The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
August 12 deadline for more public comment
by Mark Reaman
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is again taking public comment over its draft discharge permit for the Mt. Crested Butte Water and Sanitation District. A second draft discharge permit is not a typical step in the traditional process.
MaryAnn Nason of the CDPHE Water Quality division team said that a second draft of the permit went on public notice in early July and is available for public comment until Monday, August 12.
Mt. Crested Butte Water and Sanitation District Manager Mike Fabbre stated that, “The District received a second draft discharge permit on July 11 with the public comment period ending on August 12. The Division has indicated no decisions have been made from the previous public comments, and no timeline for next steps in the process have been established.”
Last December the state issued a draft discharge renewal permit that included what was described as major changes. The state used updated information for water flows into Wood Creek and Washington Gulch and it included the Slate River in the water quality assessment as a receiving waterway to determine protective effluent limits among other requirements.
“Changes from the previous draft [December 2018] are noted in the draft permit fact sheet. The division will respond to comments from the December 2018 draft and the July 2019 draft after this public notice period,” Nason wrote in an email. “All comments will be reflected in the draft permit fact sheet. Comments from the December 2018 draft permit comment period do not need to be resubmitted.”
The fact sheet located on the CDPHE website states that some minor changes have been made to the draft permit. According to the document, the location of ambient temperature monitoring has been moved and updated and several “minor errors” were corrected.
The new fact sheet states “Comments received during the December 2018 draft public comment period, responsive comment period, and public meeting have not been addressed in this 2019 fact sheet and permit. The division intends to address all public notice comments following this public notice period. Commenters are not required to resubmit comments that were previously submitted to the division.”
Nason said that comments may be submitted to the permit writer at christine.wehner@state.co.us or by mail to the division. The link to draft documents, fact sheets, and more information can be found at: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/cdphe/wq-public-notice-actions.
