green River resident Ted Barney questioned discrepancies in Love's plans and pointed to Camp Lejeune's water problem and its effects, sharing that 53 years ago his ex-wife was a child at Camp Lejeune and she died of cancer this summer.

Desiree Gomez, a Jamestown resident, also questioned if Green River could end up like Camp Lejeune, and said she was against Love's initial system because she has experienced her own septic problems.

"We're the ones that have to live with it. We're downstream," Gomez said. "It just seems like this is a bandaid to something that they should have had a failsafe in place for."

Several residents also expressed concern because of the failure of the original system.

"They had a system and it failed," Al Harris, who worked 25 years on the Joint Powers Water Board, said. "They're 0-1. Do you want to gamble that they're not going to be 0-2?"

Representatives from Apex Companies and Love's also spoke at the meeting to explain the proposed system and answer some of the questions and concerns.

Kim Van Dyke, who has worked for Love's for 25 years and started the Love's in Jamestown, apologized for the failure of the previous system and said he believed the new system would be better. However, Van Dyke also agreed with a sentiment expressed by several others.

"The best solution to all of this is to have a sewer system to hook to," he said.

Bingham also said Planning and Zoning staff agreed the best long-term solution would be a public sewer system.

Commissioners Mary Thoman and Randy "Doc" Wendling both noted that the 1% Specific Purpose Tax passed in the General Election and will help fund a sewer system for Jamestown, which Love's could eventually be a part of.

Commissioner Thoman initially made a motion to postpone the decision until after a joint meeting with several involved groups could be held to further discuss the proposed system. The motion failed for lack of a second.

After some discussion among the commissioners, in which Commissioner Roy Lloyd and Thoman both expressed their confidence that the proposed system was a good one but also recognized the concern of the citizens and the lack of outreach on the part of Love's, Lloyd made another motion to postpone the decision, which Thoman seconded.

Once the motion was made, Commissioner Wendling shared his concerns.

"What I'm hearing in the underlying message is 'When are we going to start taking the priority of protecting our most precious resource?' And that's our people," Wendling said. "And the way you protect them is you take care of their health. And through water, clean water, and not jeopardizing that clean water, you do take care of their health."

Wendling also said he was against the decision to postpone because he felt people would just use the extra time to keep having the same discussions instead of finding new solutions.

In a roll call vote, Commissioner Thoman voted "yes" to the motion to postpone while Commissioners Wendling, Smith and Lloyd all voted "no," resulting in the motion failing 4-1. Commissioner Lauren Schoenfeld wasn't present for the meeting.

Chairman Smith asked if there were any other motions or actions the commissioners wanted to take, which was responded to by silence. Seeing none, Smith declared the resolution as failed for lack of a motion.

"This time I really do feel as though . . . the public has spoken out," Smith said, thanking everyone for their feedback.