County awards contract for wastewater study

 By Michael Tucker, staff writer

For $45,000, Gallatin County officials hope to provide a snapshot of potential solutions for wastewater infrastructure needs in the Gallatin Valley and how those needs can be effectively addressed in the future.

The project is being paid by the Gallatin County Planning Board and should take about six months to complete, giving the study a March 2010 deadline, board president Kerry White said. Three engineering firms put in bids and Bozeman-based Stahley Engineering was awarded the contract.

The review builds on a previous county planning board study that indicated numerous smaller wastewater facilities, rather than a few larger facilities, would be a better way to serve the county as a whole, county planner Sean O'Callaghen said.

'It's taking the next step from the previous report,' he said.

The scope of work includes identifying locations for future facilities based on population and density projections along with soil types, according to the service agreement. From there, engineers will determine the best type of facility needed.

One of the goals of the project is to find a way to 'interconnect' the facilities to protect groundwater and provide a backup system should one of the systems fail or reach capacity, Kerry said.

'We hope to see where facilities will be sighted to accommodate the growth that's coming at some point in time,' he said. 'I think a lot of study of stuff is going to come out of this.'

The feasibility study is but one of several undertakings going on around the county. Gallatin Local Water Quality District manager Alan English is looking into several areas including a groundwater study in the River Rock subdivision area and a Gallatin Valley wastewater assessment due next month.

Preliminary figures from the wastewater assessment indicate the daily wastewater flow in the county is estimated to be 13.9 million gallons, according to the report. Of that daily amount, Bozeman contributes 40 percent, or 5.5 million gallons. Other public systems combined contribute 40 percent, or 4.1 million gallons. The remaining 30 percent, or 4.2 million gallons, comes from individual septic systems.

The Gallatin City-County Health Department has a group looking into septic systems, acting director Tim Rourke said. The group is looking into some of the issues surrounding septic systems and will rework regulations that govern the roughly 26,000 septic systems in the near future.

'We're going to update those regulations because some issues keep coming up,' he said.