Testing the Waters

Did you know that Missoula County is home to the first water quality district in Montana? Efforts to give local governments a tool to address water quality arose out of chemical contamination of local wells in the early 1990s.

This week the commissioners spoke with Travis Ross of the Missoula Valley Water Quality District to discuss water rights, how the district monitors our aquifer, and more.

 
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

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Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:10] Welcome back to the agenda, everyone, with your Missoula County Commissioners. I'm Dave Strohmaier. I am joined today by my fellow commissioner and friend Josh Slotnick. Our other commissioner and friend, Juanita Vero is not going to be able to make it today, but...

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:25] She's in Trinidad and Tobago, I think she's on a diving expedition?.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:27] I know, I know. Spear phishing for something, yes. But we are also joined today by Travis Ross, water quality specialist at Missoula Public Health. Welcome, Travis.

Travis Ross: [00:00:39] Thank you. It's good to be here.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:41] And you've worn a few different hats over the years with Missoula County government, and we are delighted that you're in this role right now. And and I think we're here to talk water, perhaps.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:51] Water quality, but I want to go sideways right away.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:54] Okay. The stream is the stream is taking. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:57] As Dave pointed out, you've been with Missoula County for quite a while. Do you want to just talk about your. Before we dive into the Water Quality district, talk about your experience in. Because I think your well-roundedness really sets you up.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:01:10] Travis is giving me the finger as we speak, if that's any indication, I don't know. So yeah, give us a little.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:16] Background on, on what you've been doing for Missoula County and how you landed in your current spot.

Travis Ross: [00:01:20] So I moved to Montana 25 years ago from Birmingham, Alabama, and working in water there right out of college and moved to Montana because I really wanted to work in a headwater state, actually, and had visited Yellowstone a couple times during college and, and got the bug, so to speak. So came up here and did some, some temp work until a position opened up with the Water quality district, which is part of Missoula Public Health, as you know, and it was a dream job. So I have enjoyed it for 24 years almost and have done different things with that. With Missoula public health, there's a lot of different aspects of it. So I've done subdivision review, done emergency response and household hazardous waste collection and public water supply inspections and you name it. Just been been around doing a few different things and worked for county parks for a while too.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:17] You did well. If you stick around for another 26 years like Jerry marks, you could have a building named. Oh gosh.

Travis Ross: [00:02:24] I don't know if I've got that kind of stamina.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:26] I bet a lot of people don't know what the Water quality district is. Do you want to give us a little rundown on what that is, and then we'll hit our preconstructed questions?

Travis Ross: [00:02:34] That sounds good, and I'd love to, because it's something that our community should be proud of. Water quality districts were established by the legislature in 1993 and spearheaded by Missoula County, and as a response.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:46] Tip of the spear. There you.

Travis Ross: [00:02:47] Go. Tip of the spear, if you will, in response to a number of contamination events that threatened our public water supplies and actually shut down a couple of wellheads back in the 90s from chemical contamination and also arsenic associated with Milltown Dam. And so it was glaringly obvious that local governments need some ability to affect the change that is needed to protect the citizens of this fine place. So Missoula sits on a sole source aquifer, which is an official designation by EPA, meaning that we don't have viable alternative water supplies from.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:26] Sole source.

Travis Ross: [00:03:26] Sole.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:27] Source.

Travis Ross: [00:03:28] And it is an official designation that carries some restrictions with IT and protections, additional protections. So Missoula went to the legislature, got that legislation passed to create those districts, and there are five of them in the state. And Missoula was the first. Our mission is to protect and improve water resources throughout the valley.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:48] So what's the relationship between this water quality district and Missoula County government separate entities. Uh, folks might be wondering out there.

Travis Ross: [00:03:58] Yeah, it's a bit complicated. So it's a district that doesn't follow the confines of the county boundaries, per se. We're a county administered program, so the staff are county staff and budget is approved by county commission.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:13] And Travis, does that mean parts of Missoula County are in the district but parts aren't?

Travis Ross: [00:04:17] That's correct.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:18] And what's the difference for a person if their home is in the water quality district or not?

