Cottonwood has filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against the Yellowstone Club for knowingly discharging its treated sewage into the South-West Fork of the Gallatin River without a permit.

Cottonwood Executive Director John Meyer was arrested in 2023 for criminal trespass--walking up the South Fork/West Fork of the Gallatin River in southwest Montana to accompany a contractor that collected water samples coming from Yellowstone Club property. After the Court dismissed the criminal charge against Meyer, Cottonwood relied on the samples to file its Clean Water Act lawsuit against the Yellowstone Club.

Pursuant to a Court order, Cottonwood staff spent approximately eighty hours inside the Yellowstone Club during the summer of 2024 with a small team of professors, researchers, and other experts. The team took water and algae samples from streams, water hazards, and ponds.

Cottonwood collected water samples from the Yellowstone Club’s Hole 4 water Hazard on its golf course as part of the Court-approved site-investigation. The Yellowstone Club told the Court the water hazard contains freshwater, but isotopic analysis of the microalgae in the water feature shows the holding pond contains treated sewage. The Yellowstone Club’s own documents show it can fill the water hazard with treated sewage. Cottonwood is in the process of verifying the pipe in the water hazard below drains treated sewage into the South Fork/West Fork of the Gallatin River.

Why would the Yellowstone Club knowingly drain treated sewage into the South Fork/West Fork of the Gallatin River without a permit?

The Yellowstone Club and Spanish Peaks entered into an agreement with the Big Sky Water & Sewer District that requires them to dispose of up to 160 million gallons of treated sewage per year. In exchange, the private resorts get to hook up new sewers for multi-million dollar vacation houses and hotels.

Cottonwood has also alleged the Yellowstone Club is polluting Second Yellow Mule Creek with treated sewage by over-irrigating the denuded hillside slope in the video above. Cottonwood’s expert has used Isotopic analysis and determined Second Yellow Mule Creek contains the Yellowstone Club’s treated effluent.

What is the remedy for a Clean Water Act violation?

Polluters typically pay a fine and apply for a discharge permit after they have been caught polluting. Once a stream is “water-quality impaired,” however, no more pollution permits can be issued. The Yellowstone Club cannot apply for a permit in this case because the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has placed the South Fork of the Gallatin River on its list of water-quality impaired streams.

The Montana DEQ has previously placed a moratorium on building in Big Sky. Cottonwood seeks a similar order that stops construction in the Yellowstone Club because it cannot dispose of its waste water without polluting the Gallatin River.