I woke up early last Tuesday thinking how crazy it is that the Bitter Root Irrigation District (BRID) up in Corvallis and the Three Mile Gravity System (TMGS) users over in the Lone Rock area have both hired lawyers because they DON’T want to own a pipeline! Shoot, it’s a pretty good underground pipeline installed in the 1980’s. Oh, it has had a few problems – a rusty valve here, a split pipe there and debris blocking turn-outs now and then. But it is gravity flow and requires no pumps… so it’s a pretty good, proven system. It seems strange that nobody seems to want it!
The more I pondered the poor orphan pipeline it reminded me of Will Rogers (1879-1935). Most of you readers won’t remember him, but he wrote weekly newspaper articles for the major newspapers of his day and is famous for the quote, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”
I think Will would have written articles about this “million dollar pipeline nobody wants” out in Montana. He might have titled them, “Whisky’s For Drinkin’. Water’s For Fightin’.” He’d probably joke about the Three Mile history and the two fellas in the Sunnyside Cemetery who shot at each other over that same the irrigation water. Will Rogers wouldn’t have been privy to the fistfights and stand-offs that occurred at head gates in past years, or how many hard-headed Bitterrooters refused access to their property so ditches could be cleaned. No, Will would not remember the reasons behind putting in the Three Mile Gravity System because Will, like many of the Three Mile irrigation water users, wasn’t here back then. And Will Rogers, like some of our neighbors, was all about “politics.”
Those of us who change our own pipes and clean our own ditches, who were here “back then,” realize that it has been pretty peaceful these past 30 years (since the pipeline was installed by BRID). Clean water flows in a timely manner every year. Repairs are simply taken care of – with most folks not knowing there was a problem! There’s been a lot of digging, welding, replacing and maintaining that has gone unseen. But, come February 2016, things will change because the loan we TMGS users have been paying for these 30 years will be paid off and then we can all get back to hating our neighbors, sabotaging their water, plugging lines and bashing heads just like it used to be. Maybe we’ve already started…
T.J. Richardson
Stevensville