Travis Ross: [00:04:23] There's a fee on improved parcels.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:26] So it's like a membership club.

Travis Ross: [00:04:27] It's kind of like a special membership club. And so you get direct access to professional staff that can answer questions and help help solve problems, or at least attempt to. We are a local advocate and scientific advisor on cleanup sites that are in our district. So state and and federal Superfund sites, which we've had a few. We permit and inspect facilities that have quantities of materials that threaten the quality of our aquifer. We do emergency response on spills. We do local oversight of the cleanup associated with those. In addition to monitoring well, network of 50 ish wells that span the district, from Lolo to Bonner down to Houston.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:13] Did Water Quality District put those wells in?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:05:16] Yes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:16] Specifically for monitoring?

Travis Ross: [00:05:18] Yes. And so we have water levels every hour on all of those wells. Wow. So we can track changes over time.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:24] And is this the sort of thing that a regular person could look, go on a dashboard and see what's up with water quality in Missoula?

Travis Ross: [00:05:30] Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because, um, we're working with our GIS manager, Mike Snook. It's fabulous. Yeah. On a dashboard as we speak. So that is in beta phases right now with all of that data. So I look for that to be on our website in the next few months.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:05:47] You mentioned earlier a few communities here in Missoula County that most folks are probably aware of. Huson and Lolo. Bonner does that more or less constitute the outer reaches of the water quality district, or is it larger than that?

Travis Ross: [00:06:02] That is basically it. It goes from Frenchtown basically to to Bonner and then Lolo, and it stays mainly within the alluvial valley, which is, you know, the main. Got it. The main valley of those communities.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:19] So from a regulatory standpoint, how is somebody's life different if they live inside the district or outside the district in terms of do they have to get special permits or what can and can't a person do, depending on whether or not they're in or outside of the district?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:06:33] Josh is wondering if he can dump used motor oil in his backyard or what. I got a lot a big hole.

Travis Ross: [00:06:39] We're on to you. You can't do that anywhere, okay?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:06:44] Darn, darn.

Travis Ross: [00:06:45] Okay, but but within the district there is. I guess I would say a different level of of scrutiny and response on that type of thing. So there's a general prohibition, and the regulatory structure that we work under is actually a city ordinance that is applied because it's health and safety related, applied five miles outside of city limits. There is an area that is not covered from a regulatory standpoint that just extends down to Frenchtown from about the Y to Frenchtown. There's a bit of a hole there, but other than that, yes, we would do if we got a complaint. If someone dumping waste, we would go check that out, respond to it, determine the appropriate cleanup actions that needed to occur, and follow those through until completion and testing.

Josh Slotnick: [00:07:30] But the water quality district doesn't have anything to do with drinking water wells or septic systems.

Travis Ross: [00:07:35] We do. I mean, we do work on subdivision reviews. So we're looking at water availability and suitability on.

Josh Slotnick: [00:07:43] And so walk us through that. Let's say somebody wants to put in 100 houses at the Y. How would the water quality district play a role in the process, where that goes from an idea to a reality?

Travis Ross: [00:07:54] So it starts pretty early with our community and planning services. We'll get a request to do a scoping meeting. We would meet with other agencies and the developer and talk about some of the first questions or concerns that we see out the gate, that as that project develops, it gets into a formal agency review where the planning office sends those subdivisions around to various departments for comment. And we'll look at it in the context of, of the reports and the studies and the data that we collect and others collect that we're aware of and really look at it with a pretty close eye to is this sustainable? And we provide comments on those to the planning office. And sometimes they're resolved during the review. Sometimes they go on to commission review, and sometimes there are different conditions put on those developments depending on what's what's going on. For example, further study may be required. The other thing is we review during the sanitation review, which is what the state DEQ and Missoula Public health ultimately.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:57] So you are are you all involved in the process?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:09:00] Yes. Well, what is COSA mean?

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:02] What's let Travis talk to us about COSA. Because it's a really big deal in terms of the life of a development.

Travis Ross: [00:09:07] Sure. It is. It is certificate of subdivision approval. And that is a document that sets forth what development conditions are on a parcel.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:19] Travis what's the COSA process?

