Ball-field sediment overflows into New Fork

By Joy Ufford jufford@pinedaleroundup.com
Posted 7/3/20

DEQ initiates investigation.

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Ball-field sediment overflows into New Fork

Posted

Silt and sediment aren’t

unusual to see in spring streams when snow

is melting in the mountains and rainstorms

drench the landscape.

But the New Fork River turned the color

and opacity of mud for several days last week,

downstream of Pinedale’s excavation for new

ball fields on 35 acres by the school district’s

bus barn. It was noticeably heavy enough on

Friday, June 26, that a concerned fisherman

contacted Pinedale Mayor Matt Murdock with

questions about water quality and fish habitat.

Murdock told the Roundup this week that

extra sediment went into the New Fork after

extremely heavy rainfall July 16 and July 17,

with a broken culvert from Bloomfield Lane

diverting storm water onto the site. The site

also has a high ground-water table and hard

rains raised that to impede construction.

The result – much more storm water

collecting on the construction site than usual,

where the construction crew only had a stateissued

large-construction permit to remove

storm water. Extra water and sediment

“overwhelmed” the site, knocking down a

silt fence and running a “minor” amount of

sediment into the New Fork, the mayor said.

The project is operating under a Wyoming

Department of Environmental Quality

permit authorizing discharge of storm water

associated with large construction activities.

Jorgensen Engineering did the site work and

Teletractors, Inc., won the construction bid.

“(The rainfall and broken culvert’s

drainage) inundated the project site with

standing water,” Murdock said Wednesday. “In

an effort to allow for construction operations

to resume, the contractor (Teletractors) began

minor site dewatering of the storm water

for those activities permitted by the letter of

authorization and noted in (the permit).”

He called the excess sediment “minor.”

“It was not actively being put into the New

Fork,” he said, adding that the excess silt was

not pumped or mechanically put in the river.

“We’re not dumping dirty water into the New

Fork.

Sediment controls

Before construction, a “silt fence, straw

wattles/ bales and the use of vegetated buffer

strips” were installed to prevent sediment

from causing erosion and flowing into the

river, he said.

The town’s ball-field project – called the

Dudley Key Sports Complex – will replace

current fields by the Pinedale Clinic, where an

expansion is planned to build a critical access

hospital. Timing is crucial for the town’s new

fields to be grass-seeded and playable next

spring.

On June 25, Teletractors applied for a

second temporary discharge permit to be

allowed to remove both ground and storm

water from the site, Murdock said.

“On June 26, it was discovered that the

silt fence installed in accordance with the

discharge location ... had overtopped for the

minor dewatering occurring … and a minor

amount of turbidity was observed entering the

New Fork River,” he said in an email.

Teletractors “immediately ceased” the

water removal and designed additional “best

management practices” to install “additional

staked straw wattles and multiple rock-filled

silt fence check dams to control the residual

water … and all off-site discharge was halted

and contained with these BMPs in place.”

DEQ responses

“The Town of Pinedale takes the quality of

our water and natural resources very seriously

and we immediately contacted Barb Sahl

at the Wyoming DEQ who told us she was

satisfied with our immediate response and

plans to improve the BMPs,” Murdock said.

Barb Sahl, DEQ Storm Water Program

coordinator, said that she actually had little

contact with the town personally except

mainly emails among town officials and DEQ

Lander water-quality specialist Tavis Eddy

“about a sediment complaint.”

Eddy did not respond by phone or email

before press time.

Sahl issues permits but is not involved in

inspections, she added. In the DEQ’s storm

water program, discharged runoff water must

have pollutants, including sediment, removed

to not lower the quality of the “receiving

surface water,” in this case the New Fork.

She confirmed that Teletractors applied for

the temporary permit and that no DEQ staff

had visited the site.

The large-construction permit does not

allow for “very much of an increase” of

sediment, Sahl said.

If a violation occurred, she added, it

would have to be documented or verified. A

noticeable change in the river’s appearance

could indicate a “mud plume,” which could be

a violation. Many times problems are resolved

with phone calls, as this one was, she said.

“Tavis said the town called and said it was

pumping discharge of storm water and ground

water” and was applying for the second

permit, Sahl said.

Violation?

“If storm water left the construction site

and was not controlled sufficiently, a plume

could occur. It may have been a violation,”

Sahl said of the New Fork’s receiving excess

sediment. “It might have been, but no one was

onsite to verify it.”

In these cases, DEQ wants the problem to

be “fixed right away. We want it to stop.”

Sahl told DEQ’s supervising inspector Jim

Eisenhauer about a possible violation – “I

hope he can get someone out there.”

Eisenhauer told the Roundup Thursday

morning he had just learned of the New Fork

sediment complaints and will set up a meeting

at the ball-field site next week.

In the meantime, Murdock described the

“revised treatment train” plan for the ball-field

site – “settlement basins, a series of check

dams … of multiple rows of silt fence filled

with granular fine washed rock, straw wattles,

an in-line system of polyacrylamide flocculent

logs to settle out turbidity, use of vegetative

buffer strips and floating turbidity barriers” to

be assessed and adjusted as needed.