The River Blog

What’s our most critical resource? Water.

But it’s not an infinite resource. If we want to continue to have clean and plentiful water, we need to be responsible and thoughtful about how we care for it, and come to a common understanding about how we share it.

In this vein, the long-awaited bill to approve the Water Rights Compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes has been introduced at Montana’s legislative session.  This proposed Compact clarifies water rights, lays out water management systems, and addresses issues that have remained unresolved for far too long in this part of the Clark Fork watershed.

The bill is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow in the House Judiciary Committee, Room 137 at 8:00 am.   The Clark Fork Coalition recognizes how much is at stake for everyone who will be affected by the Compact. We are also aware of what’s at stake for Montana’s water resources – and the communities they sustain – if this agreement fails. That’s why the Coalition is in full support of the compact and urges that it be approved this legislative session.

You can help. Please contact the House Judiciary Committee TODAY and urge them to approve HB 629. Click here to send a comment to the committee via an online form, or call (406) 444-4800 and leave a message for the committee.

Read more about the Coalition’s full position on the Water Rights Compact here.

We need your help before Thursday.

House Bill 561 would allow developers to drill an unlimited number of groundwater wells at the expense of rivers and ranchers. It’s currently on the floor of the House of Representatives, and you can make a big difference by calling your rep today at 444-4800 to ask them to VOTE NO on House Bill 561.

Need some talking points?

This is a bill that would allow development of an unlimited amount of unregulated, unmonitored groundwater wells, with no review of the impact of these wells to other water rights holders or nearby rivers and streams. Ask your representative to do the right thing for our hard-working, irreplaceable rivers – vote no on House Bill 561.

Need to find your representative?
Use this link. Call and leave a message for your rep at 444-4800, or use this online form to submit comments.

Hear Policy Director Brianna Randall speak against House Bill 561 here:

Our hardy volunteers join us to gather data on snowpack that will help predict future streamflows.

Many thanks to Kim Briggeman and Tom Bauer from the Missoulian for joining us at our ‘How to Track Snowpack’ event this past Monday, and for covering the day’s material in such an informative and comprehensive way. We’ve cross-posted the article below, or you can read it here.

And, if you missed this week’s event, we still have two ways for you to participate as a volunteer and assist with snowpack monitoring this winter. Join us on March 24 or April 21 for a field trip on skis or snowshoes up Ambrose Creek near Stevensville, and help collect real-time data that will be used by NRCS scientists to predict streamflows on the Bitterroot River. Find out more at clarkfork.org.

Expert offers lesson in measuring snowpack in Pattee Canyon

by Kim Briggeman of the Missoulian

Brian Domonkos made snow surveying look easy Monday. In truth it was.

A water supply specialist from the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Bozeman, Domonkos fashioned a couple of short lengths of hollow aluminum pipe into a snow tube, which he dropped vertically into the snow just off the Crazy Canyon trailhead in Pattee Canyon.  It sliced through the old snow to bare ground, and came back up with 10 1/2 inches worth of snow.

It’s not always so simple, Domonkos said.  “You get out to the Cascades and the Sierras, it’s amazing some of the techniques they have to sample snow and punch through the ice layers in some of the deeper snowpack,” he said.  Sometimes it takes a tube 10 sections long to get to the bottom.

“The Snow Survey manual actually shows where you have one guy get on top of the shoulders of another guy to help drive it down,” he said with a chuckle. “That is an approved snow survey technique.”

Domonkos was invited to Missoula by the Clark Fork Coalition for a free presentation on how the experts track snowpack. Thirteen people showed up to watch.  Snow depth isn’t ultimately what he’s looking for, Domonkos said. The snow tube has been used since snow surveying began in the Sierras in 1909 to monitor the levels of Lake Tahoe. It lets its operator measure the density of the snow and translate that into a snow water equivalent – in essence the depth of water that would result if you melted the entire snowpack at once.  In Pattee Canyon’s case, that depth at noon on Monday would have been 2 inches.

Whether that’s an indicator of what will make it into Pattee Creek during the spring is another matter, Domonkos said. There are 90 designated “snow courses” across Montana, many of them visited during five working days of each winter month. The good ones have been proven over the years to correlate their SWE readings with streamflow levels down below.  For his demonstration, Domonkos chose an open area on a slight downslope and away from a canopy of trees that would make snow depths inconsistent.

