St. Mary Diversion rehabilitation finally sees funding

Last year, the collapse of Drop 5 of the St. Mary Diversion and the coordinated effort to fix it was one of the biggest stories of of the year, and this year the ongoing efforts — and finally some success — to fund long-overdue repairs to the Diversion was one of the biggest ongoing stories.

Local irrigators and residents had been warning for more than two decades that the diversion and conveyance system, which provides much of the water in the Milk River each year, was on the verge of collapse after many decades of repairs and band-aiding the system together to keep it running.

The system, part of the Milk River Project irrigation system, was one of the first projects the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was authorized to build after its creation in 1902, with the project authorized in 1903.

As an irrigation project, the current system requires users — the irrigators — to provide 74 percent of spending on operation, maintenance and repairs with the federal government paying 26 percent.

It comprises Sherburne Dam, which stores water in Lake Sherburne on Swift Current Creek, a dike that diverts the water into St. Mary River, the diversion dam that funnels water into the conveyance works, then 29 miles of canals, gigantic metal siphons and the concrete drop structures that drop the water into the North Fork of the Milk River. Most of the system is on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

The water flows through the North Fork of the Milk into Canada before returning to Montana and eventually flowing into the Missouri River near Nashua below Fort Peck Reservoir. It provides water for irrigators in the Milk River Valley as well as municipal water for communities along the river including Havre, Chinook and Harlem as well as providing water to the northern part of Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

The project was authorized as an irrigation system with funding for its operation and maintenance primarily coming from the irrigators using it.

As repair costs rose, the system was patched together for decades, and, more than 20 years ago, users began to warn that if major rehabilitation wasn’t done soon, the system would fail, which would be catastrophic to the region.

That failure came in May of last year when Drop 5 all but disintegrated, which prompted organizations at the local, state and federal levels, to spend the next few months getting the drop repaired relying on emergency funding.

The project was considered a massive success due to the short time in which it was completed, an accomplishment credited to effective communication and coordination between the organizations involved.

However, while the repair project was praised for its efficiency, it was clear that the diversion needed to be rehabilitated more comprehensively, a project with a final price tag between $200 and $225 million.

While much of the past year was spent trying to come up with these funds, and multiple avenues have yet to bear fruit, the recent passage of a massive infrastructure bill in Congress has provided up to $100 million in funding for the project.

The bill, which was signed into law last month, drew support from a number of Republicans but was pushed for primarily by Democrats including Sen. Jon Tester D-Mont., one of the bill’s primary architects, who celebrated its passage and the funding it would bring to the badly needed St. Mary project.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Tester said in an interview last month. “I was very happy that we were able to get this addressed when we set up the infrastructure bill.”

He said the impact for residents in the Milk River Valley is huge, especially for those working in agriculture.

“This is huge for agriculture on the Northern Tier. These guys ain’t rolling in dough in the best of situations, and without having to have this cost share they will get a predictability in water that they haven’t had for a long time,” he said. “And for the municipalities for like, say the town of Havre ... it’s going to allow Havre to grow for the next 100 years in a way they wouldn’t have been able to grow without this predictability.”

He said it also will help sustain and grow recreation and world-class fishing and hunting in the region.

Tester said that other projects that meet the criteria in the infrastructure bill, any project built by 1915 that has experienced a critical failure in the last two years, also could apply for the funding, but the senators had the St. Mary Diversion in mind when they set the criteria.

“Milk River is absolutely one of the projects,” he said. “I think they’ve got a pretty good chance of (getting funding).”

He added that the fact that no match is required makes a major difference. While future funding to finish the rehabilitation may need a match, this funding can move forward immediately without one.

“We have had an ongoing fight because the cost share dollars has really been an inhibitor to getting the project done, and look, I think going forward it still will be a challenge, but for these dollars we are in good shape,” he said.

Tester said while the $100 million is not enough for a full rehabilitation of the system, it will move things forward and likely help with future funding.

“This is going to get us a long ways towards that 200, 225 million dollar rehab,” he said, adding, “Money tends to attract money. ... The fact is is that I think there’s going to be other dollars coming this way as demand for those dollars becomes apparent.”

Other funding sources

While the passage of the infrastructure bill was a huge win for the project, two other potential funding sources have been considered in the past year.

One of these funding sources is the The St. Mary’s Reinvestment Act, which was introduced by the members of Montana’s congressional delegation including Tester, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.

The bill is being considered by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and includes $52 million in funding for the project.

Members of Montana’s congressional delegation have been working on the issue for years, including introducing a bill in 2018 to shift the funding to about 75 percent from the federal government and 25 percent from users.

An aspect of the project that the bill addresses is the fact that irrigators pay most of the cost of operating and maintaining the system — at this point, about 75 percent of the cost — and it has been patched together for decades.

Irrigators, as well as Montana’s congressional delegates, have long argued that this cost share is unreasonable and they simply do not have the money to keep the diversion working.

The St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group, formed in 2003 after users of the Milk River warned that catastrophic failure was likely unless major repairs — much more than the irrigators could afford — were made, has been working to address this issue.

An ability-to-pay study is being conducted to reevaluate the viability of the cost share and should be available for the public to read some time next month.

Milk River Joint Board of Control Project Manger Jennifer Patrick, a member of the working group, said the study is effectively complete and just needs to be reviewed by lawyers and relevant policy specialists to make sure it is ready for public consumption.

In a meeting of the working group this year, members of Montana’s congressional delegation expressed hope that an ability to pay study like this would make it clear that irrigators need a more equitable cost-share.

“I think (the study) will come back a hell of a lot better then 75 percent, it may come back as zero,” Tester said at the time.

Daines and Rosendale expressed similar sentiments and praised the group for their diligence and ongoing efforts to address this issue.

An avenue of funding that has, so far, been less successful is the working group’s efforts to secure funding for the project through the American Rescue Plan Act.

In a July meeting of the working group, Patrick said four separate applications had been submitted to the state in an attempt to fund the massive project.

But in August the group received word that all applications had been rejected.

Patrick said this was a disappointing development, but not an overly surprising one as ARPA guidelines said dams and reservoir projects are not being funded at this time, so the applications were a long shot.

Despite this set back, she said, all hope is not lost on the ARPA front as rules could change in subsequent rounds of funding.

Work on the St. Mary Diversion has been one of the biggest stories of the year in 2020, and 2021, and it’s likely that will be one of the biggest stories in 2022 as well, and hopefully one with a happy ending.