Big Hole River users facing tough situation

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

A key stretch of the upper Big Hole River is running at perilously low rates, spurring ranchers, biologists and government officials to try to find ways to restrict or shut down some irrigation projects.

Rivers are flowing at well below average levels in most of southwestern Montana, but the Big Hole is particularly dry. As of Monday afternoon, just 23 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water was passing a measuring station near Wisdom. That's only 13 percent of median flow.

Irrigators in the upper valley are being asked to reduce their take of water as much as possible or even shut down irrigation altogether, said Noorjahan Parwana, executive director of the Big Hole Watershed Committee.

“We're in a tough situation,” she said. “Mother Nature is not helping in any way, but people are making some sacrifices up there.”

The Big Hole has attracted increasing attention in recent years because it is the last home in the lower 48 states for the fluvial, or river-dwelling, arctic grayling. That fish has been petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government last month refused to grant any protective status, in a move that has been criticized by green groups as an instance of politics trumping science.

The Big Hole is heavily irrigated. In places the local plant communities have shifted from native grasses and sage to water-loving sedges. Many ranchers have switched from hay production to irrigated pasture, which calls for irrigation well into autumn.

Heavy use of the Big Hole's water has created conflict, but it also has spurred some improvements, Parwana said.

Some stock watering ditches have been replaced with groundwater wells, she said. Ditches and headgates have been improved to boost efficiency, and neighbors have worked out ways to share water, such as irrigating on alternative days.

Some tributary streams have been reconnected to the river, and Parwana said she's hoping that grayling have been able to find refuge in those smaller streams until more flow can be returned to the river.

Bruce Rich, regional fisheries supervisor for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said angling will be halted on the upper river if the flow drops below 20 cfs.

At this level, the river and its water temperature will be closely monitored, he said.

The primary danger posed by low flows is the increase in water temperature. If it rises too high, grayling and other fish will die.

More people will be closing headgates in coming days to let fields dry out for haying, Rich said, and he's hoping that will increase the river's flow.

Ranchers have been cooperating, he said.

“If there hadn't been some cooperation, it probably would be dropping even lower by now,” Rich said, Monday.

Pat Munday, a professor and author from Butte who is an advocate for the river, said he's frustrated at the low flows that return nearly every year. At levels below 60 cfs, he said, survival rates start dropping for grayling and trout and the situation appears to be getting worse instead of better.

Last Thursday, he said, he saw cattle walking belly deep in a flooded meadow and a single ditch “taking at least as much was as was in the river.”

Munday praised individual biologists and ranchers who cooperate, make sacrifices and genuinely care about the river.

“Their guys are heroes in this effort,” he said. “But it's never enough and it's always too late.”

Parwana said continuing cooperation is key to solving the river's problems, and three more ranchers have signed on to a federal grayling conservation program, even after the government refused to list the fish.

“It's going to take a lot more work and ever increasing effort,” she said. “The ranchers are on board on this. They're not going to back off on efforts to improve efficiency.”

But nature hasn't helped this year.

Snowpack in the upper Big Hole was only 35 percent of average, Parwana said, there hasn't been much rain recently, and hot weather is coming.

“It's looking grim right now,” she said “I've got to admit that.”

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