“We’re kind of at the headwaters of Pattee Canyon, so actually this is probably not a bad site as long as it represents the area we’re in,” he said. “But who knows if this place right here is going to truly represent the general snowpack that’s then going to become the streamflow? There’s only one way to find out and that’s to sample it for a few years and see if it correlates to streamflow.”

***

Snow courses typically are set up at off-the-path places in the woods, usually with 10 survey points along a transect. Until computers came into the picture, snow tubes and snow courses were the sole sources of snowpack data.  Now there are another 90 Snotels in the state – sophisticated snow telemetry sites that electronically measure snow depth, snow water equivalencies, temperature and other data, then bounce microwave signals off the ionsphere “shield” and back to a master station on Earth.

While important collectors of real-time data, Snotels rely on proper placement at snow sites. And for that, the old-time snow courses remain invaluable.  “If you don’t sample the snow when you put a Snotel site in you’re going to have to take that $25,000 to $30,000 installation out and move it, sometimes (as little as) 100 yards,” said Domonkos.

Some Snotels and snow courses offer more bang for the buck than others. One of the good Snotel sites is set up just off a ski run at Lost Trail Pass, where it can forecast streamflows for Idaho’s Salmon River as well as the Bitterroot and lower Big Hole drainages.  “We get kind of a triple play out of a site like that,” Domonkos said.

The latest readings indicate snowpack at 89 percent of normal statewide and slightly lower than that west of the mountains.  That may be inflated somewhat compared to past readings, Domonkos said. The 30-year norms this year exclude the decade of the 1970s, a relatively moist 10 years, and include 2001 to 2010 – “very dry years,” according to Domonkos.

Snowpack readings used to be the purveyance solely of streamflow forecasters, but that has changed.  “Now the data is used for everything,” said Domonkos.  When the Snotel site went down in Hoodoo Basin in Mineral County a little over a month ago, “we had snowmobilers emailing us every single day asking why is the site down? What’s going on? Recreationalists use it a lot any more,” he said.

His office also gets regular inquiries from those studying climate change.  “It’s amazing some of the inquiries we get internationally about how our data is generated and how we collect it,” said Domonkos.

It’s another busy week at the Montana State Legislature, and CFC staff have been going to work in the halls of our state capitol in Helena.

CFC staff visit Helena for 'Watershed Wednesday' in February.

For the week of February 11, we’ve got our eye on three bills with implications for clean water and a healthy Clark Fork River:

1. Senate Bill 19: The Montana Water Use Act provides an exemption from permitting for individual small groundwater wells that pump less than 35 gallons per minute and 10 acre feet of water per year. The cumulative impact of these unmonitored and unregulated wells   reduces the water available for existing senior water right holders and can impact stream flows. Rather than closing the current loophole in DNRC rules that allows “permit exempt wells,” this bill perpetuates the inherent unfairness of allowing a new unregulated water use without ensuring that existing uses are protected.  Please contact the Senate Natural Resources Committee and ask them to vote NO on Senate Bill 19, which would allow for unmonitored and unregulated use of groundwater wells, with detrimental impacts to streamflows and other water users.

2. Senate Bill 263: We oppose this bill for the same reasons that we oppose Senate Bill 19, above. Although this bill purports to place limits on the permit exemption for   new groundwater use for residential development, it would actually continue to allow for an unlimited number of unmonitored and unregulated wells without protecting existing water rights or our waterways. Please contact the Senate Natural Resources Committee and ask them to vote NO on Senate Bill 263, which would allow for unmonitored and unregulated use of groundwater wells, with detrimental impacts to streamflows and other water users.

3. Senate Bill 265: After years of negotiation, the State of Montana, the U.S., and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have agreed on a fair and balanced water rights agreement for the Flathead Reservation – the last of 19 compacts to be finalized in the state.   Please contact the Senate Natural Resources Committee and ask them to vote NO on Senate Bill 265, which stands to undermine the pending CSKT Compact and waste taxpayer dollars by keeping the commission in business after it has completed its function.

