St. Mary group resets meeting to July 6

The group working to find ways to rehabilitate the system that normally provides much of the water in the Milk River each year has reset its meeting that was cancelled due to June flooding.

The St. Mary Working Group will meet Wednesday in the Tin Cup in Malta from 11 a. m. to 3 p. m.

The original meeting had been set for June 15, but was cancelled due to the flooding in the Milk River Valley.

The working group, formed early last decade, is coordinating efforts to rehabilitate the St. Mary Diversion, one of the first projects the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation was authorized to build and operate when it was created early last century.

This month's agenda, in addition to regular board business, will include discussions of requirements and implementation of the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation grant, potential development of low-head power generation in the system, and updates on dealing with ongoing canal maintenance.

The system, created to provide irrigation water in the Milk River, diverts water from St. Mary River to the Milk through a 29-mile-long series of dams, canals and siphons. The operation and repairs of the system have been paid for by the irrigators who use the water.

While the diversion was authorized in 1903 to provide water for irrigators, it also provides water for Havre, Chinook, Harlem, Fort Belknap and, until recently, the Hill County Water District west of Havre and the North Havre Water District. It also provides water for recreation.

In 2007, Congress authorized spending $153 million to rebuild the system, although no money was set aside at that time and only a small portion of that has been appropriated since.

A separate project, to protect the threatened species of bull trout that lives in the St. Mary watershed, is being set to rebuild the diversion dam at the start of the system of canals and siphons

The Working Group, established in 2003, is working with the Milk River Joint Board of Control irrigation organization, the Montana Department of Natural Resources — Water Resources, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U. S. Congress to find a way to rehabilitate the St. Mary Canal before it suffers a catastrophic failure.

The 16-member Working Group includes representatives from irrigated agriculture, the Blackfeet and Fort Belknap tribes, municipal water supply, local economic development and recreation.

Co-chaired by Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger and Chinook-area irrigator Randy Reed, the meetings of the group are open and the public is encouraged to attend and comment during the public comment portion of the meetings.

For questions or additional information, people can visit the Working Group website at http://dnrc.mt.gov/st_mary or contact its executive director, Larry Mires, at 17 Robertson Court, Glasgow, MT 59230, (406) 263-8402, email, smrwg@nemont.net, or call State Coordinator Mary Vandenbosch at the DNRC Office in Helena at (406) 444-9748.