JACKSON — For well over a year, Teton County residents and water quality monitors battled state officials and environmental regulators, arguing that a wastewater system for a glamping resort near Teton Village was likely to fail and human wastewater would spill into Fish Creek.
In October of this year, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality confirmed those fears had come true.
DEQ Director Todd Parfitt issued a notice of violation of its system to Tammah Jackson Hole, formerly known as Basecamp, on Oct. 29.
Sewage appears to have leaked onto the ground from the wastewater treatment plant, located a few meters southeast of the geodomes where guests stay. Elevated ammonia levels found in nearby groundwater have reached seven times the state standard.
When Basecamp was originally proposed, the plan was to eliminate human waste.
However, the DEQ pushed for a wastewater system, arguing that storing waste for transportation had the potential for a major, catastrophic failure. DEQ now prohibits use of the sewer system and requires transportation of waste.
“While we appreciate the DEQ's actions here, this should come as no surprise to anyone since this system was built in a wetland,” said Dan Heilig, a retired attorney who now serves as a board member of Protect Our Water Jackson Hole.
“It is my hope that we can learn from this experience and do a better job of siting and planning smaller wastewater facilities in the future, particularly in the Class 1 Fish Creek watershed,” Heilig added.
Through a public records request, the DEQ on Tuesday released documents that Basecamp had filed on Monday showing that it has taken steps to address the problem – including by turning off septic tank pumps on Nov. 4, the day where it received the notice, on the edge of the building We examined a mound that appeared to be leaking, found and repaired aerators that were not working properly in the septic tanks, and pumped most of the tanks. Basecamp retested the groundwater well, which showed elevated signs of ammonia, as well as two septic tanks and drilled a new well to determine if the problem is isolated.
Ammonia levels in the new well are below the DEQ groundwater standard, Basecamp officials said in their response.
“This leads us to conclude that the ammonia spike problem is limited to monitoring well #4 and is not caused by the wastewater system,” base camp officials wrote, although the response is unsigned.
According to LinkedIn, Jonathan Hooke is the CEO of Utah-based Basecamp Teton WY SPV LLC, which owns the resort.
“Basecamp is committed to operating in accordance with our authorization. We now feel we have addressed all of the issues identified by DEQ,” the company wrote in its letter. “Basecamp requests that we be allowed to put the sandhill into operation immediately.”
Basecamp officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday. DEQ officials did not say as of press time Tuesday whether restrictions on wastewater system operations have been lifted.
After being closed for more than a week, the renamed company planned to reopen its resort on Thursday, according to a voicemail on its main line.
In Wyoming, Class 1 waters like Fish Creek enjoy the highest level of protection, and state law prohibits “no further deterioration of water quality from point source discharges” other than through dams.
Fish Creek, which begins flowing near Teton Village and winds through Wilson before emptying into the Snake River, is already impaired by E. coli, a sign of human fecal pollution.
The DEQ is on track to designate the stream, which is impaired by nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus-based compounds that can promote plant growth but cause widespread fish kills. At the same time, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is also trying to understand why the annual number of cutthroat trout in the stream has plummeted — and whether nutrient pollution is responsible for the decline.
Ammonia, a nitrogen-based compound, can be toxic to fish when found in surface water, and scientists have long documented connections between West Bank groundwater and surface waters like Fish Creek. The two are intertwined because the West Bank aquifer is porous and gravel-based. In spring the groundwater level can rise to such an extent that the groundwater pushes to the surface.
The presence of ammonia in groundwater around septic tanks is also a problem for another reason. It indicates that the system is not working.
In other words, it's a sign that a wastewater system isn't transferring toxic compounds from “a more harmful state to a less harmful state,” said Carlin Girard, executive director of the Teton Conservation District.
Basecamp, now Tammah, has been under fire for more than two years, long before state officials approved its operation on about 10 acres of state trust land intended to generate money for Wyoming's K-12 schools.
Teton County officials have sued the state, which argued the county should not have oversight of development on state land. Regulators like Protect Our Water Jackson Hole have also filed lawsuits, including one that led DEQ to admit that Tammah was improperly granted a permit to install a septic system.