Click here to read more about the CFC position on the CSKT water rights compact.

Watch our Hot List video for this week, and get more details on Senate Bills 19, 263, and 265 from CFC Legal Director Barbara Hall:

This week, we’ve got our eye on:

Senate Bill 19: This bill, currently pending a vote in the Senate Natural Resources Committee, would give away our groundwater for free, allowing for unregulated and unmonitored use of groundwater wells. Tell the committee to vote NO on SB 19 today by emailing the members of the Senate Natural Resources Committee or calling the committee at 406-444-4889.

House Bill 246: This bill, currently in House Local Government Committee, would allow a County Commissioner to vote against conservation easements on public land. Putting land into a conservation easement is a private property right, and we want to make sure it stays that way. Email members of the House Local Government Committee or call the committee at (406) 444-1863 to ask the committee to vote NO on HB 246 today.

Senate Bill 38: This is a positive bill currently in the Senate Natural Resources Committee that would allow water users a new tool to protect and monitor groundwater levels. CFC is in support of this bill, and is asking clean water supporters to email the Senate Natural Resources Committee or call the committee today at 406-444-4889 to ask them to vote YES on SB 38.

Need to know more? Visit the CFC 2013 Legislative webpage.

Need to find your representative? Visit the 2013 Montana Legislature site for maps and how-tos for contacting your legislator.

Interested in more conservation hot topics? Visit the Montana Conservation Voters website for a full list of hot bills at the legislative session.

Questions on how to plug in? Contact Policy Director Brianna Randall at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Thanks to our partners at Montana Trout Unlimited for compiling these easy tips for angling during our hottest summer months. Consider following these practices, and do your part to help our trout!

MONTANA TU’S SUGGESTIONS FOR ANGLERS TO MINIMIZE IMPACTS ON MONTANA’S FISHERIES DURING LOW FLOW AND
HIGH TEMPERATURE PERIODS

1. Avoid streams where low flows and high temperatures pose problems to fish. Explore smaller higher-elevation streams and lakes where fish are much less affected by drought. Montana has thousands of stream miles and hundreds of lakes that have good fishing and which are not crowded. Avoid visiting waters that are attracting extra angling pressure because of fishing closures elsewhere. Try not to contribute to more river crowding.

2. If you must fish during these periods, fish in the morning when air and water temperatures are coolest. Avoid fishing in the afternoon and evening when temperatures are highest. Avoid fishing at night. On some rivers, this is when dissolved oxygen levels are the lowest.

3. Avoid direct handling of fish and use extra caution with native species such as cutthroats, grayling and bull trout. Release fish as quick as possible. Resist the temptation to hold fish out of water for photos. Consider just catching a few fish then calling it a day, instead of fishing from morning until night.

4. When streamflows and temperatures become very acute, consider doing something else. Montana has no shortage of alternative outdoor opportunities.

5. Be diligent in following appeals for voluntarily cut backs on angling. Be patient if state biologists don’t have definite answers about exactly when and where it’s okay to fish when flows are low and temperatures high. These are tough calls. In order to maintain Montana’s high quality angling, the fish deserve a conservative approach. Be sure to comply with fishing closures. The angling you give up temporarily today will help preserve angling opportunities for the future.

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGLING DURING PERIODS OF LOW FLOWS AND HIGH STREAM TEMPERATURES, CONTACT MONTANA TU AT 543-0054 or at mark@montanatuorg.

Thanks to Chris Brick and Brianna Randall for collaborating on this article!

Spring is budding along our rivers, bringing with it Montana’s rainy season.  From cloudburst-thunderstorms to slow soaking showers, we see quite a bit of water this time of year.  So, where does all that rain go when it hits our gardens, our streets, and our roofs?  The Clark Fork Coalition recently went on a tour of downtown Missoula to learn more about the “life cycle” of the city’s stormwater.

What exactly is “stormwater,” anyway?

When city and utility managers talk about stormwater, they are typically referring to any precipitation that enters a man-made system of drains or pipes.

Stormwater is not just the rain that comes along as part of a thunderstorm.  The term “stormwater” actually refers to all precipitation – rain, snow, hail, and even graupel.  Furthermore, when city and utility managers talk about stormwater, they’re typically referring to any precipitation that enters a man-made system of drains or pipes.