Travis Ross: [00:09:21] The COSA process is so an applicant, a landowner, decides that they want to subdivide their parcels. They have ten acres. They want to have two fives. They want to see what they can get approved in terms of dwelling, how many bedrooms of a home that they could build where the the on site wastewater or the septic system should go is. Is there adequate water to substantiate a well as a private water supply? Will the garbage company come and pick up the waste? It goes through and scrutinizes the soil types and the slopes and the separation from groundwater is is in a wetland is a stream running through it that needs to have a minimum setback.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:10] So so a person can't begin building one house or 100 houses unless the Cosa is approved. There is there is a certificate of subdivision approval. And and that's not Missoula County. Right.

Travis Ross: [00:10:21] Isn't that that is state law. And I guess just to back up, not all parcels go through those those those cases, there are exemptions that one can, can seek and and be.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:32] So if if a chunk of property isn't divided, let's say you own an acre out at the Y and you decide to. I'm going to build on this. Do you need to get a COSA? Even if it's just an acre and you're not dividing it?

Travis Ross: [00:10:44] If you want to, if you.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:10:45] Want to.

Travis Ross: [00:10:45] Develop it, yes.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:10:46] You do.

Travis Ross: [00:10:47] Yes. Yeah. It have an exemption. So have it connected to public water supply and public sewer.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:10:54] So if you.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:54] Tie into an existing sewer system, it's exempt because you're getting sewer and water from the municipality.

Travis Ross: [00:11:00] Generally, yes.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:01] So for those folks whose eyes are glazing over right now with wonky regulatory, uh, talk, uh, how about we spend a few minutes just talking about the, the tangible stuff of this conversation that is water. So as I'm looking out, our lovely 1960s era office building in downtown Missoula towards the Oxford at the end of the last great Ice Age, we would have been fully submersed in water, uh, glacial Lake Missoula and all of that is a precursor to the aquifer that we now are enjoying today. Travis, do you want to talk a little bit about water and graphic availability of water and how how all that works here in Missoula County.

Travis Ross: [00:11:44] Sure. I would be happy to. And I guess to start with, all water is connected in one way or another. So we have water in various forms through Missoula County. We have wetlands, we have small tributary streams. We have large rivers. We have chain of lakes connected by river. We have our aquifer, as you mentioned, Dave. So our aquifer was formed over 15 ish thousand years ago, I think was the last of the draining and filling of glacial Lake Missoula, which brought, you know, the substrate, the cobbles, the big rounded rocks through that hold water so well in our valley. If we look at our abundant water in the valley that is directly related to that filling of the bathtub and draining, and it continues to be sustained by the Clark Fork River as it comes through the Hellgate Canyon and spreads out and loses its water through the valley, fills up that bathtub. It's that. And the. The largely the rattlesnake. There are other forms of of recharge as well to our aquifer. But those are the are the big ones.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:55] So it is kind of interesting. We're in a place that it rains 12in a year, which is basically a desert. And it feels like we are rich in groundwater in terms of rivers, creeks and an aquifer. How how is that possible?

Travis Ross: [00:13:08] Yeah, we are fortunate to be in the situation where we have a very leaky big river running through.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:16] And that's that's the main recharge.

Travis Ross: [00:13:18] That is the recharge.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:19] Are we truly snowmelt dependent?

Travis Ross: [00:13:21] We are. Yeah. These these rivers, they're all snowmelt dependent. The Rattlesnake is snowmelt dependent.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:27] Does that mean our aquifer is snowmelt dependent?

Travis Ross: [00:13:29] Our aquifer is.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:30] So future's looking good.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:13:34] Well.

Travis Ross: [00:13:34] So I guess it's snowmelt driven in this hydrograph. The water, if it comes through as precipitation in a liquid form, we are still getting recharged that way as well.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:46] Okay, so it's okay if it's not all snow because it seems like now just this is very anecdotal that we're getting more rain in spring and more rain and fall and less snow in winter. Yes, yes. As the as the front end and the tail end of winter get shaved off through climate change. And our winter as a piece of the seasonal pie becomes a smaller slice.

