Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
Representatives of rural water systems including a regional water project for north-central Montana stopped in Havre Monday to tell local elected officials and state legislative candidates about the need to increase funding for those projects. Attorney Steven Wade, who represents the Montana Rural Water Systems and the North Central Regional Water Authority and the Dry Prairie Regional Water Authority told the audience in Havre that when the regional system that would serve Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation and a large portion of north-central Montana was authorized in 2002, the estimated total cost was $229 million. With indexing to inflation, the estimated cost is now nearly $330 million. “You can see what indexing is doing,” Wade said. That system, the Rocky Boy’s/ North Central Regional Water System, and the other Montana regional system authorized by Congress, the Fort Peck/Dry Prairie Water System, would provide treated water from a central source in the North Central System, from Tiber Reservoir south of Chester to a multitude of water users in a large region. The Tiber system would provide water to nearly 30,000 users on Rocky Boy and in a region from Big Sandy to Havre west to the Sweetgrass Water District and Shelby, Conrad, Cut Bank and Dutton. The system includes 22 communities and rural water districts as well as the reservation. The two systems, both originating in water compact negotiations with the Indian tribes at Rocky Boy and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, include a lion’s share of the funding from the federal government, with a share kicked in on the state and local level. Meeting local needs Wade said the regional systems help small communities and water districts deal with a variety of problems including a lack of enough water and increasing federal and state regulation of water quality. A large group of water users can pool their funding to reduce the per-user cost to operate and maintain a system, and to reduce the amount needed to upgrade treatment . In the Nort h Central system, the cost of maintaining and upgrading one water treatment plant at Tiber Dam would be spread amongst the almost 30,000 users. Hill County Commissioner Mike Wendland said that is crucial to systems like the Hill County Water District, which serves Hill County west of Havre and the eastern edge of Liberty County. Those systems can’t afford to keep up with increasing water quality regulations. “These little water systems can’t afford a treatment plant,” he said. “It’s Like an unfunded mandate.” Inflated costs and lack of funding But, Wade said. The impact of a lack of funding is increasing the discrepancy, he said. The Rocky Boy’s/North Central Regional Water System has requested $32 million a year for the last two years, but received no funding from the president’s budget, for example. Last year Montana’s congressional delegation was able to add $5 million for the project in the federal budget. This year Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., was able to add another $5 million for the Rocky Boy project to a bill and Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both Montana Democrats, were able to add $10 million for that system to a Senate bill. At the rate of $5 million a year, the system will not keep up with inflation and probably will never be completed, Wade said. At $15 million a year, it would still take decades. The projects are split between funding for the reservation systems and the off-reservation systems, with the federal government paying all costs for the on-reservation portions and the costs for the off-reservation systems shared, with most funding from the federal government and a smaller share from the state and the local systems. Tony Belcourt said the Chippewa Cree Tribe has invested $20 million, with $5 from the Tribe’s water settlement arrived at through the water compact negotiations and $15 million from the U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, in a trust fund to pay for operations and maintenance costs once the system is operational. “It’s a huge commitment on the part of the Tribe,” he said. But with the lack of funding, it may be decades or never before the Tribe sees any return on that investment, he said. Freezing state and local costs Belcourt is president and CEO of Chippewa Cree Construction Corp., the company doing the design and construction of the reservation’s distribution system. Belcourt, also the representative- elect for Montana House District 32, said it is important for the state to pay as much as it can to freeze the costs. Wade agreed. Once the state and local entities kick in their share of the funding, the federal government will make up any increases in costs. “It gives the state cost-certainty,” he said. Annmarie Robinson of Bear Paw Development Corp., who is working on both the North Central and Dry Prairie systems, said the increase in costs are immense. A project to work on wastewater systems in Rudyard went from an initial estimate of $2.3 million but when the bids came in six months later they were at $3 million. “The rising costs are killing us,” she said. Looking for funding Wade and several at the meeting discussed the possibility of trying to get some of the projected state budget surplus to pay at least some of those state costs to lock in the current price. Aside from the lack of funding in the presidential budget each year, other factors are a concern to the funding of the water systems, Wade said. One of those is the concern of an economic meltdown in the nation’s economy and the $700 billion bailout package approved by Congress reducing available money. Another concern is shifting of available funding. Wade said the Montana Rural Water Systems, which helps rural water entities throughout the state with training and operational support of their systems. Most of the funding for MRWS used to come through the Environmental Protection Agency, but two years ago Congress failed to earmark that money for the state systems, Wade said. While EPA received the money, it used it for other purposes. The state of Montana stepped up to the plate, providing $200,000 to help pay for MRWS, and the system is hopeful that can happen again, Wade said. Another issue is what will happen with the Treasure State Endowment Program. In 1992, Robinson said, the state set up an interest-bearing trust fund within the Coal Tax Severance Trust Fund. The principal from that money stays in the coal-tax fund, but the interest is used to pay for projects in three areas: general infrastructure work, economic development and regional water systems. But more projects come in than can be funded, Robinson said. In the last legislative session, with the budget surplus, the Legislature essentially approved loaning money from the fund to pay for projects, and now that has to be paid back. “We’ll have to be very creative in our thinking” to keep that fund solvent, she said. Wendland said the next Legislature has to be very careful to keep that fund operating. In several past sessions, legislators have suggested tapping the money from the coal-tax fund for current needs rather than saving it in trust. Wendland said the Legislature has to remember that the interest from that fund is being used now, for water projects and countless other projects in the state. “It’s important to remember not to raid that,” he said. “Communities and people use that and it is effective.”
