Dec. 29 court decision states DEQ didn’t take “hard look” at impacts of Quarry subdivision; Dec. 17 lawsuit criticizes DEQ’s handling of canyon sewer pipeline decisions
By Jen Clancey STAFF WRITER
Just two days before the new year, a Gallatin County District Court judge issued a ruling that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality “failed to take a hard look at water quality impacts” of the Quarry, a Big Sky subdivision under construction, on the Gallatin River.
Closing a 2023 lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Upper Missouri River Waterkeeper against the DEQ, the ruling requires DEQ to present a more thorough review of environmental impacts of the first phase of the Quarry’s eight-residence project, which will use septic treatment.
The Quarry —planned for the area along U.S. Highway 191 south of the Conoco and across the highway from the Gallatin River in Big Sky—has faced skepticism since 2018. Conservation groups have questioned its impact on the nearby environment, and the DEQ remains in a second lawsuit by the Waterkeeper for approving phase two. A separate but related sewer development project by the Gallatin Canyon Water and Sewer District in partnership with the Big Sky County Water and Sewer District is also the topic of a lawsuit launched Dec. 17 by the Waterkeeper against DEQ for its approval of a pipeline design variance.
The Dec. 29 court finding decided that the DEQ had not taken a “hard look” at the water quality impacts of the Quarry’s septic systems, which were intended to be temporary infrastructure until the Gallatin Canyon centralized sewer was constructed. Judge Andy Breuner concluded that the approval violated the Montana Constitution by not determining river health impacts, particularly the source of Gallatin River’s algal blooms and how nutrient numbers play a role.
Guy Alsentzer, the executive director of Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, said that this lack of thorough science is a huge disservice to Big Sky.
“The community of Big Sky, it needs clarity and frankly—there’s a right way and a wrong way to do any type of development and to address the liability of wastewater, we need to be shooting for best available treatment and simply getting rid of the liability,” Alsentzer told EBS in a phone call. He described how the court ruling directs governments and agencies to care for the river.
“At the most basic level, it means they need to show through best available science what’s necessary to protect water quality,” Alsentzer said. “And one reasonable opinion could be if a waterway is already polluted and it’s unable to attain its designated uses at law, we probably ought not to be adding any new sources to it until we’ve been able to show.”
The Gallatin River was listed as “impaired” in April 2023.
It’s unknown exactly what the court finding means for the Quarry subdivision’s timeline, or whether DEQ will appeal the court order. Although the judge sided with Waterkeeper about DEQ not using the best available science to study impact, the approval of the subdivision remains in place, and construction continues.
Scott Altman, developer of the project with Big Sky Rock, LLC., explained that the court cases against the DEQ to challenge the subdivision’s approval have resulted in delays for affordable housing they plan to build. The Quarry subdivision’s two-bedroom homes were originally planned to cost $400,000 in 2021, but several years later, inflated labor and materials costs have resulted in the same property going on the market for $800,000. It took two years for DEQ to complete the Quarry approval after a lawsuit against DEQ declared its greenlight of a nearby Big Sky project, the Lazy J South subdivision, unlawful. The Gallatin County Commission also challenged developers to go above required legal standards for septic treatment, and Altman notes the SepticNET technology was later approved by the commission in March 2024—with the caveat that commissioners expect the Quarry to follow its promised plan of eventually transitioning to centralized sewer.
Altman hopes that despite litigation, the Quarry subdivision can still go vertical as planned, with modular homes arriving in summer 2026.
Big Sky water and sewer addresses pipeline lawsuit
Waterkeeper filed a new lawsuit on Dec. 17 against decision-making around a pipeline plan in the Gallatin Canyon Water and Sewer District project. The lawsuit alleges that DEQ didn’t provide public notice or public participation opportunities to weigh in on the pipeline project and the approval of a potential design change, and the agency did not conduct an environmental review.
The canyon sewer project intends to reduce wastewater pollution in the Gallatin Canyon by bringing hundreds of septic-treated properties onto a centralized sewer system, to be treated at Big Sky’s state-of-the-art Water Resource Recovery Facility.
A letter from the BSCWSD criticized the Waterkeeper lawsuit. The district emphasized that DEQ’s approval of the design change, called a design deviation request, was not an approval of the Gallatin Canyon sewer project. Instead it was a request to conduct an engineering review of spacing of two pipelines beside Montana Highway 64 (Lone Mountain Trail), in preparation of a final design plan.
BSCWSD board member Al Malinoski noted the importance of the engineering review.
“There has to be a process for resolving those questions before a project moves forward. We have been transparent with the community for years, and public involvement is critical—but working through technical engineering details early prevents wasted effort and unnecessary cost,” Malinowski stated in a letter.
According to Alsentzer, the DEQ violated the Montana Environmental Policy Act by splitting its reviews of the sewer project into time-separated parts.
“Massive infrastructure projects being approved behind closed doors, without public participation, is antithetical to democracy,” Alsentzer stated in a Waterkeeper press release announcing the lawsuit. “DEQ is stacking the deck by considering pieces of a regional wastewater system in isolation. The public deserves—and the Montana Constitution guarantees—a transparent decisionmaking process that reviews the whole picture. DEQ knows well a Big Sky sewer pipeline is integral to a pending new municipal-scale discharge permit application, yet the public is being shut out of any meaningful public participation on critical sewage infrastructure decisions. This is wrong and illegal.”
Despite Waterkeeper’s claims, BSCWSD argues that they’ve been open with the public about the project. In its release, BSCWSD noted that the Gallatin Canyon sewer project has been discussed in public meetings and forums for more than six years, as well as during the 2022 environmental assessment process. The project will continue to be discussed in meetings, and no future phase will occur without additional permitting, environmental review and public comment opportunities, according to BSCWSD.
“It would have been fiscally reckless not to proceed the way we did, but it’s also frustrating to see this portrayed as environmentally irresponsible—when the opposite is true,” board chair Brian Wheeler stated in the letter. “This project is about protecting the canyon. Suggesting otherwise was misleading and disappointing.”
