A controversial wastewater facility proposal in Potter County has gained quite a bit of attention –- in fact, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has received more than 3,000 comments.

Some of the comments are in support of the project and others are in opposition, said Megan Lehman, spokesman for the DEP.

The Seneca Nation of Indians continues to oppose the proposed facility to be located adjacent to the Coudersport Area Municipal Authority’s publicly owned treatment works in Eulalia Township. The Senecas say that the project would severely impact the Nation’s Allegany Territory, located 65 miles downstream on the Allegheny River.

But Epiphany officials said they are hoping to be able to work things out with the Seneca Nation; they are looking to meet this month with the Senecas’ leadership.

“There is no timeline for decision on the necessary permits for the Epiphany wastewater facility,” Lehman said.

The Coudersport Area Municipal Authority needs to secure a national pollutant discharge elimination system permit amendment to accept wastewater from the Epiphany facility. The proposed project may also require air quality, earth disturbance, encroachment and/or waste management permits, plan approvals or exemptions.

“We view the great Seneca Nation as key stakeholders in all of this,” said Mike Broeker of Epiphany.

The company’s mission and vision are to produce clean water, he said. Broeker said that the company wants to report the facts to the Seneca Nation

“We appreciate their interest in the project, very much,” he said, saying company officials want to explain the project and technology.

The plan is for Epiphany’s Coudersport facility to treat water generated by local oil and gas production operations, from wells between 10 to 20 miles from the plant. The facility would be able to store a maximum of 67,000 gallons of wastewater in tanks set above the floodplain and outfitted with a redundant secondary containment system, the company said.

The facility would be able to treat a maximum of 42,000 gallons of water per day, something that the Seneca Nation says would come with insufficient removal of radioactivity. The Seneca Nation says that water used for fracking in Pennsylvania contains levels of radiation.

“Ohi:yo’ means ‘beautiful water,’ and we want to keep it that way,” said Seneca Nation Treasurer Maurice A. John Sr. “Pennsylvania OK’s fracking. That’s fine, if you can keep the fracking material in Pennsylvania. We don’t live in New York state. We live along the Ohi:yo’, the Allegany Territory. We don’t want to see this pollution occur. What’s at stake tonight is the next generation’s water supply.”

After the water is treated at the facility, it would be recycled to support more oil and gas completion operations or conveyed to CAMA’s treatment facility, Epiphany officials said.

In testimony given last month, Dr. Shannon Seneca, who works for the Seneca Nation Health System, noted that significant water pollution caused in the Allegheny watershed by the oil and gas industry, and pointed to Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution that “guarantees the right to clean water.”

Epiphany officials counter, “There will be no potential risk to the river or the environment from the discharge of treated water from Epiphany’s facility, and redundant safeguards are built into the facility’s operations to prevent any inadvertent release of water that has not undergone treatment.”

Waste water would be treated with a two-step process that removes metals through chemical precipitation, and then a distillation process takes out salt in the water, company officials said.

“Chemical precipitation technologies have been used reliably for decades, and the distillation process has been understood for centuries,” the company states. “In fact, distillation is the only process that is irrefutably proven to be 100 percent effective at removing salts from this type of waste water.”

In January, Seneca Nation President Todd Gates sent a letter to the Pennsylvania DEP urging the department to reject permit applications for the project.

“The Seneca people will not stay silent,” Gates said. “Water is life. The Seneca Nation, along with many concerned citizens along the Ohi:yo’, will stand strong against this dangerous plan that threatens our natural resources, our culture, and the health of thousands of people today and for generations to come.”

The Nation is also calling upon New York state, communities between Eulalia Township and the Nation’s Allegany Territory, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to opposed the proposed activity.

Next week, Cattaraugus County lawmakers are slated to vote to back the Seneca Nation in its efforts.