State water meetings get under way

GREAT FALLS — Montana officials hope to gather comments on the upper and lower Missouri River on Monday during the first of several public meetings as they develop a state water plan.

The Great Falls Tribune reports that state water plan that will guide decisions for the next two decades.

The state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Upper Missouri River Basin Advisory Council are hosting meetings scheduled through Oct. 9. The meetings are planned for Great Falls, Conrad, Helena, Bozeman and Dillon.

Additional meetings conducted by the DNRC and Lower Missouri River Basin Advisory Council are planned in Lewistown, Glasgow, Culbertson, Roundup, Harlowton and Havre between Oct. 8 and Nov. 7.

The meetings offer an opportunity for residents to voice their thoughts.

“So if they’re concerned about municipal use or water for ag use or water for in-stream flows for fish and wildlife it’s a great opportunity to come and let these issues and opinions be heard,” said Michael Downey, supervisor of the Water Planning Section in the DNRC’s Water Resources Division.

“We live in a state of limited water resources and certainly given climate change and drought, where demand regularly outstrips supply, the water planning process is trying to be smarter about how we manage water,” Downey said. “Because we’ve only got so much.”

He said the effort is the most comprehensive water plan study the state has done, and that it could lead to legislation involving water use in the basins.

But he said there is still work to do on gathering information on consumption of groundwater, rivers and tributaries. New demands are also being placed on water. Industrial use of water has increased in eastern Montana for energy development, he said, mainly for hydraulic fracturing.

Downey noted the state currently has a range of planning documents concerning water, but no overall plan.

Lawmakers in 2009 amended the state water planning statute requiring the DNRC to update the state water plan. The agency is directed to report back to the 2015 Legislature.

Rep. Kathleen Williams, D-Bozeman, will facilitate the meetings on the Upper Missouri River.

“The purpose of the plan is to figure out how to supply the water resource needs for Montana 20 years in the future and protect the existing uses in doing so,” she said.