St. Mary irrigation project strikes out again on funding

The St. Mary/Milk River irrigation project struck out on another federal funding opportunity. The America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding that came from the Federal government to the state of Montana was made available through application for infrastructure project including water and sewer projects across the state. However, the Treasury Department did not include funding for dams or reservoirs in the spending guidelines for the state.

“We asked our congressional delegation to contact the Treasury and get the rule changed to include dams and reservoirs”, said Marko Manoukian, Co-Chair of the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group. To add insult to the situation, the state ARPA Committee did not find a way to fund any of the state irrigation project that applied. The St. Mary project had applied for $90 million in funding request to address our diversion structure, siphon, and some funding for the Freson Safety of Dams that the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) project is pushing. All four applications were denied.

In other news the BOR has recently updated cost associated with the diversion dam alone. Its cost has now reached $63 million dollars. This is just the construction cost, if you include non-construction cost (at 30%) the diversion structure would cost $82 million or more. This includes fish screen for the threatened species of the bull trout. In the Federal infrastructure legislation that congress is considering, St. Mary does have a line item for $100 million, but with rising cost it will take all this funding just to address the diversion structure. The Joint Board of Control and the Working Group asked our congressional leaders to allow some of the diversion dam be paid with Endangered Species act funding.