Montana’s Ailing Rivers Need More Water,
Not Words and Endless Studies
Big Hole River at Nez Perce camp, Big Hole National Battlefield. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Forty-one years ago Gov. Ted Schwinden appointed me as chairman of his newly-formed Governor’s Drought Task Force. Montana’s legendary rivers were running dry, fish were dying, and the governor was whining, “I can’t make it rain.” So he appointed a task force.
The truth is, he didn’t understand much about coldwater fisheries or that aquatic ecosystems are vibrant webs of life that rely on sufficient water to function and remain healthy. When the trout go belly up, you don’t just go to the pet store and buy some new ones … nor do you replace the desiccated insect population clinging to the dried riverbed rocks.
The drought of ’85 was wicked, and followed by the severe drought of ’88, significantly impacted our rivers, streams, the fish and their food sources that rely on cold, clean and connected water to survive … the same exact necessities they evolved with over thousands of years.
It’s safe to say that rivers and fish weren’t a concern more than one hundred years ago when the first water rights were filed, claiming as much water as they could, primarily for mining and ranching. When Montana became a state in 1889, those water rights were recognized under the Prior Appropriation Doctrine with the tenet that those who filed “first in time” were “first in right” for water use.
But the Prior Appropriation Doctrine has very serious flaws that sacrifice the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires governments to maintain and protect public resources such as rivers and fish, to the priorities of the past.
Simply put, Montana has given away more water rights and permits than there is water in our rivers and streams. That’s the baseline problem — which is now exacerbated due to increasingly low snowpacks and higher year-round temperatures. The river flows of the past, which were so generously allocated to diversionary commercial interests, no longer exist today.
Yet, just this week the Legislature’s Environmental Quality Council heard more testimony on the very serious problems facing our rivers and streams and fish. Butte’s former legislator Jim Keane put it bluntly: “We’re in trouble.”
This is nothing new; we’ve been “in trouble” for at least 40 years as ongoing droughts create ever more “low flow years.” In fact, in 1989 the legislature passed the water leasing for instream flows law that gave the state both the funds and the ability to lease water to keep our rivers and fish healthy. In ’93, that right was expanded to any willing lessee, willing lessor. In ’95, even more funds were specifically set aside to lease water for instream flows.
Yet rather than address the primary issue, which is too little water left in rivers due to over-appropriation, legislators heard about studies for diseases, algae blooms, dissolved oxygen deficiencies, nutrients, and the never-ending recreation vs commercial conflicts over river use.
Unfortunately, the state and the so-called river and fisheries “advocates” have been seriously delinquent in using the tools and funding already available to maintain instream flows to keep fish and aquatic ecosystems healthy.
Despite the ability to do so, Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has never engaged in a serious, wide-spread attempt to contact water rights holders to lease water for our hundreds of chronically-dewatered rivers. Nor have the river and fisheries “advocacy” groups.
Had the state or the organizations done the work to lease sufficient water for instream flows, Montana’s rivers would not now be “in trouble.” Instead, we get more words and studies rather than providing enough water for our rivers and fish to survive — and until they do, the “trouble” is only going to get worse.
The Forest Service Cannot Cut the Public Out of Determining the Future of Holland Lake Lodge
Holland Lake. Photo: US Forest Service.
Holland Lake Lodge is located on public land in the Flathead National Forest in western Montana. Yet the Forest Service is effectively cutting the public out of how and for whom public lands and dollars will be used with its proposal to rebuild the privately-operated Lodge’s sewage system. Forest Supervisor Anthony Botello determined the multi-million dollar rebuild is a “Categorical Exemption” under the National Environmental Policy Act, which greatly curtails public involvement and environmental review.
This is not a small project and could expose Holland Lake – a pristine mountain lake near the Bob Marshall Wilderness – to sewage contamination if the system fails. Botello wants to expand the capacity of the wastewater treatment pond at Holland Lake by five times so the new private business managing Holland Lake Lodge can make more money. Botello won’t say how much our bill is, only that it will be in the millions of dollars.
Just to be clear, Botello wants taxpayers to pay millions to greatly expand the size of the wastewater treatment pond to benefit a private business, but the American people cannot have a say in this decision. Only the Forest Service and the private corporation do. What could go wrong?
For one thing, the new plan will pump human waste and food waste directly into the sewage pond and then spray it onto the surrounding forest directly above the existing Forest Service campground. The previous design pumped the sewage into the pond after it first sat in a septic tank where the solids sunk to the bottom.
But as the Forest Service’s own signs warn: “This is bear country!” Sewage ponds with food waste pumped directly into them will undoubtedly attract grizzly bears. How could anyone think luring grizzly bears with a pond full of food waste next to a campground is a good idea?
The new sewage pond will require 15,000 cubic yards of fill to raise a 2-acre site 10 feet higher and is based on a design that has failed twice in the last 20 years. A similar design, with less than half the seismic potential, failed in Idaho in a moderate earthquake.
If an earthquake causes the sewage pond to collapse, the sewage will run downhill, through the campground, right into Holland Lake. I doubt if the people who can afford to stay at Holland Lake Lodge will like swimming in raw sewage — but the bull trout in Holland Lake, listed as threatened on the Endangered Species list, certainly won’t.
The purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act is to ensure the federal government “looks before it leaps” and gives the public a say in how our public lands are managed. Instead, federal bureaucrats apparently have decided we, the public, don’t deserve to have a say. Instead, they are consulting behind closed doors with the Utah businessman who wants to get rich by turning Holland Lake Lodge into a retreat for the wealthy to have weddings and parties.
It is clear the public must be involved in the plans to reopen Holland Lake Lodge. Former Forest Supervisor, Kurt Steele, lost his job for trying to keep the public in the dark. If Botello continues to “exempt” the public, he should be replaced as well.
Please tell the Forest Service that we have had enough of their secret plans. The American people deserve a say in what happens at Holland Lake and who gets to go there. Billionaires have already ruined Big Sky. Let’s protect Holland Lake and return Holland Lake Lodge to a place all Americans can enjoy, not just billionaires.
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