Two Medicine Water Company
Outcome
Two Medicine Water Company agreed to pay a $40,000 civil penalty for unpermitted discharges and past violations of water discharge permits at the Browning Lagoon Wastewater Treatment Facility and Two Medicine Water Treatment Plant on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
Details
Two Medicine Water Company — Unpermitted Discharges on Blackfeet Indian Reservation (2022)
Outcome: Two Medicine Water Company agreed to pay a $40,000 civil penalty for unpermitted discharges and past violations of water discharge permits at two facilities on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation — the Browning Lagoon Wastewater Treatment Facility and the Two Medicine Water Treatment Plant — in Browning, Montana.
Two Medicine Water Company, a tribal government utility operating water and wastewater services on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwest Montana, faced EPA enforcement action for violations of the federal Clean Water Act at two facilities. The violations included unpermitted discharges from the Browning Lagoon Wastewater Treatment Facility and past violations of water discharge permit conditions at the Two Medicine Water Treatment Plant. Both facilities serve the Browning community, the main population center of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
The settlement, finalized December 20, 2022, required the utility to pay the $40,000 civil penalty. The case reflects the compliance challenges facing small tribal water and wastewater utilities that operate under direct federal EPA jurisdiction (since the Blackfeet Tribe had not received state primacy delegation for water program enforcement), often with limited technical and financial resources relative to the compliance obligations imposed by federal water quality regulations.
Indian reservation utility enforcement represents a distinct category of EPA water enforcement activity — one where the agency simultaneously serves as both the primary enforcement authority and a potential source of technical assistance, and where the communities served are often among the most economically disadvantaged in the country. The Blackfeet Reservation's water infrastructure challenges reflect decades of underfunding of tribal water and wastewater systems under federal programs.
Primary Source: Civil and Cleanup Enforcement Cases and Settlements | US EPA
How Crucible Prevents This
Tribal utility operations on Indian reservations often face the dual challenge of federal EPA direct enforcement (since tribes frequently lack authorized state primacy programs) and resource constraints that make compliance infrastructure investments difficult. Crucible's compliance calendar tracking NPDES permit monitoring deadlines and session-init MEMORY reviewing current permit compliance status addresses the monitoring and reporting gaps that accumulate before enforcement. A $40,000 penalty for a tribal utility on a rural reservation represents significant proportional financial impact.
Don't let this happen to your organization. See how Crucible works.
See How Crucible Works