Travis Ross: [00:14:07] Absolutely. That is.

Josh Slotnick: [00:14:08] That isn't messing with our aquifer.

Travis Ross: [00:14:10] With the main alluvial aquifer. We're not seeing scarcity because of that. We. But what I will say is in these smaller tributary streams and the. And those smaller aquifers that feed ours as well, those are becoming more effective directly. We see changes very quickly in these fractured bedrock aquifers, as opposed to this vast alluvial aquifer that spans this entire valley. But if we look at some smaller aquifers that are kind of off the side of of the main, we do see fluctuations in water levels depending on how that recharge is coming off.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:14:51] So, Travis, as we're thinking about our community changing over time growth, more people coming here and also concerns about what's the carrying capacity of this place physically for growth. Do we have enough water? Sounds like maybe we do, at least in the short term. But given your professional expertise, what are your thoughts? I mean, we're clearly not a Phoenix, Arizona, which has a ton of folks out there in the desert baking as we speak, but nonetheless, is there some limit that we might be bumping up against?

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:24] That sole source is taxed.

Travis Ross: [00:15:26] You know, I don't see that being as big of a problem in our alluvial main aquifer, we may come to a point where we need to further restrict irrigation. Where I see our biggest problems is the development and the outlying areas on individual wells, or smaller public water supplies that are reaching into deeper aquifers and older water and water that's tied up in a fractured bedrock system where we don't know what the capacity is. If we're talking about downtown Missoula, Target Range, those areas, we're not seeing impacts yet on the on the water levels, on our trends.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:09] How do water rights factor into all of this? That's a great question. That's a maybe that's a bigger than we want to get today and probably could warrant a whole separate discussion. But presumably. Well, I I'm just going to stop talking unless I show my ignorance here.

Travis Ross: [00:16:26] Yeah.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:26] I mean.

Josh Slotnick: [00:16:27] Can I add to this more stuff?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:29] He's adding to my ignorance.

Josh Slotnick: [00:16:31] Which is mine as well. So I had heard that in some of our creeks, like Rattlesnake Creek, the water rights that are possible actually represent a larger amount of water than is in the creek itself. Mhm. This is just adding on to Dave's question about water rights. How does this all fit together?

Travis Ross: [00:16:49] That is very common. Okay. Just to back up, for those who aren't familiar with water rights. Water rights are pretty unique to the western part of the United States because as you mentioned, we are a semi-arid, we're a desert, and there's not a lot of water here, 12,14 inches a year. It's not a lot. The East Coast, you don't see water rights and discussions because there's so much of it. So with that, water is owned by us as citizens managed by the state of Montana. And as you pointed out, Josh, there are many streams that have legally appropriated too much water to individuals, that these individuals have legal rights to water that is not there, and that is called over appropriation. And that is why certain basins are closed and basins are how the state manages waters. And we just think of that as a watershed. And they look at this watershed and they say, yes, there are, you know, 100 acre feet in this stream that is appropriated, but the stream only gives 50. So we're closing it down. No more water rights. The interesting thing is, is there are again, exemptions. We talked about that a little bit earlier. And so right now there are exemptions for private wells of 35 gallons a minute or less. The math doesn't pencil out.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:11] So what does that mean for people who have water rights? Because that's a powerful legal tool.

Travis Ross: [00:18:16] It is a powerful legal tool. So it's called prior appropriation doctrine.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:21] Is this first in right. First in line is first in time. Something like that, or first in time is first in line. So if your water right predates someone else and water gets rationed, theirs gets rationed before yours does. Something like that.

Travis Ross: [00:18:35] Yes. You make call, they call it you make you make call on someone's younger water rights and say, mine are older. Mine are from, you know, 1880 and yours are from 1930. So I get all of mine first before you get a drop of yours.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:18:50] Wow. Are there instances you can think of of over appropriation such that or, or maybe not even over appropriation where because there just is not enough water. You cannot even drill a well for one of those low volume wells that you mentioned. Uh, is that something that you see anywhere in the state of Montana?

