An Ancestral River Runs Through It

Jeff Wivholm isn’t a fan of mountains. He likes to have the ability to see the climate rolling in, one thing remarkably doable within the northeastern nook of Montana.

On a chilly January morning, Wivholm drives the grime roads between farms in Sheridan County, the place he’s lived for all his 63 years, with practiced ease, mentioning completely different plots of land by who owns them. And if he doesn’t know the household title, Amy Yoder with the Sheridan County Conservation District or Brooke Johns with the Drugs Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge — each sitting within the backseat of his truck — can provide it.

For those who look to the best there, Wivholm says, you’ll be able to see the valley created by the aquifer. Possibly he can, his eyes accustomed to seeing dips and crevasses in, to an unfamiliar eye, a starkly flat panorama. He laughs and says it takes some getting used to.

That aquifer isn’t distinctive in Montana. There are 12 principal aquifers working like underground rivers all through the state. However the best way Sheridan County makes use of the water is.

Montana is in comparatively good condition so far as its groundwater provide goes, one thing unusual throughout a lot of the nation, geologist John LaFave with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology says. State politicians initiated a groundwater research over 30 years in the past after years of intense drought and fires and an absence of knowledge.

However Sheridan County was forward of the sport: The county’s conservation district began learning its groundwater in 1978, earlier than state monitoring started.

In 1996, the district was granted a water reservation, or water allotted for future makes use of, from the state, which meant it may take a sure share of water from the Clear Lake Aquifer. Due to all the information it gathered via learning its groundwater, the district developed a novel means of utilizing and distributing that water.

What’s uncommon is how intentional the collaboration was and the way in depth the groundwater monitoring was and continues to be. The district does this by working with farmers, tribes and the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make sure water can be utilized by those that want it — those that could be most affected by any degradation to the water — with out negatively impacting the setting.

And it’s labored. The conservation district has been utilizing its geologically particular aquifer — a present granted to this space by the final Ice Age — to irrigate crops, present jobs for the area and preserve agriculture {dollars} inside the neighborhood for nearly 30 years whereas fielding few complaints.

“To me, this represents the best way groundwater improvement ought to happen,” LaFave says.

The Huge Muddy Creek flows via dams and diversions, pictured on the best, which can be managed by the Drugs Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge to fill the lake as wanted. Credit score: Keely Larson, RTBC

Sheridan County is extraordinarily rural, house to about 3,500 folks throughout its 1,706 sq. miles. Agriculture is a giant financial driver. Fowl looking is an attraction for locals and guests. The Drugs Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, positioned in each Sheridan and Roosevelt Counties and managed by the USFWS, is house to many migratory hen species. It’s the most important pelican breeding floor in Montana and the third-largest within the nation.

This early January morning, it’s about 5 levels, however there isn’t a variety of snow on the bottom. Over espresso and breakfast in Plentywood — the county seat — Yoder and Wivholm say this winter has been hotter and drier than standard.

Dry climate will not be unusual right here. Droughts within the Nineteen Thirties and ’80s have been notably tough. Additionally within the ’80s, irrigation expertise was changing into extra frequent and environment friendly, Wivholm says, and folks started to pay extra consideration to the potential of an aquifer as a means to make sure water could be obtainable for irrigation.

“There are a number of nicknames for a lot of this property, nevertheless it was principally ‘poverty flats,’” Jon Reiten, hydrogeologist with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, says. The soil is sandy, gravelly and drought-prone. Not nice for dry-land farming.

Marlowe Onstead was the primary farmer in Sheridan County to make use of the aquifer for his pivot irrigation in 1976.

“Couldn’t increase the crop on it earlier than,” Onstead says. After irrigation, he was capable of develop alfalfa.

Based on Reiten, the aquifer ranges from a mile to 6 miles huge and two to 3 hundred ft deep. The ancestral Missouri River channel, found in Sheridan County in 1983 as monitoring started, flowed north into Canada and east into Hudson Bay. That channel was dammed by glaciers within the final Ice Age and left behind a reservoir that was buried as glaciers melted, creating the Clear Lake Aquifer. For the reason that supplies left behind have been coarse and assorted, water may transfer simply and be saved in nice depths. A draw back is that these glacial aquifers can take a very long time to refill.

The vertical white cylinder is considered one of many who Amy Yoder with the Sheridan County Conservation District checks all through the rising season. She opens up the highest, connects the information logger inside to a laptop computer and collects info on the aquifer water degree and the way a lot water has been used for irrigation. Credit score: Keely Larson, RTBC

As drought dragged on within the ’80s, locals and county and state authorities set about determining one of the simplest ways to distribute the aquifer’s water. Drugs Lake lies on prime of a few of the aquifer, and the Huge Muddy Creek — the place the Fort Peck Tribes require a minimal in-stream circulation to advertise ecosystem well being — is at its southwestern border.

