State bills providing funding for St. Mary diversion discussed

Members of the St. Mary's Rehabilitation Working Group discussed at its meeting Tuesday bills in the 2023 legislative session that would provide the project with millions of dollars.

House Bill 6 will provide $26 million to the project as a nontraditional loan, which requires repayment of interest but not principal, and House Bill 8 will provide another $26 million as a traditional loan.

Members of the group said they were extremely happy about this outcome, but the group's representative from the City of Chinook, Greg Jergeson, said he had serious concerns about the language in the bills.

The St. Mary Diversion, one of the first projects the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was authorized to build when the bureau was created at the start of the last century, diverts water from the St. Mary River on the border of Glacier National Park through a system of dams, dikes, siphons and canals across the Blackfeet Indian Reservation into the North Fork of the Milk River. The water then flows into Canada before returning to Montana.

The system typically provides half or more of the water in the Milk River. In drought years like last year, and what appears to be coming this year, it can supply up to 90 percent of the water in the river.

Before the diversion was built, the Milk River dried up by the fall in 6 of 10 years.

The system has been patched together for decades. The Milk River Project, which includes the diversion, was authorized as an irrigation project, so irrigators using the water had to pay for most of the upkeep and repairs. Major repairs and rehabilitation usually could not be funded.

More than 20 years ago, a coalition of Milk River water users started pushing for repairs to the project before catastrophic failure occurred. The state formed the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group in 2003 to push for repairs and rehabilitation of the system.

A taste of their warnings came true in 2020, when the last concrete drop structure where the conveyance works flows into the Milk River collapsed, requiring shutting the system down. A major - highly successful - effort to get the structure done by fall was added to scheduled work on other drop structures that had problems.

Members of the working group Tuesday thanked the legislators who crafted and supported the legislation that is providing these funds, and thanked Milk River Joint Board of Control Program Manager Jen Patrick for her advocacy for the bills that contain this funding.

Patrick said the language in the bills creates a fund for them to make payments on the loans and store money for future repairs and maintenance, which is a good thing for the future.

However, Jergeson said he feels there are serious problems with the bills, including that the $26 million is being called a "loan."

He said because the legislation only requires repayment of interest and not the principal it is a grant, not a loan, and to call it otherwise is inappropriate.

He also said he was concerned by language in the bills pertaining to how cities would pay their share of the costs for the diversion's ongoing upkeep and repairs and asked what exactly these bills require from the cities, considering they were never consulted during the creation of these bills.

Lieutenant Gov. Kristen Juras, co-chair of the working group, said the bills only mention that the cities are responsible for part of the cost, and does not stipulate a number.

Patrick said any decisions about what that number would be would involve the cities won't be determined for two years, in all likelihood.

Jergeson also said he was concerned by the stipulation that some of this funding would be contingent upon an ability-to-pay study being drawn up to examine the cost share between the federal government and irrigators for upkeep of the system.

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

This is an arrangement, although an improvement over what was in place 20 years ago - the original authorization required users to pay for all operation and maintenance - that irrigators have said is unaffordable and will worsen problems at the already beleaguered system.

An ability-to-pay study is being conducted to evaluate the concerns of irrigators and hopefully become a tool to argue for the cost share to be reevaluated and significantly changed.

Juras said the bills don't require that the ability-to-pay study be followed to the letter, but instead just ask for the results of the study and some kind of assurance that an arrangement between irrigators and the federal government is financially sustainable.

Jergeson, who was a 20-year state senator and served on the Public Service Commission for eight years, asked why the governor's budget officer is being allowed to micromanage these funds.

DNRC Resource Development Bureau Chief Autumn Coleman said the governor's budget office is always part of the approval process for funding like this.

Jergeson said nothing in these bills addresses the financial concerns of local irrigators.

Patrick said the state can't really do anything about that other than support the shifting of the cost share between the irrigators and the federal government.

Juras said Gov. Greg Gianforte and Rep. Ryan Zinke R-Mont., are also both on board to fix the cost share.

Robert Bruskotter from the offices of Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said the senator is interested in trying to bring the issue of the cost share back up in the Senate, but he is currently focused on an important water settlement, so he doesn't really have a timetable on that.

At the meeting the group also discussed other matters regarding the diversion and related water systems.

Working Group Coordinator Dave Peterson said they have a Milk River Project Facebook page up and running, so anyone who wants to share relevant information can get in touch with him or Juras to put it on the page.

Fresno Safety of Dams Project Manager Steve Darlinton of the U.S. The Bureau of Reclamation said a project at the dam is underway.

Since its construction in 1939, Fresno Dam has settled significantly and developed cracks that have caused BOR to start a project to rehabilitate and update the dam.

Darlinton and others have said that there is no immediate danger posed by the settlement and cracks, as they are something that happens to dams over time, but they could become a danger at some point in the future if left unaddressed, hence the need for work on the dam.

At Tuesday's meeting Darlinton said the road across the dam will be reduced to one lane soon, likely the week of June 5.

As for current irrigation, Patrick said all areas have been irrigated other than Glasgow, which experienced flooding that destroyed a large chunk of their canal.

Patrick and Montana Sen. Mike Lang, R-Malta, said the work to repair the canal is very complicated and the solution being used is innovative and they want to thank everyone not just for working to address the issue, but for cooperating so well.

Patrick said Nelson Reservoir is in good shape and nearly full, and Fresno is spilling over a little bit.

Patrick also asked members of the group to get alternates up to speed so their parties can be represented at these meetings even if they aren't able to attend.

The group also briefly discussed setting up a tour of the United States side of St. Mary for members of Canada's Milk River Watershed Council.