EVANSTON — With heavy snowfall this winter, some people or business owners might be wondering what to do with all the snow. Pushing it into a waterway is not the answer, as one local business recently learned.

An employee of Welling’s Auto Depot & RV, located on Bear River Drive, has been pushing the snow from its plowed lots into the Bear River. While the iceberg-like stack of snow isn’t severely blocking the river, it has encroached into the waterway and has some officials concerned.

“None of us are very happy about it,” Evanston Police Chief Jon Kirby said Thursday, adding that the state regulates and enforces such violations. “We don’t have any city ordinances that allow us to enforce that.”

Evanston Director of Public Works Gordon Robinson agreed.

“Yes, we too have noticed the snow being plowed into the river,” Robinson said in an email to the Herald. “We are currently unaware of any particular law to say if this practice is legal or not. Unwise, yes.”

In addition to potentially polluting the river and altering its flow, blocking any portion of the river could prove damaging should we experience warm weather earlier than usual, leading to high water levels.

“We are concerned about having the snow in the river and the potential it has to block the flow of the river,” Robinson said. “I have been to talk to the business owner and had a visit with him about how it is unwise to push the snow into the river because of the potential it has to block the flow in the event of a high runoff event.”

Robinson said the business owner didn’t realize his employee had pushed so much snow into the river and he has agreed to stop the practice immediately. Robinson also said a Welling’s Auto Depot employee will try to pull some of the snow back onto its property.

Keith Guille, the public information officer for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, said it’s good that the city is working with the business to resolve the issue. Guille said the Clean Water Act has an enormous number of rules and regulations. After checking with staff in the DEQ’s Water Quality Division, he said it’s common practice for communities to work together on such issues and that he believes the issue is on its way to resolution. Although he did say there are some environmental concerns.

“It’s not something we normally regulate,” Guille said. “What we do is try to work with the landowner and even the community to reduce the amount of those sediment loads. If you’re moving dirt from the side or moving snow with dirt, that can have an effect … on aquatic life and what not. … Some people don’t realize how that runoff could have an effect downstream.”

Guille said the DEQ might reach out to Welling’s Auto Depot to make sure employees there know how to better handle snow removal in the future.

Jay Welling, who owns the car and RV lot, wasn’t available Thursday to comment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not return emails or phone calls by press time.