BOR to start work fixing the St. Mary Diversion

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., announced Friday that U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced it will start work “immediately” to rehabilitate the St. Mary Diversion and Conveyance Works that supplies much of the water that flows through the Milk River each year.

Gov. Greg Gianforte also announced the news in a release Tuesday.

“I’m grateful for this much needed federal assistance to repair the St. Mary and Halls Coulee siphons,” Gianforte said. “The State of Montana stands ready to assist local and federal officials in responding to the widespread effects the failure will have on water users and irrigators.”

Gianforte in June sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton requesting federal assistance in response to the St. Mary siphon failure.

“I wish to thank the state of Montana for working with local officials to secure these federal funds to repair the St. Mary Canal,” Jennifer Patrick, project manager for the Milk River Joint Board of Control, said in the release. “Today’s announcement is a testament to what state and local coordination can look like. When we speak in one voice, it is much easier to get things done.

Tester said in his release that the administration of President Joe Biden announced Friday that the work will be done, following a catastrophic failure June 17 of two siphons in the system that carries water across 29 miles and drops it into the Milk River.

The Bureau of Reclamation agreed to fund the repairs through existing emergency authorities under Public Law 111-11, the release said.

“This is an important step forward for North Central Montana water users who rely on the Milk River Project to support their farm operations that feed the world and to keep their small businesses running,” Tester said in the release Friday. “I called on the Bureau of Reclamation to use their emergency authority to immediately begin repairs and I’m pleased that today they have committed to do so.  I’ll keep working to ensure the administration continues to listen to the thousands of impacted Montanans living in north-central Montana who couldn’t wait another minute for this relief.”

The Senate last month passed the Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Act, sponsored by Tester and cosponsored by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., that includes money to rehabilitate the diversion and and conveyance works.

Reps. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., and Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., are sponsors of companion legislation in the House and said they are working to get the bill passed there.

Rosendale said June 28 that he had spoken to the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources about getting the bill through committee and eventually on through the House.

A spokesperson for Zinke said Monday that a hearing is expected later in July.

The Diversion and Conveyance Works, which was completed in 1915, originally was funded completely by its users, primarily irrigators although it also provides municipal water for Havre, Chinook and Harlem. It had been patched together for years with a grassroots effort starting more than 25 years ago to find funding for full rehabilitation.

It had a catastrophic failure of a concrete drop structure that drops the water into the north fork of the Milk River in 2021. That was repaired by late summer and the system reopened.

The failure of the siphons in June again shut the system down, although BOR said enough water is in the Milk River Project storage, including Fresno Reservoir west of Havre and Nelson Reservoir northeast of Malta, that no immediate impacts would occur.