Travis Ross: [00:19:12] Uh, not that I'm aware of, but that goes beyond my expertise.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:19:16] At this point in time, though. That's not an issue in Missoula County. To your knowledge.

Travis Ross: [00:19:21] To my knowledge, no. We do see people who are having to drill wells deeper, that their water is becoming more scarce, so they're having to drill deeper or add a cistern or two cisterns or two wells, multiple wells. So people are struggling with water. I'm not sure how much of that is water, right? Or just the practicality of trying to make it work.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:19:42] How about do a little bit of a retrospective in terms of, now that we've talked a bit about the water quality, district and water quantity and availability across Missoula County, challenges, stories of of success that you've seen, whether it's mill dam removal. I think we still have a challenge to the west of us out in the Smurfit-stone container site area. What stood out in your 24 year career with Missoula County?

Travis Ross: [00:20:17] I would say Milltown Dam is one of the bright success stories that frankly, I think a lot of folks don't know about.

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:27] No, enough time has gone by where there's a whole generation of Missoulians that just drive by.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:32] Paint a picture for what? What was to the east of us, just not that many years.

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:37] Tell us the story.

Travis Ross: [00:20:38] So back in the early 1900s. You know, copper is king and Missoula is a booming lumber town. And some of the copper kings own some of the mills at Milltown. And those mills are supplying lumber for support of the mining industry and Butte, and to supply power to those mills. Milltown dam was built.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:03] It was a hydroelectric facility.

Travis Ross: [00:21:05] Yes. Correct. To supply power to those mills. And it was completed in 1908, which happened to coincide with the largest flood of record. Big flood we have and took.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:15] Out what was then the Higgins Bridge.

Travis Ross: [00:21:17] Yes. And the Milltown Dam.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:20] It took the dam out.

Travis Ross: [00:21:21] It took the dam out. Within a year of completion. The dam was severely damaged. Half of the spillway was gone and part of the powerhouse. And along with that came thousands of cubic tons of contaminated waste. Waste that came from Butte.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:37] That was backed up against.

Travis Ross: [00:21:39] The dam.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:39] The dam smelting of copper.

Travis Ross: [00:21:41] Yeah. Yeah. And so that contained arsenic and copper lead, all kinds of things. [00:21:46] And fast forward 80 years to the passage of the Clean Water Act. And Missoula public health at the time starts going out, taking water samples for public water supplies to see if they comply. Our water is tremendously high quality around here. We live in a headwaters state, so why would our waters be contaminated with arsenic that are hundreds of times the drinking water standard back in the 80s? That was a head scratcher. Why? They traced the source of that contamination to the mine tailings that have had been impounded behind Milltown Dam. The county Commission at that time was very engaged in this issue and pushed for studies and for support from the state to push the responsible parties to clean that up. And it ultimately resulted in removal of that dam and removal of all of those sediments. [00:22:45] It used to be a giant reservoir of still water that was a breeding ground for pike and and contaminating the aquifer. So we've.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:22:55] Seen.

Josh Slotnick: [00:22:56] Sounds fantastic.

Travis Ross: [00:22:56] It sounds fantastic, but there was a lot of opposition to removing that. It was, um, you know, there was some deep pockets that were in the way of doing what was right. And this community pushed hard. Local advocacy really pushed to get that dam removed.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:12] I remember, I remember billboards.

Travis Ross: [00:23:14] Yes. And postcards.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:16] Billboards. It was a great. It was a great marketing campaign. They did a fantastic job. And eventually the governor decided this was worthwhile, too. So it wasn't a Partizan issue.

Travis Ross: [00:23:26] It was not. It was a bipartisan issue all the way around. And an EPA saw that in the community support for the alternative, which was not the preferred alternative at the time. The preferred alternative was to leave that in place and put a rubber dinghy on top of the dam to.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:45] Call it good.

Travis Ross: [00:23:46] Call it good, call it a day. And this community said, no, that's not going to work. That is not going to work. And so what we have now is a beautiful state park, an overlook, a free flowing river.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:56] So how long did it take to remove the dam and get rid of all the sediment that was backed up behind it?

