News

Flood Recovery Done Right: Lessons Learned from the ’97 Flood

by Bill Pfeiffer

By David Brooks, Executive Director, Montana Trout Unlimited 

As historic flooding in the Yellowstone watershed recedes and people impacted turn to the daunting and complicated task of rebuilding, it is valuable for us to reflect on the last time the Yellowstone flooded. The aftermath of the highwater event that took place in the spring of 1997 offers lessons for moving forward now. 

Whether it’s car bodies or rock, confining rivers usually leads to downstream consequences. PC: Bill Pfeiffer

That year, a deep snowpack followed by a warm spring with heavy rains sent the river out of its banks for much of its length from Yellowstone National Park through Billings and beyond. Scenes of property and infrastructure damage were much like those we’ve seen this June. Then, as now, people think of floods as great acts of nature. To some degree that’s true. But the 1997 floods brought home the reality that how we manage and manipulate our rivers also determines how floodwaters behave. 

Between 1995 and 1998, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) issued more than 170 permits for projects along the banks of the Yellowstone River, mostly for riprap, dikes and other bank hardening that reduced natural river habitat. Many of those permits were issued in a rush following the 1997 floods. There was so little analysis of how individual projects would cumulatively impact river health and future flooding that Montana Trout Unlimited joined four other conservation organizations in taking the Army Corps to federal district court. Because of the lawsuit, projects were put on hold. By summer of 2000, our coalition prevailed. The court unequivocally deemed that the Corps had violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by allowing the modification of the river’s banks without analyzing how such projects would have a collective negative impact on the river’s health and cause worse future flooding. Blanketing the banks of the Yellowstone or any river with boulders, concrete or hardened canal-like walls was increasingly harming fish and greatly increasing the flood risks to downstream neighbors. As MTU’s Executive Director Bruce Farling put it, the court decision was “the insurance policy Montana needed to prevent the slow death of the Yellowstone, one rip rap project at a time.” 

A functioning flood plain on Rock Creek. PC: Bill Pfeiffer

Since that ruling, the Corps has been more cognizant of the negative impacts of projects that reduce natural habitat in ways that accelerate and compound flooding. In contrast, maintaining or restoring riparian habitat absorbs floodwaters, slowing and reducing the rush of spring runoff, keeping that water within the river or, when it spreads into the natural floodplain, dampening the force of floods on human infrastructure like homes, roads, and bridges. In short, what’s good for fish and wildlife turns out to be good for protecting riverside property and adjacent infrastructure. Following the previous flood and lawsuit, a citizen and expert task force studied the upper Yellowstone, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in research that documented the damage caused by years of artificial bank stabilization. It also recommended better ways to rebuild and create resiliency in the Yellowstone and other rivers. 

The investment in efforts to restore natural river habitat rather than the short-term solutions of riprap or riverside lawns, to build bridges or culverts that better accommodate fish, wildlife, and floods, and to give rivers some space to rise up and move around, as they inevitably do, will pay off during future historic events, with more protections for fish and wildlife, and less risk to property and life. Rebuilding healthier rivers from top to bottom will help keep fish from being washed into fields and stranded. Maintaining a meandering river instead of straightening it can help keep flooding out of places like Red Lodge. Building better engineered bridges can keep rural residents connected to communities and reduce the need for emergency closures of rivers like the Yellowstone. Restoring fully functioning floodplains and resilient river habitat does not prevent floods, especially as we adapt to the alterations that climate change is having on the amount and timing of snowpack and spring rains. But if river restoration following the devastation of 2022 saves native and wild trout, saves on future flood cleanup costs, or saves one home, it sure seems worth considering. 

News

VICTORY! Judge Says DEQ Violated the Law on Smith River Mine

by Bill Pfeiffer

You stopped the mine on our beloved Smith River. On April 11, Montana Trout Unlimited received word on our court challenge that we won both the MEPA and MMRA claims we filed against the Black Butte Mine and DEQ. Your donations, letters, phone calls, and time helped us achieve this victory. This marks a rare moment in Montana history that a mine has been stopped because it poses serious environmental risks. Thank you!  

In its ruling, the Court stated: “Plaintiffs claim that DEQ failed to ensure the safety and stability of Tintina’s tailings storage facility, failed to prevent excessive nitrogen from entering Sheep Creek and contributing to algal blooms that choke out fish and other aquatic life, and failed to consider reasonable alternatives to alleviate or avoid potential environmental harms….This Court finds that DEQ’s decision to permit the Black Butte Copper Mine was arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.“

As you know, MTU joined MEIC, EarthWorks and American Rivers to challenge, in district court, that MT Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) did not properly or sufficiently evaluate the risks this mine poses to water quality, quantity and the Smith fishery under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) and MT Metal Mine Reclamation Act. The first and only hearing was held on July 16th, 2021, and the decision came in our favor of all of our claims about the risks the mine poses. 

