2 weeks Ago
Havre got its bill first: a request from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dated July 29 for $403,253 to help fund the rebuilding of the failed St.
Mary Canal Siphon in Babb and a similar deteriorating siphon over Halls Coulee. The city had 10 days to decide how to pay. The smaller Hi-Line towns of Chinook and Harlem to the east received their bills soon after, for $100,820 and $45,071, respectively.
A decision on payment method — lump sum or installments over years to come — from each of the three cities was due back to the agency by Aug. 9, just over a week after the letters were sent. The cities received the letters, and the bills they contained, because their municipal water supplies come from the Milk River Project, a series of aging canals like the St.
Mary , reservoirs like Fresno northwest of Havre, and siphons like the failed one in Babb that augment water flow in the Milk River by taking water out of the St. Mary River and diverting it instead into the Milk River for both immediate use and seasonal storage. An aerial view of the Milk River where it flows south of the town of Chinook, Montana, in August 2024.
Harlem and Chinook fully intend to pay the bills, but mayors said they were caught off guard by the speed with which the BOR asked them to decide how to pay. "It made sense that we got it, but it was very unrealistic on the time frame," Chris Green, mayor of Harlem, said. "It’s not like we can just drop what we’re doing," because the city council must first provide adequate public notice before holding a meeting to decide how to respond.
Glenn Huestis, mayor of Chinook, said the bill caught him "totally off guard, totally off guard." "I guess I assumed something would be coming," he continued, "but I thought there might be some discussion about it." The letters stated that cities would be billed the full amount they owe within 30 days if they didn't reply to the BOR with their choice of repayment method by the Aug.
9 deadline. But Green said the agency was more flexible in practice than the letter indicated. "They basically told us, 'I know we gave a timeline, but if you need a couple extra weeks .
.. go ahead and do it,'" he recalled.
Of the other towns that received bills, he said, "To my understanding, everybody was pitching a fit" with the timeline. Ryan Newman, BOR's Montana area director who signed the letters, acknowledged that the agency did "send the things out rapidly," and said he understood why city governments would be surprised by the short timeline to decide on payment. The hurried process was necessary, he said, due to the emergency nature of the siphon replacement project, which must be completed by early September 2025 to continue providing drinking water to the towns, and irrigation across the region.
The roughly 700 farmers who rely on the project will already go without irrigating water next spring and summer . Cattle stand in the dry streambed of the Milk River above Fresno Reservoir near Havre, Montana, on Aug. 13, 2024.
"We’re treating it as an emergency response because we’re talking about drinking water," he said, noting that the urgency in confirming payments to fund the project was "because of the critical nature" of restoring water flow from the St. Mary into the Milk by September 2025. Although about $10 million of federal funding allowed work to begin this summer, the full $70 million project cost must be secured to complete work.
"What we’re doing now in a year normally would’ve been a five-year process," he explained. "It’s a very truncated schedule because of the emergency nature of this undertaking." Ryan Newman, Montana area director for the U.
S. Bureau of Reclamation, explains damage to the St. Mary Siphon in the Milk River Project's St.
Mary Canal during a meeting of the project's Joint Board of Control in Malta, Montana, on June 20, 2024. Nonetheless, he said he realized cities were caught off guard. "It comes quickly and it’s a quick turnaround," he said.
"It was definitely shocking, and understandably." Newman and the mayors also noted that first payments (they opted for installments rather than lump-sum payments) weren't due until the project is "substantially complete," so they'll have time to incorporate payments into future annual budgets. There's no penalty for early payment if a city secures grant funding for their share.
It was unclear how Havre would pay its $403,253 bill — by far the largest of the cities' bills. Steve Darlinton, a BOR project manager for the Milk River Project, wrote in a text message Thursday that the city had not yet indicated its choice to the agency. Separately, Newman said Thursday that he remained confident the project was on track for on-time completion and restoration of water by September 2025.
