Suing the Governor of Montana and the DEQ for failing to do their jobs.

Failure to Investigate the Yellowstone Club

Cottonwood has filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Montana and the Department of Environmental Quality for failing to investigate whether the Yellowstone Club is polluting the South Fork of the Gallatin River. The Governor is failing to uphold his duty to protect Montanan’s Constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. The Montana Water Quality Act implements the Constitution’s environmental protections by requiring the DEQ to investigate any complaints about water pollution. Cottonwood filed a complaint with the DEQ about the Yellowstone Club polluting the South Fork/West Fork of the Gallatin River in August 2023. More than one year later, the DEQ had not completed an investigation.

Cottonwood’s lawsuit provides analysis that the Yellowstone Club had completed by an independent laboratory which show the private resort irrigated its golf course with pollutants above DEQ standards. The Governor of Montana and DEQ are ignoring the violations.

Failure to Investigate Big Sky Water & Sewer District

Cottonwood filed a lawsuit against the Montana DEQ in 2022 for failing to investigate the volume of treated sewage leaking from the Big Sky Water & Sewer District’s holding ponds and entering the West Fork of the Gallatin River. After the lawsuit was filed, Cottonwood filed an expert report that raised flags about the volume of treated sewage that the Sewer District told a federal jury it exported to Spanish Peaks Mountain Club to irrigate its golf course. The manager of the Sewer District and its attorney had previously told a jury during a Clean Water Act trial that it exported 12.06 million gallons of treated sewage to Spanish Peaks, but its excel spreadsheet states it only exported 3.47 million gallons. When the manager of the Sewer District about the discrepancy, he told the truth—the facility’s recording monitors broke in 2020 and the data that was previously presented to the jury and the DEQ investigators was never actually recorded. The manager of the Sewer District and its attorney never told the jury the data it was providing them was “estimated.”

The manager told a local reporter the 2020 “estimates” were based on historical data. The manager of the Sewer District acknowledged that the data recorded for 2015 and 2016 show the Sewer District exported millions of gallons of treated sewage more than actually comes into the plant—a physical impossibility. Cottonwood’s expert determined the holding ponds leaked 9 million gallons of treated sewage in 2018 and 23.97 million gallons in 2019. The Sewer District and its attorney told a federal jury and DEQ investigators that the holding ponds only leaked 270,000 gallons in 2020. The manager of the Sewer District has admitted that number is based on data that was never recorded.

Cottonwood has uncovered the fact that the Sewer District provided a federal jury, U.S. EPA, and DEQ investigators with falsified data. The DEQ still refuses to take action against the Sewer District.