Help protect clean water and water users: close a loophole that threatens our water supply.

The Clark Fork Coalition is concerned that a "loophole" in Montana's water permitting process is threatening our water rights, rivers, and ranches. In Montana, groundwater wells that pump less than 35 gallons per minute and produce less than 10 acre feet of water a year are not required to get a permit and are not monitored.  Historically, these “exempt wells” have been used in rural areas to provide drinking water for homes, or irrigation water and stock water to farms and ranches.

Over the past two decades, though, residential subdivision developments and other large industrial projects have installed "exempt wells" to circumvent the state's water right permitting and mitigation requirements for using water in basins closed to new water rights -- like the Upper Clark Fork and Bitterroot.

This means that hundreds of exempt wells can come online in already over-tapped areas, without any reassurance that this new water use will not decrease the water available for senior water right holders.  By taking advantage of a loophole in Montana's rules, developers can put in hundreds of wells without a permit -- as long as the wells are not piped together.   

In 2009, the Coalition joined several senior water right holders across the state to petition the Dept. of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) to set aside the problematic exempt well rule and draft a new rule that meets Montana's water needs while also protecting existing water users.

However, the 2011 Legislature stepped in before DNRC began drafting a new exempt well rule, passing a bill that directed the Water Policy Interim Committee to study exempt wells and provide a report to the 2013 Legislature "that provides clear policy direction and necessary legislation to guide Montana's policy" on exempt wells.  Download the settlement with DNRC.

Now it's time for your input.
The 2013 Legislature will see a host of bills related to exempt wells -- some will be good ideas and some will be bad ideas.

Click here to learn more about proposed legislation that impacts how we use water in Montana.

The Clark Fork Coalition is one of many Montana landowners who are concerned that the "exempt well loophole" is threatening our water rights and rivers. We hold a number of senior water rights to irrigate 200 acres of crops on CFC's Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch, as well as several in-stream flow rights on dewatered creeks throughout the basin.

This graph illustrates the number of exempt wells per closed basin.