The City of Custer & Its Contractor want YOU to believe that the Wastewater Discharge into French Creek will be clean.
​
If it is "clean" water:
-
why does Custer City's Facility Plan & Permit state that the Creek will be degraded?
-
couldn't it be discharged anywhere - including above and into Stockade Lake.
-
the city could use it as another source for residential drinking water.​
​
Preserve French Creek, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation
Consequences of Sewage Wastewater Flowing into French Creek:
If Custer is permitted to go forward with its plan to discharge wastewater into FRENCH CREEK:
• Up to 750,000 gallons of Custer’s sewage wastewater will be allowed to flow DAILY into the Creek.
• During drier seasons with low flows, as historically occurs most years in the first miles of lower FRENCH CREEK, sewage wastewater will comprise as much as 90% of the liquid in the Creek.
• Due to the sheer volume of wastewater that will be allowed to discharge into the Creek under the Custer SWD Permit, the temperature of the Creek’s waters will rise and cause existing cold-water fisheries spawning areas to be adversely affected or disappear.
• Under the current Custer City SWD permit, ammonia and phosphorus levels are allowed to rise far above current (FRENCH CREEK) levels and will eventually cause eutrophication (the excessive richness of nutrients that causes a dense growth of plant life, and the death of animal life, from lack of oxygen).
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
• Degradation (the process in which the beauty or quality of something is destroyed or spoiled) of FRENCH CREEK from a Tier 2
“high quality waters” stream classification is acknowledged by SD-DANR and will be allowed under Custer’s current plan and 2021 permit.
• The Submerged Aerated Gravel Reactor (SAGR) system treatment of sewage wastewater chosen by the City of Custer WILL NOT remove PFAs (known as forever chemicals) and other chemicals (i.e. household cleaning products, lawn fertilizers, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals) that will flow into FRENCH CREEK as part of its wastewater discharges. Nor will it remove the elevated levels of phosphate or lower ammonia levels contained in sewage wastewater.
• Trout, fisheries, aquatic life, plant life, birds, wildlife, and people will be negatively impacted by the amount of sewage wastewater that will be allowed to dump into FRENCH CREEK every day. The impact of degradation to FRENCH CREEK will be cumulative.
