By Mike Dailey, DNRC

In November of 2003 a grass roots initiative, the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group (SMRWG) combined forces with the State of Montana in search of a “workable solution” to one of the most vexing water supply problems in the west: Fixing the St. Mary diversion facilities. It is difficult to write a short piece on the St. Mary rehabilitation effort without providing some level of background. The St. Mary facilities are a series of infrastructure that includes Sherburne Dam and Swift Current Dike on Swift Current Creek; the St. Mary Diversion Dam and headworks on the St. Mary River; and a 29-mile trans-basin canal with impressive structures such as the St Mary River and Hall’s Coulee Siphons, and a series of five concrete drop structures that chute water off the Hudson Bay/Gulf of Mexico Divide down 256 feet into the North Fork Milk River. It is not only the transfer of water across a divide by gravity, nor the immensity of these structures that impresses; what grabs the imagination is the fact that it was all built with horses nearly a century ago. Virtually all of the St. Mary diversion facilities lie within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and even by today’s standards, remotely located.

These facilities literally operate on borrowed time. Nearly 50 years beyond their design life, they still deliver: conveying roughly 160,000 acre-feet annually for irrigation on the lower reaches of the Milk River. At a glance, rehabilitating the facilities appears to be a straightforward logistical affair for engineers to tackle; but acre for acre, the Milk River basin is probably the most politically complex in the west. Woven into the fabric of the Milk and St. Mary basins is a knotty mix of federally reserved water rights, international apportionment rules, manifold jurisdictions and outmoded authorization; each having repercussions on the others. A speedy rehabilitation of this project is attenuated by these cumbersome and disjointed realities.

Senate Bill 3563 (S. 3563) was the $184 million solution served up by the SMRWG, addressing rehabilitation, stakeholder issues, opening the door for new revenue streams, and ultimately, basin self-sufficiency. But testimonial endorsements in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources field hearing, held on September 1, 2006 in Havre, ranged from enthusiastic to cautious and/or conditional for the rehabilitation of the facilities. The bill, sponsored by Senator Burns, died in committee when the 109th Congress adjourned. There was some hope to move forward with $5 million toward a feasibility study through appropriations language, but congress passed a continuing resolution that placed a moratorium on all earmarks for FY 2007, which will in all likelihood delay the feasibility study yet another year.

Despite the recent funding setbacks, the SMRWG has made significant strides in its three-year existence: gaining moral and financial support from basin residents and the Montana Legislature; and introducing a significant piece of federal legislation in S. 3563. Furthermore, the SMRWG has elevated the Milk River Project from relative obscurity into the spotlight role of “poster child” for a growing dilemma that faces water projects across the western United States.

In the meantime the formal processes grind on: the Blackfeet Tribe, State of Montana, and the Federal Government continue to negotiate toward a settlement with ambitious hopes of presenting a water rights compact to the 2007 Montana Legislature; the International Joint Commission mulls over its options regarding the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty and the 1921 Order that governs the division of the Milk and St. Mary waters. Larry Mires, Executive Director for the SMRWG, is still working a few remaining avenues in the slim chance that feasibility study funds can be obtained from Congress in FY 2007. But the SMRWG and DNRC primary focus is toward gearing up for another run at the 110 th Congress for FY 2008, and considering options that keep will the ball rolling and the water flowing in what is shaping up to be a long haul.

The St. Mary diversion facilities keep a large portion of Montana viable: the Hi-Line economy depends on it; the Fort Belknap Compact is predicated on its reliability; the Blackfeet Tribe seeks resolution to environmental and right-of-way concerns with the existing facilities; and international apportionment requirements cannot be satisfied without it. The SMRWG is working to find solutions that are fair to all stakeholders, and fosters self-sufficiency and sustainability for the basin with a do-it-once;-do-it-right philosophy.

For more information on the St. Mary rehabilitation, federal legislation or the Milk River Project, check out the following websites: http://dnrc.mt.gov ; http://energy.senate.gov ; http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/milkriver.html.