Bozeman City Commissioners decided against conducting a $125,000 air quality study related to the Bozeman Solvent Site at their weekly public meeting Monday night.

The Solvent Site first came to the public's attention in 1989. A dry cleaning service had been inadvertently dumping hazardous chemicals (PCE's) into the city sewer system. 

Various cleanup projects have been conducted over the past two decades, but the most recent series of tests are determining if dangerous levels of the chemicals have permeated air in nearby residences.

The study that was denied Monday night would have tested levels in homes away from the site to create a control group. This off-site study was initially recommended to the commission, but city staff changed that recommendation after the Montana Department of Environmental Quality said it would not include any control group information in the overall review of the site.

Instead, the DEQ says they will choose a number to compare with the levels found at the site. This artificially controlled number is generated from looking at similar tests conducted across the country.

Public Information Officer with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, Maryann Dunwell says the control number is generated through a scientific formula that calculates safe regional levels.

Commissioner Eric Bryson said he wondered why the DEQ wouldn't want all the information possible. Ultimately commissioners voted against doing the study, saying it would not be worth the money if the information would not be used.

Dunwell says an offsite study may not necessarily provide a perfect control group, due to possible prior PCE contamination of the off-site samples.

The DEQ plans to hold a meeting in Bozeman to discuss their work on the Bozeman Solvent Site on December 17.

Commissioners also voted to set a hard deadline for a bicycle/pedestrian path running from the intersection of College and 11th and Huffine and Ferguson. The 2.8-mile long, 10-foot wide, asphalt path is to be completed by September 2010. Changes in the design and price of the path were also approved. The cost estimate for the project is currently $612,269. 

In other business, the commission directed staff to draft an ordinance to lower the recently raised cost of a family pass for the Bozeman Swim Center from $508 to $335. The price had been raised to the $508 figure from last year's price of $230. Commissioners say that increase is disproportionately high compared with other Swim Center price increases.