Travis Ross: [00:24:03] I'm going to say it took about two and a half, three years to get the get the I mean, it was a much longer process. When you look at from the beginning of Superfund to, I think it was removed in 2008, 2010. Does that sound right?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:24:16] That sounds about right.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:18] And then the area underwent restoration. I mean, all these willows were planted and it was reformed.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:24:24] Well, and one of the things we're still wrestling with that will, I think, finally happen next year is the removal of those piers that are in the river. Big concrete plugs that are the result of the replacement of the I-90 bridge. Not so much an issue if there was a lake in there, which there once was. But if you're floating the Blackfoot River, these are huge impediments. So one of the final vestiges of that era of Milltown Dam and the reservoir will hopefully be removed in the next year or so.

Travis Ross: [00:24:57] That'll be an exciting day. I've been waiting to see those removed for decades.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:01] Well, that is a great I mean, that is a fantastic success story. Never one to pass up the opportunity to have a glass half empty. What were some of the challenges still here in Missoula County? That's a great question. In your career you'd like to see addressed?

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:16] Yeah. What are you nervous about?

Travis Ross: [00:25:18] I'd say what makes me nervous is development in these outlying areas that I'm not sure of the long term sustainability of the groundwater supplies and and wastewater systems. You know, as we head West O'Keefe y area, I am concerned about these kind of more sure the way to phrase phrase it, but O'Keefe Creek is a pretty sensitive stream. There's a lot of clay. It unwinds very easily when it gets a lot of runoff to it or a fire affected runoff. I'm nervous about the integrity of the stream as we put development alongside, and it may not sustain itself very well going into the future and the water supply out there. I'm not sure about. So there are things like that that I question kind of the outlying areas. And, you know, as our population increases, we'll be pushing up against these areas. And it can be said on a number of fronts, you know, wildland urban interface issues, water supply, transportation, all of these things. But you have a big you have a big job to weigh all of this out. But I guess my concerns are that and Smurfit-stone, of course, is a big one. What's ultimately going to be the the solution that gets proposed and how are we going to respond to that? Are we going to be ready for that to argue for more? If it's inadequate, I'm afraid it's going to be inadequate. I guess there's a fear there. What we're doing right now is we're focusing on gathering appropriate data. And as I mentioned, O'Keefe Creek. But this could be any stream. But we're focusing on data gathering now. And so collecting the information.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:26:58] Water Quality District or. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

Travis Ross: [00:27:00] Water quality district, we're collecting stream discharge more regularly along with partners like the Clark Fork Coalition, to gather the data of what we know the existing conditions are right now, and make sure that when models are used to predict forward growth and impacts, that we have the best parameters possible to put in those models. And the same with groundwater data that we're collecting. You know, the chemistry and the water level data that can support the best possible models that are possible. Because, you know, we have to find as communities, as civilizations, we have to find a way to kind of merge development needs with the environmental sensitivities.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:44] Yeah. When we've done our community surveys with our comms team here over the last handful of years, and housing is always at the top of the list. And you're describing a situation really well. If people want to live in houses here, they're going to need water too. But I think for a lot of folks, water is somewhat taken for granted and housing feels precarious when it may actually be more so the other way. Listening to.

Travis Ross: [00:28:07] You. Yeah. Takes advocates and experts from all sides to put this together and to a well formed discussion.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:15] But it begins with. Or at least it should begin with knowing what we have. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:21] So, Travis, could you kind of run down how we interact with DEQ and what sort of responsibilities we have and what sort of responsibilities DEQ has? And if you wouldn't mind even talking about this in the light of one of the hot issues of our time. But that's data centers. And we've dealt with that in Missoula County with zoning. Even so, data centers are known to use a lot of water. So how how do we interact with DEQ around this issue?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:47] And DEQ, for folks who don't know, is the Department of Environmental Quality.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:51] It's it's.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:52] All quietude. Yeah, it's.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:55] Kind of a meditation writ large thing.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:58] Yes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:58] Yeah. It's mindfulness under the big sky.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:29:01] You're doing that as we speak What is the what is DEQ.