Most stormwater soaks into the ground – just like the good old water cycle diagram from school showed us.  As it seeps underground, some of it replenishes the groundwater in our aquifer, the water-bearing sand and gravel beneath the Missoula valley that supplies our drinking water.

Groundwater flows slowly underground, aided by the force of gravity and hydraulic pressure into streams and rivers in some areas, and keeps our waterways flowing long after the rains dry up and the snow melts.  This groundwater – and any stormwater that joins it – acts like a “savings account,” depositing water into our rivers for the upcoming summer, fall, and winter.

So what’s the “hidden life” of stormwater all about?

Like we outlined above, most stormwater soaks into the ground.  But, there’s also the stormwater that can’t seep into the ground because we’ve built impermeable surfaces like asphalt and concrete.  Still, when the stormwater hits those surfaces, it has to go somewhere.  In most areas of Missoula, it flows into storm drains in streets and parking lots that discharge directly to the aquifer.  But in the most developed areas of town – such as the urban core – storm drains in the streets funnel water into a system of pipes leading to the river.  In Missoula, we began constructing this stormwater management system a century ago to ensure buildings and roads wouldn’t flood during storms.  In fact, much of the stormwater drainage system in downtown Missoula is vintage.  It was built in the 1930s – 1950s, and most of it was designed to dump stormwater directly into the river.

In the urban core of Missoula, storm drains in the streets funnel water into a system of pipes leading to the river.

Missoula’s City Engineer, Steve King, estimates that about 20 to 30 percent of Missoula’s surface area uses storm drains linked to an underground pipe system to manage runoff instead of infiltration storm drains that allow the water to seep underground.  Today, this drainage network downtown is a mish-mash of old clay pipes, newer sections of plastic pipes, and outfalls that release water into the Clark Fork River.  You may have noticed some of the outfall drains along the river downtown – one of the most obvious is a drain pipe just below Brennan’s Wave, a popular recreation spot for boaters near Caras Park.  This pipe collects stormwater runoff from 80 acres of streets in downtown Missoula, water that often gets mixed with oil, dirt, and any other trash littering the streets when it rains.

What can we do to help?

At the Clark Fork Coalition, we want to make sure that runoff from city streets is as clean as possible before it enters our river.  One way to “clean” stormwater is to let it seep into the ground, where soils and sediments can filter out most pollutants before it reaches the aquifer or a stream or river.   Another way to keep polluted runoff out of the river is to capture it and sift out oils, solids, and other trash before the water enters the river.  A great example of a capture system is the “Stormceptor” installed on the storm drain at the intersection of Broadway and Orange Streets.  You might have even noticed the cover of the “Stormceptor,” which sits just to the north of the River Trail below the Orange Street underpass.  This manufactured device fits right into the existing storm drains.  Any debris floats to the surface and can be cleaned out and disposed of in dumpsters, instead of the river.

So, how do we find the money and resources for Stormceptors and other infrastructure upgrades that would improve Missoula’s aging storm drain system?  It’s not an easy answer.  Other Montana cities have stormwater utilities, where residents pay a small fee to upgrade and maintain storm drain infrastructure, much like a sewer or water utility.  Missoula has no dedicated funding source to fix crumbling pipes or improve drains, and has to piece-meal money together when there’s a dire situation.

Yet there are things we can do together to prevent pollutants from entering our rivers and streams.  The Clark Fork Coalition and the Missoula Water Quality District hope to partner with the City to apply for a small planning grant through the state’s Renewable Resource Grant and Loan Program this spring.  The goal is to obtain funds for a feasibility study that looks at the best options for upgrading the storm drain system downtown and keeping pollutants out of the river.  Specifically, the feasibility study will focus on improvements to the outfall at Caras Park.  A feasibility study is the first step.  The next step is to find the money to implement the best option as determined by the study.

Stormwater is an important part of our water cycle, and managing Missoula’s stormwater is a critical part of protecting clean water in our streams and aquifer.  By reminding ourselves that all water is forever linked — from snowmelt and rain to groundwater and streams — we can help keep rivers clean, and protect our families, fish, and wildlife from pollution.