Letters from a Land of Grass - Permit to Pollute (5-15-2026)

At a public meeting three years ago, when I asked a Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality worker about the potential risk of injecting unknown contaminants into a complex aquifer, he looked at me as if he wanted to pat me on the head, hand me a sucker and tell me to go sit down in my little chair. Instead, he said I needn't worry about this until I see brown, smelly sludge bubble out of the ground. I didn't believe him. And my neighbors and I didn't go sit down. - Lisa