Teton County residents push back against Victor’s wastewater plant plan

VICTOR, Idaho (KIFI)– Teton County residents are voicing growing frustration over Victor’s plan to build a wastewater treatment plant on recently annexed county land, saying the facility will burden them environmentally while providing no direct benefit.

Local News 8 spoke with Ashley Coletti, a homeowner near the planned wastewater plant. She has been openly opposed to this plan as she has been picketing near the site, attending city council meetings, and set up a GoFundMe for legal fees, which has raised over ten thousand dollars.

"We came back from being away for a couple of weeks, we had some drinks with our neighbor, and she was like, 'Oh, they're going to build a wastewater treatment plant down our road right down here,' and I just started digging more and more into it. And the more I dug into it, the more upset I got," Coletti said.

County Residents are upset about the idea of a wastewater plant for several reasons, one reason being that they will not be using it.

"It feels wrong that the city is taking on this project, but they are annexing county land to put it in the county. So they're not it's a city decision and it's a city facility. We are all on septic and well. So we gain. No, we're not going to be hooking up into it," Coletti said, "They know that they can't put it in the middle of the city, and so they have decided to put it out here that visually, environmentally, it affects us a lot more. And then they're telling us your opinions on this don't matter because you're not our constituents."

Environmental concerns were also brought up.

“This affects all of us because we're all on a well and we're down hill, we're down gradient of the proposed site. So if something was to leach, improperly treated, it's going to affect me and my neighbors first. It's not going to affect the city of Victor," Coletti said.

Local News 8 reached out to the city of Victor VIA voicemail and email.