AWR sues to stop flow of St. Mary water for Bull Trout

At the last St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group meeting it was discussed that the Alliance for the Wild Rockies on October 1, 2019 announced a 60-day notice of intent to sue federal agencies over declining bull trout numbers in Glacier National Park. This would essentially stop the flow of water from the St. Mary River into the Milk River, eliminating drinking water for 18,000 people, dry up 120,000 irrigated acres and leaving more than a million people hungry from its production.

Since the SMRWG formed in 2003, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) was aware that the project took some bull trout, an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act as a part of diverting water. Ironically, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has researched, documented and reported to the SMRWG and the MRJBC that even with the takings, bull trout in the St. Mary drainage had the best population of bull trout in the range of bull trout across the west.

Abby Linsk from the lobbying firm Water Strategies was on hand to meet the SMRWG members and report on activities in Washington DC. She is working on Congressional language that will trigger a cost-share change. This language will most likely be placed in the Water Resource Development Act and is due November 1. It may be necessary to combine it with another water project to eliminate the looks of an earmark in Congress. There is plenty of deteriorated infrastructure to work with, with two dam failures in Texas and most recently the tunnel collapse and canal breach on the Goshen Irrigation District in Wyoming and Nebraska. This resulted in crops of alfalfa, beans and wheat going six weeks without water costing the region over $89 million in agricultural and economic losses.

In other news, SMRWG hosted two tours of the deteriorated irrigation project in September. Senator Tester's staffer, Henry Ring toured the system. He noted that infrastructure is a hot topic in congress but no one has discussed how to pay for it.

Martha Mintz, editor for the Furrow Magazine managed by John Deere, toured the facility in early October. Mintz was writing a story for the publication about aging infrastructure reaching about 1.5 million readers nationwide as of 2018. The story will be published in each of the six Furrower Magazines because of its National Importance, water and food. The cover photo of the story shows a section of one of the eight-foot siphons dripping water and the title of the story is “A Dripping Time Bomb” due to the over 100-year-old siphon and canal system.

The SMRWG will meet after the Congressional Language is submitted in November.