That kicked off a public process in which hundreds of people voiced concerns about the development's impact on Fish Creek.
As arguments raged over Teton County's ability to oversee development on state land, Basecamp refused to cooperate with county regulators and later built its first wastewater treatment plant too close to wetlands, causing community members to distrust the company.
The DEQ ultimately made Basecamp relocate the sewer system, but gave it permission to build a separate elevated mound system.
In doing so, the DEQ gave Basecamp responsibility for properly building the system, which Teton County residents opposed because the company had not properly built its first system.
However, the DEQ required Basecamp to test the system for leaks before opening it. The DEQ then required Basecamp to test groundwater monitoring wells for contaminants every quarter.
“To its credit,” Heilig said, “DEQ actually needed a groundwater monitoring program.” And it was those monitoring wells that identified the ammonia standard exceedances. Without that, we would never have known that the system wasn’t working properly.”
Basecamp opened in May and was renamed Tammah.
Pre-opening test results were clean: Groundwater results for ammonia, fecal coliform, nitrates, chloride and pH were below state standards. But in September, after about four months of operation during the busy summer months, those monitoring wells recorded a concerning result, according to the DEQ release.
Samples sent to DEQ on September 17 showed that the ammonia level in one well was 2.26 mg/L. That's about three and a half times higher than the state standard level for ammonia in groundwater, which is 0.5 mg/L.
The DEQ ordered the company to resample the well, and state officials visited the resort on October 11. When they did that, they found another problem: water on the east side of the elevated septic system that is in the middle of the resort's operation.
“Approval of Basecamp's permit application was based on the standard design of a sandhill septic system, in which wastewater in the sandhill septic system should percolate downward rather than outward,” DEQ Director Parfitt wrote in the notice. “Water observed at the edge of a sandhill system is an indication that the sandhill wastewater treatment plant is not functioning properly.”
When Basecamp retested the monitoring well for ammonia, the results were even worse. On October 22, the company reported levels of 3.86 mg/L, about seven times higher than the standard.
Seven days later, the DEQ issued its formal notice of violation, accusing Basecamp of violating its permit by improperly constructing the sewer system and reiterating that construction was the company's responsibility. The violation could result in the DEQ fining Basecamp up to $10,000 for each day the violation occurred, issuing a temporary or permanent restraining order against the company – or both.
The DEQ ordered Basecamp to immediately stop using the sewer system and instead haul away human waste.
State officials also gave Basecamp 20 days to evaluate and propose “corrective actions” for the sandhill’s treatment system, water buildup on its east side and elevated ammonia levels. After that, the company has another 10 days to submit a report to DEQ summarizing its assessment, repair plan and operations plan.
In its response, Basecamp said it immediately shut down the pumps and has since identified a layer of clay that was preventing water from entering the soil and preventing it from moving laterally. Basecamp “penetrated” this clay layer, dug trenches around the sand hill and filled them with gravel and protective material. That led to a trickle down, the company said.
“We anticipate that there will be no further standing water,” Basecamp wrote, adding that Teton County DEQ engineer Brad Ellis was observing the work.
According to the company's voicemail, Basecamp closed on November 3 but was scheduled to reopen on Thursday. The News&Guide stopped by the resort Tuesday morning and spoke with an employee who said she couldn't talk about the issue but would pass the reporter's contact information on to someone who could. The News&Guide also sent an email seeking comment on Basecamp's old email and its new, renamed Tammah email, and left a message for CEO Jonathan Hooke. As of press time Tuesday, no one from Basecamp responded to these requests for comment.
Luther Propst, chairman of the Teton County Board of County Commissioners, praised the DEQ for “upholding the law.”
“Basecamp has shown reckless disregard for water quality, and I am glad that DEQ has shut down this wastewater system,” Propst said, citing the notice of violation as evidence.
When the state Board of Land Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the glamping business, the company had promised the state $60,000 a year and a 10% share of any annual sales over $600,000.
Jason Crowder, acting director of the Office of State Lands and Investments, did not return a call asking if the money had arrived.
Tammah charges $405 per night for family suites and $328.50 for king suites in December. The company joined the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce in mid-October.
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