St. Mary Diversion funding passes out of committee

Montana’s U.S. senators announced today that funding to rehabilitate the source of most of the water in the Milk River passed out of committee.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said in a release that up to $100 million in dedicated funding to rehabilitate the Milk River Project is part of a bipartisan infrastructure framework he recently negotiated with the White House and nine of his Republican and Democratic colleagues. The water infrastructure portion of the framework was voted out of committee today with a bipartisan majority.

The release said the framework was directly negotiated by Tester.

“Today is a historic step forward in making long-overdue and critically needed investments in the Milk River Project and provide water certainty for folks living and working on the Hi-Line,” said Tester. “I’ve been working for months to get water infrastructure investments into the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework I negotiated with the president and my Republican and Democratic colleagues, and I’m glad my provisions were included in the package. Now it’s time we get this over the finish line, and I’m going to keep pushing to make sure the entire Milk River Project is rehabilitated, so that Montanans on the Hi-Line have access to the water they need for years to come.”

Sen. Steve Daines, a member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, voted to approve the proposal.

“After years of work, I’m glad to finally see funding advanced for the St. Mary’s Milk River water project,” Daines said in a press release. “ This funding will help repair critical water infrastructure for Montana’s Hi-Line communities and will ensure farmers, landowners and Tribes have access to clean and reliable water.”

The diversion, which transports water from the St. Mary River to the North Fork of the Milk River, typically provides close to half or more of the water flowing through the Milk River.

In drought years, it provides up to 90 percent or more of the water in the river.

The system, funded primarily by irrigators in the Milk River Valley, has been patched for years and was on the verge of catastrophic failure, which happened last year when a drop structure collapsed and shut the system down.

Many other major repairs and reconstruction are needed on the project.

Watch for more in Thursday's edition of Havre Daily News.