Long before there were cattle in Montana the Salish people found spawning bull trout so large and plentiful in the clear waters of Silver Bow Creek they could be taken with a bow and arrow.
But then came the mining, logging and cattle barons to “settle the West,” ultimately leading to the near extinction of the once-abundant bull trout and their 1999 listing as “threatened” on the Endangered Species List.
The tailings and effluent from the Copper Kings’ mines and smelters in Butte and Anaconda poisoned the Upper Clark Fork from its headwaters in Silver Bow Creek for 100 miles downstream, where they backed up behind the Milltown Dam near Missoula. Not only did they create the largest Superfund site in the nation, they diverted the clean and cold mountain tributary streams to their industrial operations, depriving the Clark Fork’s instream flows.
Likewise, the cattle ranchers saw both the tributary streams and the Clark Fork River as sources of irrigation water for crops and livestock, not to sustain the native bull trout that had inhabited the river since the last Ice Age.
Combined, these impacts left the Upper Clark Fork, which is federally-designated “critical habitat” for bull trout, chronically dewatered. Facing the on-going drought and higher temperatures across the West due to climate change, the bull trout sorely needed a friend to fight for their survival.
And that’s where the Alliance for the Wild Rockies came in.
The Grant-Kohrs Ranch, which is operated by the National Park Service, owns the West Side Ditch Company along with six private ranches. Grant-Kohrs is lauded as a ‘cultural display’ of a working ranch from the late 19th century, although it uses modern machinery and electric pumps in its operations.
We sued the Department of Interior four years ago over the chronic dewatering since the West Side Ditch irrigators routinely take more than half the flow of the Upper Clark Fork from mid-to-late summer and upwards of 90% of the river's water in drought conditions.
After the government promised to fund improvements to the West Side Ditch and install fish screens to keep fish out of the irrigation ditch, we dropped our lawsuit. But those improvements never happened, and we were forced to go back to court to fight for their critical habitat and save bull trout from extinction.
At the hearing on our Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, the judge asked the West Side Ditch Company’s attorney if the ditch users have any obligation to leave water in the Clark Fork River. He said “no.” Although the State of Montana reserved money to pay the ranchers for their costs incurred when they have to stop withdrawing water from the Clark Fork River, they insist on their entitlement to continue dewatering the river.
The result? The Court ordered the Department of Interior and the West Side Ditch Company to immediately stop diverting the Upper Clark Fork’s scarce water when the flows fall to 90 cubic feet per second or less.
We have over two million cattle and thousands of hay fields in Montana, but there are very few bull trout left, especially in their historic spawning areas of the Upper Clark Fork River. Bull trout have occupied a much longer part of Montana’s history than the Grant-Kohrs Ranch, and they shouldn’t be driven to extinction to irrigate the “historic” display.
Since fish can’t survive without water, this is an important step in our commitment to stave off extinction by restoring bull trout critical habitat and recovering the species so the Upper Clark Fork River can once again support big bull trout.
Mike Garrity is the Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
