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By Josh Margolis
HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – It’s been three weeks since the St. Mary’s System was turned back on for the season, and water is beginning to flow downstream and into Fresno Reservoir.
Jennifer Patrick, Milk River Joint Board of Control Project Manager, says the system had to be shut down after an employee damaged a gate. The issue was rectified and the employee no longer works with the Joint Board.
Patrick says the employee will not face legal ramifications since it would be hard to prove.
“There’s one or two man crews out there. You can see it was damaged, whether they didn’t tell you, whether it was on purpose or they accidentally did it or what happened. But the employee is no longer with us.”
Another issue that has popped up is a leak on the Diversion Dam at the head of the canal.
“They patched it. It’s diverting out of the river backing up the river, so you’re able to patch that. Nothing with the Diversion Dam stopped (the system). The facilities look good, other than the fact that it’s 100 years old. The new drop structures are running fantastic. But other than that, we’re about a week and a half behind where we wanted to be.”
Although the system is up and running for the season, the continuing drought is likely to complicate things. Patrick says a Joint Board meeting is scheduled for later this month to discuss irrigation allotments.
“Without any rain or precipitation, I’d imagine we’re going to start (making calls on irrigation) in the middle of May, which is 15 or 20 days earlier than normal operations. That’s with drought conditions. If we were to get rain, we’d push those back to normal operations.”
As for Fresno Reservoir, it is currently at around 40,500 acre-feet, or 43 percent capacity. Patrick says it would be ideal to get the Reservoir up to 60,000 acre-feet before any irrigation starts.
“With current conditions, we’re looking at right now, water just start hitting from the St. Mary’s Project. The initial stuff was runoff. So that water is starting. So we should start coming up about 900 acre-feet a day. It should move rapidly after this point.”
Working on Obtaining Funding
While the system is running, work continues to ensure the project receives funding to rehabilitate the entire system before another catastrophic failure.
The top priority is a complete rehabilitation of the Diversion Dam at the head of the canal, which has an estimated cost of $60 million.
There are three different political efforts ongoing to try and obtain funding for the St. Mary’s Project. Two of them are through Congressional means.
One is the St. Mary’s Reinvestment Act, which was introduced by Montana’s Congressional Delegation but has not moved much due to other work going on in D.C.
The second is through an infrastructure package that is making its way through Congress.
“(The Reinvestment Act) has not gone anywhere right now. Maybe it’ll get moved into an infrastructure package. That’s unclear at this time. But that $52 million (allocated in the Act) has not come to the project.”
The third is through House Bill 632 in the State Legislature. This is the bill that is allocating the latest round of COVID relief funds.
“The money that would be in the (bill) would actually come directly to the project to help us fix the Diversion Dam, the siphons, the canals, all of the rest of the infrastructure that needs to be fixed. So all of those large, ongoing projects. Fresno Safety of Dams, Fresno Spillway. Those are all in this pool of money, possibly. If the St. Mary’s Project would be approved for those COVID funds.”
As currently written, the bill calls for $500 million to be allocated to water and wastewater projects. Requirements for projects to receive funding have not been finalized, but Patrick believes the St. Mary’s checks all of the boxes.
“With (American Rescue Plan Act) funding, you have to make the connection with COVID. Wastewater and water are two of the big ticket items in this. We have four municipalities. We have wastewater, water, we have all the aquifer wells, we have everything. So we’re checking a lot of boxes. It depends on where the legislature goes with the requirements.”
Patrick says they are requesting around $100 million be allocated to the St. Mary’s Project over the next four years.
“Right now, we’ve been a very big topic of conversation. The Governor’s office has been so supportive of this project since he’s been a representative. And so I think conversations are going well. The legislature can change very quickly. But as far as us being in there, we’re going to have the same opportunity, hopefully, to apply, as all of the other water and wastewater projects.”
The St. Mary Canal and Conveyance Works System serves 140,000 irrigation acres along the Milk River, as well as drinking water to over 18,000 Montanans, including the Fort Belknap Indian Community, the Blackfeet Nation and many towns along the Hi-Line.
