Treasure Mountain Junior High demolition began in September 2025 to make way for new athletics facilities, including two soccer fields, eight tennis courts and softball and baseball fields along Kearns Boulevard.
On Oct. 10, the project’s contractor reported potential illegal water dumping to the Department of Environmental Quality, which began an investigation. According to a report shared by the district, tens of thousands of gallons of water was pumped into the nearby Silver Creek that day.
However, an email sent the same day from former project environmental consultant R&R Environmental to contractor Hogan & Associates Construction, the project manager, two district leaders and federal and state regulators says there may have been more than one incident of illegal dumping.
R&R wrote, “Our onsite technician identified a surface discharge from the site into Silver Creek. As stated in writing at the beginning of this project, this type of discharge is not allowable. Upon further investigation we identified that there has been a water discharge that went unseen since almost the start of the project.”
Park City School District Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman refutes this, saying only one incident of water dumping happened.
“There's reporting that this was happening since the start of the project, and that's not factual,” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Jan. 22. “There's been a wear tank on the site. There's now frack tanks on the site where the groundwater is being held.”
Pump records provided by the district, dated Sept. 9 through Oct. 10, show Oct. 10 was the only day water was discharged directly into Silver Creek. However, previous entries show water was discharged into an on-site storm drain multiple days since at least Sept. 9.
According to R&R’s email, discharging groundwater through the storm drain may not be allowed either.
“All groundwater must be captured, held onsite, and properly characterized prior to discharge,” R&R stated in the Oct. 10 email. “Simply put, nothing leaves the site unless you brought it on there and it did not touch the tailings.”
The district released a statement Jan. 20 from Hogan saying R&R previously told the contractor and the district the water was “not hazardous,” so it discharged the water without a permit. Hogan also stated the Utah Division of Water Quality had recently determined the site's groundwater contains lead and arsenic at higher than allowable levels, so it cannot be discharged directly back into the ground or nearby creeks.
Whether hazardous or not, R&R says Hogan did not have permission to dump the water into a creek or storm drain.
R&R’s email states all groundwater must be captured before disposal. An Aug. 14 email from the environmental contractor informed Hogan and its subcontractor about its groundwater disposal options. None of the four avenues allow water to be discharged into a creek or storm drain.
Hogan is now in the process of getting a “Treated Groundwater Surface Water Permit.” The permit requires groundwater to be stored in tanks, tested by an independent environmental consultant for contamination, and be treated before being discharged into the ground or local creeks. This was one option provided in R&R’s email.
Until the permit is approved, Hogan is holding groundwater in approved storage tanks on site.
Huntsman said there is now more oversight on the project as well.
“I am involved in more construction meetings than I had anticipated, and we're in communications that are going out weekly, if not daily, updating us on what steps and where they're at in the process,” she said.
District leaders also say they remain committed to transparency and any conflicting information was not meant to be misleading.
“As construction progressed, more details emerged; not all of that information was clear or complete right away,” Huntsman said. “In hindsight, we should have made sure we fully understood the situation before going public with a statement.”
The district plans to keep the community informed as updates become available.
The DEQ is still investigating the illegal water dumping report.
