Dairy faces $70,000 fine in wastewater violations

SHOSHONE — When domestic wells became contaminated by February’s flooding and affected residents were warned not to drink or bathe in their well water, Clarissa Granquist offered up her house to neighbors for showering.

“It was hard for some to get into town to shower at the community center,” Granquist said. “I couldn’t sit by watching people suffer when I could help.”

Some 16 wells tested positive for high levels of E. coli and coliform after what South Central Public Health Department spokesman Jeff Pierson called “a perfect storm” added insult to injury during a crazy winter.

Unprecedented snowmelt, a dairy that pumped wastewater into the Milner-Gooding Canal and a fissure in the bedrock apparently combined to disrupt lives northwest of Shoshone.

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