The Montana Department of Environmental Quality on Monday released a draft wastewater discharge permit for the Montana Artesian Water Co.’s proposed water bottling plant in Creston.

A six-week period for the public to comment on the permit ends Aug. 5, and the state agency has scheduled a public hearing Aug. 1.

The facility has been a subject of controversy in the Creston area after the company applied for a separate water right to withdraw up to 231.5 million gallons of water per year from the aquifer.

Local residents, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are currently contesting the draft water right, which would allow the company to bottle and sell the equivalent of 2 billion 12-ounce water bottles each year. Many neighboring water users believe it would lower the underlying water table and potentially cause a domino effect of other companies bottling and selling water in the Flathead.

Lew Weaver, who Montana Artesian Water Co., has in turn pointed to his and the state’s findings that the withdrawals would not significantly alter the availability of groundwater, and says he is following the required permitting processes.

If his proposal receives all the necessary permits, the bottling plant could operate on his 350-acre farm near Egan Slough and the Flathead River.

Monday’s draft wastewater discharge permit, however, addresses only water quality limits and monitoring requirements.

In a press release sent Monday afternoon, the Department of Environmental Quality emphasized, “The permit does not grant a water right. DEQ does not grant water rights.”

As proposed, the plant would discharge its effluent water through two outflows into an unnamed tributary about 1,300 feet upstream from the Flathead River. The tributary meets the river about 10.5 river miles from Flathead Lake.

In the draft permit, the department determined that the maximum discharge could increase the tributary’s flows up to 30 percent, but even the maximum discharge would cause no significant changes in temperature, pollutants, dissolved oxygen and other water quality criteria.

One of the wastewater pipes would seasonally discharge up to 60 gallons of water per minute from the facility’s no-contact thermal heating system, which uses the consistent temperature of the groundwater beneath the plant to heat the building.

Local conservation groups have voiced concerns that altering the temperature in the tributary could negatively impact federally protected bull trout and other aquatic life downstream.

But Brad Bennett, a hydrologist hired by Weaver, told the Daily Inter Lake earlier this year that the heating system would slightly cool the groundwater it uses, and the tributary into which it would discharge is fed by the same aquifer.

The aquifer water stays at 52 to 53 degrees, and the effluent would be about 44 to 45 degrees, according to the permit.

“There are a lot of species that are temperature-sensitive, but because the water temperature being put in is cooler than [the groundwater temperature], it mitigates a lot of that concern,” Bennett said in the March interview.

The other outflow pipe would discharge water used to rinse the empty water bottles, which are manufactured on-site by blowing warm air into plastic discs. The permit allows that outflow to discharge at a maximum rate of five gallons per minute.

The draft permit, a fact sheet and the environmental analysis can be found at deq.mt.gov/Public/notices/WQnotices.

Comments may be submitted by mail to: DEQ Water Protection Bureau, P.O. Box 200901, Helena, MT 59620-0901, or by email to DEQWPBPublicComments@mt.gov.

The public hearing on the permit will be Monday, Aug. 1, at 6 p.m. in the Creston School gymnasium, 4495 Montana 35.

The hearing is strictly limited to comments on the draft discharge permit. The department will respond to all comments received during the public comment period — including the public hearing — in writing at a later date.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.