Custer County officials consider pilot wastewater treatment, biosolids application as PFAS tests and funding worries mount

Round Mountain sanitation officials told the Custer County Board of Commissioners on an evening public forum that they have 180 days to stand up a pilot wastewater-treatment system intended to treat effluent and remove roughly 1.2 million gallons of decades-old sludge from town lagoons, then dispose of or apply the resulting biosolids.

The pilot, Round Mountain General Manager Dave Snyder said, is a lower-cost alternative to a previously proposed $14 million mechanical plant the district could not afford. Snyder said the pilot’s price is about $1.6 million, and that the district has assembled roughly 88% of funding through a donated treatment trailer and allied grants and private contributions; the district’s match is about $300,000. Snyder said Denali Water Solutions and other vendors have provided donated equipment and engineering support and that the county has been asked to help locate a suitable land-application site.

The proposal has immediate community scrutiny because samples for “forever chemicals” (PFAS) produced conflicting numbers and because the project would move material from long-accumulated lagoons. Residents and the Custer County Conservation District urged caution and stronger public review, arguing the selected Johnson Ranch site described in planning documents is dry, sloped and close to creeks and domestic wells.

Why it matters: the pilot is intended to give a path for Round Mountain to meet state and federal discharge requirements without building an unaffordable mechanical plant. County and district officials said the pilot could also test a combined approach—microalgae, fine-bubble aeration and an…