If we’ve learned anything in this fight, it is that there are always more rounds, so while we are celebrating this win, we remain poised for our next action. We are also still committed to the mineral withdrawal on public lands that will provide an additional layer of protection for the Smith River. 

We could NOT have accomplished historic protection without you.

Thanks for all you do for trout in Montana and everywhere!

David Brooks

Executive Director

Montana Trout Unlimited

News

Help Protect Clean Water! Comment to DEQ

by Bill Pfeiffer

Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is proposing to roll back water pollution protections that safeguard our stream and rivers, putting our cold-water fisheries, drinking water, human health, outdoor recreation, and agricultural heritage at risk. Let them know you oppose this effort. Comments are being accepted until February 8, 2022. Email [email protected] to make your comment.

Background: In April, 2021, Governor Gianforte signed the most dangerous dirty water bill from last year’s legislative session, Senate Bill 358, into law. SB 358 revises Montana’s model water quality standards for river and stream health in two substantive ways.  

First, it wholesale eliminates the EPA-approved numeric nutrient criteria that protect waterways from degradation and replaces those well-established, enforceable numeric criteria with an ambiguous, unenforceable, write-as-you-go adaptive management program for nutrients. Second, it greatly expands pollution exemptions for polluting industries discharging into our waterways.  

With the passage of SB 358, Montana went from being a national leader in adopting numeric nutrient standards that protected most of our waterways from harmful algal blooms driven by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, to being the first state in the country to eliminate a proven science-based approach for protecting water quality. 

Rolling-back science-based water quality standards threatens Montana’s world-class rivers, outdoor recreation, human health, agriculture and the public trust: 

  1. Waterways: Montana’s world-class waterways are the lifeblood of our state, supporting blue-ribbon and renown fisheries, trophy wildlife, and our agricultural economy. Eliminating proactive, enforceable, science-based pollution controls represents a critical failure to protect local water quality in our streams, rivers, and lakes and perpetuates algal blooms due to unhealthy levels pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus.   
  1. Outdoor Recreation: Montana’s $7.1 billion outdoor recreation economy and the 71,000 jobs and businesses it supports depend on clean water and healthy rivers. Excessive, uncontrolled nutrient pollution entering our rivers and lakes puts the second largest sector of Montana’s economy and the health of the waterways that attract visitors from around the world at risk — all to benefit the polluting special interests that wrote the bill. The same goes for damaging the streams, rivers, and lakes that Montanans have loved for generations, a heritage of outdoor recreation that most Montanans aim to pass on future generations. 
  1. Human Health: All Montana communities and families rely upon clean water for drinking and producing the food we eat. By removing the standards that determine whether a waterbody is polluted by nitrogen and phosphorus – the most pervasive pollutants threatening Montana’s waterways – the health of Montanans’ drinking and irrigation, and livestock water becomes uncertain. This rollback prioritizes industry and corporate polluters over the health of Montana citizens and communities. 
  1. Race to the Bottom – Write as you go standards don’t hold point source polluters accountable. Point source polluters (wastewater treatment plants, refineries, mines, sewage, and other direct discharges into rivers) need to be held accountable for the pollution they contribute to local waterways. The proposed write as you go narrative standards take away the responsibility of major polluters to make progress towards a clear, enforceable, numeric goal for nutrient discharges. Most sectors in Montana already need to invest in necessary upgrades in pollution control technology to protect local water quality, but without clear, enforceable numeric goal posts, that responsibility becomes clouded and is disincentivized.  

The proposed narrative standards allow DEQ and polluters to wait to react to the negative impacts of pollution, like harmful algal blooms, after they happen, rather than preventing those impacts.  Restoring waterway and river health once polluted is a more costly and time-consuming endeavor than proactively managing point-source pollution from the start. 

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Science Should Guide Water Quality Standards: By rolling back science-based, enforceable water quality standards for nutrient pollution, Montana DEQ will have to wait for a visible pollution event to occur before addressing the problem and taking any enforcement action against nutrient pollution discharges. We shouldn’t rely on reactive, subjective, write as you pollute processes and enforcement when it comes to the health of our waterways.  

The “incremental” ‘adaptive management’ approach proposed in the new rule is not only an unenforceable concept that fails to protect our local waterways from pollution, but it is also reactive in nature, encouraging a ‘wait and see’ approach to pollution impacts, including potential mass fish kills, nuisance or even toxic algal blooms, or worse, before the root cause of the pollution is addressed.   

Montana is Taking a Giant Step Backwards: Montana was a national leader adopting science-based, enforceable water quality standards for nutrients in 2015, and we’re now the first in the country to remove strong, science-based nutrient standards that protect our rivers from harmful algal blooms. In the face of climate change, warming water temperatures, variable snowpack and runoff, river flows and persistent drought, the rollback of enforceable numeric standards has put Montana’s waterways in even greater peril. Comment to MT DEQ (email: [email protected]) before Feb. 8, 2022 and ask them to protect our water quality!