The Fort Peck Tribes and the USFWS have been involved about their respective water ranges and the way they’d be impacted by irrigation. Reiten says the USFWS was objecting to only about each water rights case that went to the state on the time, and all that litigation ended up in water court docket.

“That’s lots to placed on a producer, to need to go up towards the federal authorities,” Reiten says.

Negotiations with the USFWS and the Fort Peck Tribes led to the formation of an advisory committee and the switch of the water reservation on the aquifer from the state to the conservation district. (Per Montana water legislation, all water belongs to the state and people are required to get a water proper to make use of it in a selected means — on this case, for irrigation.) Since then, Sheridan County Conservation District has had the authority to provide water allocations from the Clear Lake Aquifer to producers with out the producers having to attraction to the state.

The utmost quantity of water that may be pulled from the aquifer is simply over 15,000 acre ft whole, a quantity set by the state’s Division of Pure Sources and Conservation. At present, the district is utilizing about 10,000 acre ft. Will increase are allowed so long as monitoring reveals the aquifer isn’t being overly impacted by irrigation.

“We have been principally compelled to observe it, nevertheless it solely makes good sense,” Wivholm, who has been on the conservation district board since 1994, explains. The district wouldn’t need to grant somebody a proper solely to seek out out in 5 years that there’s not sufficient water.

From left to proper, Jeff Wivholm, Marlowe Onstead and Amy Yoder look via maps of irrigation pivots and aquifer allocations contained in the Sheridan County Conservation District workplace in Plentywood. Credit score: Keely Larson, RTBC

Annually, the committee meets to evaluate new water rights. The committee consists of the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, the state Division of Pure Sources and Conservation, representatives from the Drugs Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, county commissioners, a county planner, the Fort Peck Tribes and a consultant with the US Geological Survey.

If a farmer needs an irrigation pivot, they need to “pump it exhausting for 72 hours,” Wivholm says, to verify there’s sufficient water for his or her request, and perceive how that pumping impacts different wells close by.

Knowledge comes from Yoder’s efforts. She collects readings from knowledge loggers positioned within the floor all through the county from April via October. For the primary and final collections, she visits 201 wells and it takes her three 12-hour days to get to all of them. Driving round in Wivholm’s truck, she factors out a few of her knowledge loggers sticking up from the bottom each jiffy.

By means of monitoring, Sheridan County Conservation District and the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology have been capable of map the complete aquifer. They be aware of the water ranges, monitor every irrigation pivot and might see seasonal fluctuations.

“It’s type of a hidden useful resource, however the quantity of crops that we are able to get off of the poor floor that’s above the aquifer is wonderful,” Yoder says. She lists corn, wheat, chickpeas, lentils, canola, mustard and alfalfa.

One other farmer within the space, Rodney Smith, has been irrigating from the Clear Lake Aquifer for over 35 years and has the largest pivot related to the aquifer.

Smith says irrigating has been economically helpful: His farm isn’t as depending on the climate, and it’s taken the danger out of manufacturing. Smith Farms Included produces hay for livestock and sells it to different ranchers within the space. Smith additionally leases land out to different farmers who develop potatoes and sugar beets.

From an aerial view, his round pivot plots present completely different colours of inexperienced and brown, indicating quite a lot of crops grown.

Smith had an early contested pivot case with the state of Montana, earlier than the water reservation was transferred to the conservation district, which went to the state water court docket.

The gist of the case was that Smith Farms needed to vary their technique of irrigation and the USFWS was involved it would impression the Drugs Lake Nationwide Wildlife Refuge. Knowledge and monitoring completed by the conservation district backed up Smith’s case.

“If you begin irrigating, you surprise what’s the capability, or how a lot are you able to irrigate,” Smith says. “It’s at all times fascinating to know what it’s doing.”

Rodney Smith’s pivot is the most important related to the aquifer. The construction within the foreground stays stationary, whereas the remainder on wheels strikes round — pivots round — the fastened construction. Credit score: Keely Larson, RTBC

Johns, with the wildlife refuge, says the refuge has a water reservation on Drugs Lake and is allowed to maintain the lake stuffed for the safety of migratory birds. The refuge operates dams and diversions to keep up this want. Ensuring any irrigation wouldn’t draw down the extent of the lake has been a objective from the start, Johns says, and to this point, that hasn’t been a problem.

There haven’t been some other contested instances on aquifer irrigation, and lots of, together with Smith, see this as successful in having native management over a neighborhood useful resource.

“Water rights are such a contentious factor,” Johns notes. “And with out the information, had they not began this years in the past, it could be exhausting to begin it at present and get the identical momentum they did.”