County may oppose city’s wastewater plan

Permits are secured, contracts are signed and work is well underway on the phased improvement of the City of Custer’s wastewater plant and related infrastructure, but a group of property owners downstream from the proposed new effluent discharge area of the plant want to see the effluent continue to be discharged into Flynn Creek as it is now instead of French Creek, where the city plans to discharge the effluent.
A group of the property owners, under the moniker “Preserve French Creek,” came before the Custer County Commission at the commission’s Nov. 30 meeting and gave an extensive presentation on why it felt the discharge should remain at Flynn Creek and the potential detriments to French Creek and subsequently their property values and quality of life. The group said tourism could also be affected as tourists were turned off by the prospect of recreating in a creek that has the city’s effluent flowing.
Todd Konechne served as the spokesperson of the group, and said the group ultimately sought a letter of support from the commission to be sent to both the city and the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR)—which has signed off on the project and granted the required permits—in hopes of steering the discharge back to Flynn Creek. He said the group is in complete support of the city’s plan to upgrade its wastewater plant, but merely wanted to see the discharge location remain as is.
The permit to discharge into French Creek was granted by DANR in January of last year, with the proposed effluent being treated by a yet-to-be constructed Submerged Attached Growth Reactor (SAGR) able to meet the requirements to be discharged into a coldwater fishery such as French Creek.
Konechne said the permit allows the city to degrade the water quality of French Creek, and quoted the state documents regarding the project, as well as DGR Engineering (the firm helping guide the city through the project) documents to point out past experience shows that due to decay and transformation of organic pollutants such as ammonia, most adverse effects are generally exhibited within 10 miles of the pollutant.
Konechne then showed a map that displayed what was within 10 miles of the proposed discharge area—near Glen Erin Schoolhouse—and said it would affect a large swath of residential properties that have drinking water wells, the Hazelrodt Picnic Area, Custer State Park, French Creek Horse Camp, French Creek Nature Area and other areas.
“There is a lot of potential impact to property owners, to the park, to tourism, to people who want to use the creek for what it offers,” Konechne said.
Commissioner Mike Linde pointed out Custer State Park already dumps effluent into the creek, such as at Blue Bell Lodge, but Konechne said that volume of effluent is much smaller than the effluent the city would pump into the creek.
The city chose the new route for several reasons, which included the cheaper cost to run the discharge to French Creek, with the shorter route meaning less cost and less pipe to maintain. The eight-mile trip from the wastewater plant to Flynn Creek sees the effluent sent through a force main that for years has been a headache for the city with constant leaks.
Konechne argued at the commission meeting that although the city wants to replace the entire force main it doesn’t necessarily have to do so, and instead could replace problematic parts of the force main only to save money. DGR representatives have said the entire force main should be replaced. The additional cost to the city to construct a new force main to Flynn Creek would be around $5 million to $6 million more than the French Creek option, Trent Bruce of DGR Engineering has said.
Konechne called the decision to change the discharge area to French Creek shortsighted, and pointed out how desolate Flynn Creek is compared to French Creek, saying Flynn Creek is not a coldwater fishery, runs solely within the Black Hills National Forest and Custer State Park and only has one seasonal cabin six miles from the discharge location. That cabin does not have a well. Many people probably don’t even know where Flynn Creek is, Konechne said.
Konechne said it was the group’s belief the city and DGR Engineering did a poor job—or a nonexistent job—of notifying the public of its intent to move its effluent discharge to French Creek.
“We are finding many of the people in the county, especially along (French Creek), were not aware of this decision,” he said. “We realize there was a permit that went out for public comment but people didn’t know about this situation.”
Konechne said the city and DGR Engineering did the bare minimum in notifying the public, only putting notices in the legal section of the Custer County Chronicle as required by law.
“It did not meet the spirit of the law,” Konechne said. “Those laws are 50 to 60 years old...communication and how people get their news has changed so much over the years. No fax sheets, letters or calls went out to any stakeholders in the county.”
Konechne said there are also people within the city limits of Custer who didn’t know about the plan who are also opposed to the discharge location change.
Konechne showed an excerpt of the contract between DGR and the city that stated DGR would “maintain communication with the regulatory agencies and property owners affected by future and current project work.”
“There was no communication that went out directly and purposely to any of the property owners along French Creek,” he said.
Konechne pointed out more verbiage that said DGR “would facilitate with input from the city the process of reaching out to regulatory agencies and people who have vested interest” in the project. He added there were 100 people in the area of the planned discharge who weren’t aware of the plans.
Linde said he doesn’t live in the French Creek area but knew of the project from reading about it in the Chronicle, which began writing stories about the project in 2017.
“We question how a notice in the paper could constitute reaching out to all residents,” Konechne said. “It only reaches out to those who subscribe to the paper. When you look at how many subscribe to the paper in the county it’s a small percentage.”
Blair Waite, who also lives downstream from the proposed discharge, said he only found out about the proposal because he attended a city council meeting for an unrelated issue.
“My mouth dropped to the floor,” he said. “I had never heard of any of this before for two years. I said, ‘I can’t believe nobody knows about that.’”
Blair said he began contacting neighbors and found “not one person” knew about the plans.
“It was a lack of communication, and that’s just not right,” he said.
Konechne said state water quality standards did not take into consideration people swimming in the creek, and said the group was worried the over 40 drinking wells along the creek would be contaminated by the effluent.
The city was required to conduct a socioeconomic benefit study to determine if the benefits outweigh the risks of the project, and Konechne wondered how that determination was made when the public wasn’t involved.
“The reality is the public didn’t make this determination. When we asked the state ‘how did you make the determination’ the response was they are no experts in socioeconomic evaluations and they didn’t evaluate it either,” Konechne said. “The fact nobody knew about it or nobody contested it, it automatically got approved.
“In my opinion if the public is asked to make a determination the public needs to be informed, needs to be involved, needs to have their voices heard. That didn’t occur.”
Had the permits been contested, Konechne said, the issue would have been pushed to the South Dakota Water Board for evaluation.
Konechne said through the National Environmental Policy Act review process the project should have gone through an Environmental Assessment (EA) if there was no primary exclusion that negated a need for an EA. Konechne said the state could not intially answer the question why an EA was not conducted, but was later told the need for an EA was negated because a permit was issued.
 “Our first goal is to keep this within Custer if we can and solve it if we can. We’re not going to stop here if we can’t solve this problem,” Konechne said, adding the group has been in contact with different groups who may get involved.
Linde said if the group wanted the commission to support a letter he would like the group to present a draft letter to the commission to discuss and possibly approve at its Dec. 14 meeting. He did wonder whether it would do any good, however.
“I don’t think we’re going to influence the DANR,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to listen to us.”
Two commissioners—Mark Hartman and Travis Bies—indicated they would support a letter opposing the new discharge location.
“I agree 100 percent with what Todd said. He did the research,” Hartman said. “It’s our responsibility to protect the county, which we represent, and our county residents.”