Travis Ross: [00:29:05] Okay. So so in terms of. All right, water seems like a simple subject, but there are so many tentacles that are affected by water and affect water. My role is primarily is water quality, where the water quality district. So data centers, as you mentioned, a big concern is water use. So that is a water quantity issue and a water rights issue. Okay. And so if these are closed loop cooling systems that are essentially transferring heat from a data center into the ground, using groundwater to ameliorate the impact, then from a water quality standpoint, we're talking about temperature. And there are models, again, that can model temperature impacts. And the aquifer certainly has a capacity to deal with temperature changes. It's a vast fast moving aquifer. And so, you know, we use heating and cooling wells all over the city to actually in a, in a more environmentally conscious way, deal with our heating and cooling needs because we can use the temperature of the aquifer.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:14] Is there heat pumps?

Travis Ross: [00:30:15] Heat pumps. Exactly.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:30:16] So is it. Well, I guess two questions. One, what role does DEQ play in any of that? And within the water quality districts purview, does that include water temperature. Uh is there any prohibition against raising the temperature of groundwater.

Travis Ross: [00:30:33] That I would need to do a deep dive in, and I'm sure we could, but no, there is not. And our ordinance, the ordinance that we enforce and we work with every day, we don't deal with temperature as a contaminant. Mhm. I'm not saying that it couldn't be obviously, like so many things, the dose makes the poison. And if if we were talking about massive heat loading to our aquifer, you know, again, things are surface and groundwater are connected. If that massive heat flux affected a stream, then we're talking about impacts to aquatic life and that becomes more serious. But what we have never dealt with a temperature contamination event in aquifer in my 24 years here.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:31:18] But I guess going back to the DEQ question, are certain responsibilities delegated to local governments that DEQ might ultimately be the regulatory agency, but are we helping them fulfill part of their responsibilities? Or how does that shake down?

Travis Ross: [00:31:37] Yeah, it gets confusing because DEQ does have the ability to deal with water contamination. We can do it. We're more nimble because we're local and we can deal with things more quickly. So we work with DEQ. For instance, if there's a large spill, DEQ is notified. We are called by 911. We go out, respond. We tell DEQ what we've done. They concur. Closed. Move on. That's kind of our role there. Dick could do this, but it would take longer and it would be through letters rather than dealing, you know, directly with someone on site with an instance, like a data center. I'm not sure what Dick's role is on that. If we're talking about a wastewater system, an on site wastewater system, Dick permits large public systems, but we do two locally, so our rules overlap somewhat. We may take a harder look or a closer look at the issues and the models, and provide additional data where we have it that forces someone to do a better job. And we do that. We review, permit applications and submit comments on those that are that are under dick review.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:32:49] Well, in keeping with our acronym fest here, EPA Environmental Protection Agency at the federal level. What do they do? Certainly, we've brushed paths with them a time or two out at smurfit-stone. But any thoughts on for the listening public, what role EPA plays in some of these water issues?

Travis Ross: [00:33:09] Yeah. So specifically with Smurfit EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency is the managing entity for Superfund, for federal Superfund, smaller sites, smaller cleanup sites can be managed by Deq's Superfund section. They have their own Superfund section that is generally smaller sites.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:33:31] Super fun, not super fun.

Travis Ross: [00:33:34] No, no, no.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:33:35] None of this is fun.

Travis Ross: [00:33:36] There's a heavy D on the board. Yes. So we interface with both of those agencies and in different roles. It's interesting. So in the state Superfund sites. So one example is white pine and sash Former wood treatment operation.

Josh Slotnick: [00:33:54] It's a neighborhood now.

Travis Ross: [00:33:55] Yeah. White Pine Park on on the north side of of town. So that is a Dick Superfund site that has been under their their oversight for 30 years. And we work with them with EPA. Deq is kind of more of a consulting entity to EPA. And so in some ways we have more access to Dick than we do EPA on those.

Josh Slotnick: [00:34:19] And EPA is managing the Superfund site. Do we have much of a say in that? How does the water quality district work with EPA around Superfund and specifically around Smurfit?

