HELENA, Mont.
(AP) — The U.S. government has asked a judge to approve an agreement with Beaverhead County to upgrade a small Montana community’s drinking water system after years of finding excessive contamination and numerous monitoring failures.
The Department of Justice filed the proposed agreement Wednesday along with a lawsuit alleging the county’s water and sewer district committed violations dating to 2009 and then disobeyed multiple Environmental Protection Agency orders to fix them.
The violations include levels of arsenic and radioactive contaminants that exceeded the limits set by Montana multiple times.
The proposed agreement calls for the county to regularly monitor for contaminants and file its required reporting to regulators and the public as soon as the deal takes effect.
Half of the money will come from Montana’s Treasure State Endowment Program, and the other half from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program.
The deal between the county and the U.S. government must be approved by a judge after a public comment period to take effect.
High levels of arsenic were found in the Jackson drinking water system as far back as 2005, when Montana prepared to adopt new water contamination limits.
The EPA lists 16 violations in its lawsuit that include not only excessive arsenic and radionuclides, but the county water district’s failure to monitor for several other contaminants — asbestos, pesticides and coliform bacteria.
The district also failed to submit required reports on contamination and monitoring to state regulators and its customers, the lawsuit said.