by John Dowd
For Stevensville, along with many other Montana towns, water rights have long been a huge issue stagnating responsible and reasonable development, according to Mayor Bob Michalson. However, during the latest legislative session, Montana passed a bill that essentially remedies that problem.
HB432 was signed this year, and goes into effect October 1 of this year. Prior to the law, towns had to go through several hoops in order to rectify their water rights. Now, after meeting several criteria, some towns no longer need to go through the DNRC and other agencies and groups for approval.
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, center, at the new SemiLink Materials facility in Stevensville with, l to r, Representative David Bedey, Stevensville Mayor Bob Michalson, Representative Greg Overstreet and Representative Terry Nelson. Photo courtesy Bob Michalson.
According to an article by Michael Howell in the Bitterroot Star in 2019, “One problem, it turned out, was that the Town (Stevensville) failed to file for its historic water rights in a timely fashion. On top of that, state law mandated that a valid water right could only be issued for the amount of water being used at the time it was granted. This left every town in Montana in a difficult if not untenable position since they had all mostly grown in size and were using more water all the time.”
These were just a couple of many issues facing Montana towns regarding water rights. For Stevensville, the problems meant that several developments had purchased land, and started to break ground, but could not finish or link up to the water system without proper water rights, even though these developments were paying for all the hook up costs, and were in town limits.
This new bill streamlines the process for dealing with water rights for towns across the state, yet avoids removing the checks and balances for development. These changes and exceptions do not expand the place of use (POU) for future development, but in Stevensville’s case, allow the restructuring of POU boundaries to essentially match up with the actual intended area of use.
For Stevensville, this bill is a game changer. To put the problem into perspective, an article by John Dowd in the Bitterroot Star in 2023 stated, “When Stevensville started expanding in the 1970s and ‘80s, the town had to move from using surface water from areas like Burnt Fork Creek and Swamp Creek sent into a filtration system, to a deep well ground water system. With changes in legal water quality standards, the surface water treatment was no longer adequate. The deep groundwater was considered far safer and a new system was put into place. When the system was installed, water rights were claimed for the deep ground water.” However, “during that process, the claim for water rights was written out only for the areas of use at the time, and did not account for much growth.” Further, later in the process, in 2023, Stevensville has been “trying to file corrections to its rights.” Much of this information came from the town’s water rights attorney, Ross Miller.
That process has been much longer and more difficult than they had hoped. It turned out that to make any changes, the Town had to go to “water court,” as well as get approval by the DNRC and other organizations to update the rights. This not-so-simple process also meant the Town met with endless wait times, contradictory approvals and many other hang-ups. Stevensville was not alone.
According to Michalson, Stevensville was particularly fortunate, as the bill addressed several of the exact issues they were facing.
In HB432, it states in Section 1-4-a, “A municipality defined in 7-1-4121 or county water and sewer district organized under Title 7, chapter 13, part 22, may change the place of use for an unperfected municipal use permit or water reservation without the prior approval of the department if,” and the segment goes on to list several criteria, which all include Stevensville under the jurisdiction of this particular bill exception.
Those criteria seem to work to simultaneously prevent expansion for the sake of expansion, while also rectifying the issue facing the town.
In late June, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte came to the Bitterroot Valley to visit several businesses with representatives of Montana. Mayor Michalson attended a visit to SemiLink Materials, in Stevensville, to thank Gianforte in person for signing the bill into law. Michalson wanted to express thanks to all involved. “I want to thank the governor and the Montana state legislature for bringing the bill forward,” said Michalson. Michalson continued, saying the town has already spent well over $100,000 trying to correct its water rights situation, while making no headway.
Michalson said water is an important part of infrastructure, and it is not always thought about until it gets turned off. “You turn on your faucet and it’s there. People take it for granted,” said Michalson.
The mayor also spoke on what this will directly mean for the community of Stevensville. “It means Burt Fork Estates can start phase two,” said Michalson. It also means more revenue for the town when these neighborhoods finish developing, because they are already in town limits, he said.
“I think any town needs to grow within itself,” said Michalson. He added, “Along with growth, comes responsible development.” To him, one of those things is the ability for a town to secure water rights within the town limits, a struggle which, for Stevensville, may now be coming to an end.