Daines, Tester, Walsh push water project funding

Montana's freshman member of the U.S. House of Representatives - also a candidate for the Senate - has joined the Montana U.S. senators in calling for a permanent fund to help complete regional water projects including in north-central Montana.

Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., announced in a press release he has sponsored a bill to create a fund to build water projects that Congress already has approved.

"Water supplies will be the key to the future of northern Montana, and we are deeply appreciative of Rep. Steve Daines' efforts to introduce this legislation that will ensure the Rocky Boy's/North Central Montana Rural Water System is completed at a much sooner rate than under current funding," Shelby Mayor Larry Bonderud, president of the North Central Montana, said in a press release announcing the bill.

"It is imperative that the federal government fulfill its obligations and promises to Montana's rural communities and provides needed funding to ensure our rural water projects are completed," Daines said in the release. "The Authorized Rural Water Projects Completion Act will provide our rural communities with the resources necessary to finish these projects and will ensure that taxpayer dollars are best put to use as we work to improve our water infrastructure in Montana's rural and tribal communities."

The bill is a companion to a bill originally sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont, now U.S. ambassador to China.

Baucus reintroduced the bill last year, and it is co-sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and the man appointed to replace him, Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont. - who will face Daines in next fall's general election if both advance past June's primary election.

Could be close to finding funding on stalled projects

Tester's communications director, Marneé Banks, said the Senate bill has passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is awaiting action on the floor of the Senate.

"Sen. Tester has been working on this bill for several years and will continue to work ensuring that rural Montana has access to clean water, which leads to healthy families and stronger communities," Banks said.

Walsh said the government needs to ensure projects already approved are actually built.

"This bill is vital to providing certainty and stability for regional rural water drinking water projects in Montana," he said. "It is imperative that we finish the projects that Congress has already authorized, and this bill will accomplish that."

Providing water for thousands

The Rocky Boy's/North Central Regional Water System, which grew out of the water compact the Chippewa Cree Tribe of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation negotiated with the state and federal government and was approved in the 1990s, would provide drinking water from Lake Elwell south of Chester to residents of Rocky Boy and people off the reservation from Loma north to the Canadian border and west to the Rocky Mountain Front.

The project, which would provide water to some 30,000 Montanans, has received piece-meal funding since Congress authorized it in 2002 at a price tag of $228 million. Since then it has inched along, typically getting $5 million to $10 million in the first years after it was authorized through earmarks made by the members of Montana's congressional delegation.

The largest funding for the project came through 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provided $20 million.

Other Montana projects include the Fort Peck-Dry Prairie project and the proposed Dry-Redwater Regional Water System in eastern Montana, which is nearing completion of its feasibility study and for which Baucus introduced an authorization bill in February.

Other projects are in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and New Mexico.

Creating permanent fund for authorized projects

The funding bills would create an authorized rural water project fund, directing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that oversees those projects to take $80 million of federal oil and gas royalties and proceeds from sale of power from federal hydroelectric dams that goes into the reclamation fund - generally $1 billion to $2 billion a year - and put it into a fund for rural water projects.

The reclamation fund was established in 1902 along with the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, to fund bureau projects and operation and maintenance of its facilities.

Telecommunications questions

The senators also met with representatives of Havre-based Triangle Communications, which provides telecommunications for people along the Hi-Line from Joplin to Whitewater and south to Big Timber.

Walsh, who is a member of the Commerce Committee that oversees the Universal Service Fund that helps pay for expanding service, said he discussed with the Triangle representatives expanding service in rural Montana.

"Montana residents and small business owners in our rural communities rely on broadband services and need access to affordable high-speed internet," Walsh said in a release. "Montanans across the state should have the same tools at their disposal as folks living in more urban areas. Our business owners need to be able to reach people outside of their communities so that they can continue to make valuable contributions to our state's economy."

Banks said Tester also is looking forward to working with Triangle to expand broadband access in rural Montana, and also is working to improve other communications service in rural Montana. Tester sponsored a bill requiring smaller and intermediate phone companies that contract to provide service to smaller communities and rural areas to register with the Federal Communications Commission and comply with new call standards. This would ensure that the companies are actually connecting calls and not just dropping them because it's expensive to connect, Banks said.

Preserving the North Fork

Daines, Walsh and Tester also are joining forces in an effort Baucus spearheaded for many sessions of Congress, protecting the North Fork Watershed in western Montana.

Daines recently sponsored a companion bill to the bill originally introduced by Baucus, co-sponsored by Tester and Daines.

Walsh said he met Wednesday with Montana members of the National Parks Conservation Association to talk about issues including the bill, which would protect the North Fork watershed on the western side of Glacier National Park from energy and mineral development, preserving the tourism economy and jobs that it generates.

Though the bill has the bipartisan support of Montana's Congressional delegates, three senators rejected Walsh's effort to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote, he said. The bill has been unanimously passed in both the House and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"The obstruction blocking the North Fork Watershed Protection Act is just another example of Washington at its worst," Walsh said. "This is a measure supported by Montanans and would serve Montanans, but political games are keeping it from passing even after extensive review in the House and Senate. I appreciate the partnership from the National Parks Conservation Association and am hopeful that together we will be able to get the bill across the finish line."