Travis Ross: [00:34:30] In a couple of ways. One is ultimately, when a Superfund site gets proposed for cleanup and a. And a cleanup plan. One of the critical elements of that plan has to be community acceptance. By definition, our local government represents our communities, and we work for local government. And so we're working on on our local government and our community's behalf, with EPA as a technical expert, to provide the context or the data and perspectives that we see are important to including into this process. We're looking at it from a long, long term lens of our community's health and, and so that we convey to, to you and other agencies. And also we have a charge and, and our creation of districts of the Water Quality District. And that gives us a seat at the table as well. Great. And we have a long history of working with DEQ, EPA, DNR, these agencies. So we've developed relationships over the years that help with this important.

Josh Slotnick: [00:35:35] Great. Great. Well, Travis, we're going to hit you with our last question. And it has nothing to do with water unless you want to make it with water. Is there something you've ran into in the last few weeks, month or so, thinking about a book that you might have read or a podcast you listened to, or an article you read, or a conversation you had where you felt like, man, there was a nugget of wisdom in there that was really good, worthwhile to pass on. And here is that opportunity to pass on nugget.

Travis Ross: [00:36:00] Okay, I don't know about any nuggets, but what I am reading right now is related environmentally and politically. I just started one called The Fourth Turning is Here. It's written by a historian and demographer who like studies kind of civilization changes through time, and they've on patterns.

Josh Slotnick: [00:36:20] Fourth turning.

Travis Ross: [00:36:21] The fourth turning is here. Look it up. It's it's about these patterns that civilizations go through in dealing with catastrophe. There's recovery. There's, you know, setbacks. There's four kind of steps to it. I haven't gotten to all of them yet. I'm just in the first part of it.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:36:39] So so we don't know if we're totally screwed or not. I think.

Travis Ross: [00:36:43] No, I think that the and I did kind of do a little bit of reading about the end before I.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:36:48] Skip to the end. Classic.

Travis Ross: [00:36:51] So I think we got about 15 to 20 years and it sounds like things are going to turn around for.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:36:56] The better.

Travis Ross: [00:36:56] For the better.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:36:57] Oh that's optimistic. We never worried there for a minute.

Josh Slotnick: [00:37:01] We never hear optimism so fantastic.

Travis Ross: [00:37:04] The other one that's related is I'm really into Erik Larson books right now. If you haven't read him, he's got just this great ability of writing nonfiction in a fiction type of tone. And he finds these nuggets about articles and journals, these obscure kind of sources to tell a story in a, in a different way. And so there's like 7 or 8 of them, but the two that are that I've read most recently, one is called The Demon of Unrest, and that is about Lincoln and the Civil War and kind of frames the national sentiments and challenges that you know are past, beyond what we learned in school, that really kind of put some context into what our nation was going through at the time. And the other one is called The Splendid and the vile. Wow.

Josh Slotnick: [00:37:58] Great title.

Travis Ross: [00:37:58] I know he has really wonderful titles. All of them are great. I've read 6 or 7 of his books and I love them all. And that one is about Winston Churchill and the blitz and Nazi occupation and just the the amount of strength that he had and to really change the course of history, potentially. Wow. And so yeah, I find them both those type of books encouraging right now to just understand where we've been.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:26] We could use all the encouragement we could get.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:28] Great.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:29] Great suggestions. Travis.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:30] And I don't know about you guys after this conversation. I'm super thirsty. I am too. And it's almost happy hour.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:38] Well, Travis, thank you so much.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:39] Thank you. Travis.

Travis Ross: [00:38:40] Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:40] Thank you. And thanks, everybody for listening.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:42] With you. Goodbye.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:44] Thanks for listening to the agenda. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you use.

Juanita Vero: [00:38:52] And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:38:57] The agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners is made possible with support from Missoula Community Access Television, better known as MCAT, and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division.

Josh Slotnick: [00:39:09] If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, email it to Communications@missoulacounty.us.

Juanita Vero: [00:39:17] To find out other ways to stay up to date with what's happening in Missoula County, go to missoula.com/updates.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:39:25] Thanks for listening.