"We're rolling and we will get it done, as long as we don’t have a hiccup in the funding stream," and even that may not hinder progress, he said, depending on what the interruption to funding is. An aerial view of the Milk River where it flows through Havre, Montana, in August 2024. Cost breakdown, payment challenges The Milk River, when bolstered by the St.
Mary Canal system, provides irrigation and drinking water for a roughly 160-mile stretch east of Havre. The project, built 1912-15, increased the amount of water available at a given time, extended the irrigating season and stored "carryover" water for future years. The project's enhancements provide for about 60% of the water in the river during a normal year, according to the BOR, and up to 80% in drier years.
That isn't the case this summer, winter or next year. Water hasn't flowed from the St. Mary into the Milk since the siphon pipes near Babb failed June 17.
Water flows out of a ruptured and broken irrigation canal pipe on the St. Mary Canal near Babb on June 18, 2024. "Project beneficiaries," primarily irrigators who use water from the Milk River Project, are collectively responsible for 73.
96% of the St. Mary Canal system's operation and maintenance costs under the terms of an early 1900s agreement that led to the system's creation. The BOR picks up the rest of the tab.
In early July, the BOR announced that BOR Commissioner Camille Touton approved "emergency extraordinary maintenance" status for the $70 million siphon replacements, meaning that the funding split between project beneficiaries and the federal government will be closer to 50-50. BOR will be responsible for an estimated $36.33 million, or 51.
9% of the overall cost. Beneficiaries will be responsible for an estimated $33.67 million, or 48.
1%. Beneficiaries' $33.67 million share will be further reduced to $27.
45 million with funding from Montana House Bill 540, according to the letters to the cities. Of the $27.45 million, irrigators who rely on water from the Milk River Project are responsible for almost all of it — 97.
9%, or $26.88 million. Cities who rely on the Milk River Project are deemed "municipal and industrial" users.
M&I users are responsible for 2.068% of the beneficiaries' share, or $567,728. Like the irrigators, the cities are also billed annually for regular operation and maintenance costs of the Milk River Project, with their share of costs proportionate to how much water they're allocated in the system.
Noah Cochran, 9, of Harlem, Montana, jumps into the city pool behind his brother Dante, 16, on June 20, 2024. The municipal water system in the small Hi-Line region town of 808 people relies entirely on the Milk River. "They do receive an O&M bill from us annually based on their proportional amount of their non-federal share," Newman said.
"With that comes their repayment obligation for their stakeholder share" of the siphon replacement, too. "When this (siphon replacement) came up, one of the things we have to do is we send out a letter where we basically let everybody know what we’re doing and what that respective amount equates to in a dollar amount," he said, "and we have to get confirmation from every entity that, 'Yeah, we’re going to pay our share.'" Even though cities are collectively responsible for just 0.
8% of the total cost of the replacement project, the bills still pose a challenge to small cash-strapped towns with struggling economies. The water tower in Harlem, Montana, seen here June 20, 2024, is no longer used but still stands as a marker of the small Hi-Line town fully reliant on the Milk River. It was "pretty tough at first,” to handle the bill, Green said.
"We could budget for it ...
but it’s not something we could just reach in our pocket and pull out. And Chinook and Havre have even more, so it’s even more unrealistic for them." Green said the installment plan is "a lot more doable" for Harlem and "we should be able to pay it off.
" Huestis said Chinook also had to choose the installment plan, but city leaders are "kinda crossing our fingers" they can get grant funding to pay off the balance early. He wasn't hopeful they'd find any grants, though. Green is also hoping to secure additional funding to help Harlem pay its bill early.
For help he contacted Greg Jergesen, who spent decades in the Montana Senate representing Chinook and is retired from a job as grants director for MSU Northern in Havre. Jergesen said he hopes the towns can secure state grant funding to help pay their bills for the siphon replacement. "They don’t need more loans, they’re loaned up to the hills," he said.
"That’s part of the problem." Joshua Murdock covers the outdoors and natural resources for the Missoulian. He previously served as editor-in-chief of The Boulder Monitor in Jefferson County, Montana, and has worked as a newspaper reporter and photographer in rural towns in Idaho and Utah.
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