Gallatin River Spared From Wastewater Discharge

Montana’s beloved Gallatin River got some good news just before Thanksgiving. Following a year and a half of monthly meetings, a collaborative stakeholder group released its final recommendations for how the booming resort community of Big Sky should best manage its water supply and wastewater disposal. Notably missing from the recommendations was direct discharge of treated wastewater into the river, which American Rivers has long opposed. Instead, the group recommended that Big Sky seek to become a model community by pursuing innovative solutions such as using highly treated wastewater to irrigate local golf courses and make snow on low-gradient ski slopes in early winter. For more information on the Big Sky Sustainable Water Solutions Forum’s final recommendations, check out this article from Explore Big Sky in which American Rivers is quoted.