KEYSTONE (AP) - Federal regulators are threatening to shut down a septic system at a hotel near Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
The Rapid City Journal reports that officials say The Lodge at Mount Rushmore has discharged wastewater onto a neighbor's land and could be contaminating the hotel's drinking water.
In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the hotel's owner, Mark Arend, to abandon and plug the hotel's septic tank or apply for an underground injection control permit to potentially resume operation.
The EPA later Arend to submit water-sampling data two months later, after he applied for a permit. The EPA didn't receive the data and later discovered the septic system was still in use.
Arend says his company has spent $36,000 to fix all the major problems with the septic system.
