St. Mary-Milk River Irrigation Project Gets $53 Million Appropriation in State Legislature

Senator Mike Lang submitted a recommended $53 million change to House Bill 6 secured a 5-1 vote from the appropriations subcommittee focused on infrastructure. It is nonbinding and will need a vote from the full House Appropriations Committee to actually be added to the legislation. The funding will be used to replace the 108 year old siphons before they suffer catastrophic failure.

This is critical, explained Marko Manoukian, Local Co-Chair of the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group. We used to say that a complete rehabilitation would cost $200 million. Now the $100 million secured by Senator Tester in the Infrastructure Act passed by congress in 2020 will only cover the diversion structure.

At the same time the irrigation districts and the municipalities that benefit from the water have already signed repayment contract with the Bureau of Reclamation for $12 million to pay for the Safety of Dams project on Fresno Reservoir. This work will start in 2023. Safety of Dams contract require beneficiaries to pay 15% of the total cost. This means the total cost could be $80 million at Fresno.

Beneficiaries just cannot continue to absorb these large expensive improvements alone. Beneficiaries need Congress to change the cost allocation on the rest of the project. Current allocation is outdated and beneficiaries pay 76% of all maintenance and capital improvement costs. Beneficiaries would be unable to handle rising cost had the Infrastructure Act funding not been non-reimbursable.

This makes the state contribution critical. The Working Group has been meeting since 2002 to find a workable solution to the aging infrastructure. In 2019, then Representative Gianforte told the working group in a meeting that the water project was the “most important infrastructure project in the state”. This funding in HB6, would prove it. Water users and citizens in the basin should reach out to the Long- Range Planning as well as Governor Greg Gianforte for administrative support of this water project https://governor.mt.gov/Contact/.