JACKSON HOLE, WYO – Drinking water in the Jackson Hole region is some of the best in the country but that distinction comes with a few caveats.
Take, for instance, water in Teton Village. It is one of the cleanest in the country. An alluvial aquifer deep below Teton Village is recharged by previous years’ precipitation and snowmelt.
Yet the tap water in the Hoback Junction area is notoriously funky. So much so many residents have simply quit drinking it, preferring to buy container water at a grocery store.
High levels of nitrates are to blame in the Hoback Nation. Officials aren’t sure of any one cause but numerous septic systems in the area are likely to blame.
Leaky fuel was also an issue around the Hoback Market where the water was declared contaminated in 2014 after Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality found 60 times the maximum allowed benzene in the ground water that spring.
Hoback H2O meeting on tap
The Teton Conservation District and the Teton County Health Department will host a public meeting next month to discuss drinking water quality in Hoback Junction.
The meeting is intended to present existing information, provide technical guidance to homeowners, increase community awareness, and answer questions from the public.
It will be held at the Hoback Fire Station on Thursday, September 13 from 5:30-7:00pm.
