Flathead County commissioners and a local nonprofit are proposing a three-year management plan to keep more water in Little Bitterroot Lake.

The lake is both a destination for recreational boaters and a critical source of water for downstream farmers and ranchers. A lack of runoff from the surrounding watershed over recent years has resulted in a low water level at Little Bitterroot Lake, sparking concern from stakeholders, who argue the lake is being run near dry. 

One of two boat ramps operated by Flathead County is unsafe due to the shallow waters, and the floating docks are difficult to reach because of the lake’s low water level.  

“Right now, we're standing at the bottom of the lake,” said Little Bitterroot Lake Association President Dan Handlin during a tour of the lake in early August. “Our concern is that [the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project] would go to some aggressive approach to getting the rest of this water out and then bottom out this lake further.” 

The Little Bitterroot Lake Association, established in 1935 and incorporated with a board of directors in 1988, is a nonprofit group that advocates for the preservation of its namesake lake. Its membership is primarily homeowners who live around the area. 

The lake, though, is managed by the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project as part of a system that supplies water to the Camas Canal Unit. The canal unit services water to 13,000 acres of irrigated land in the Camas Irrigation District. 

“Keeping water in [Little Bitterroot Lake] would mean denying downstream water users with the right to that water,” said hydrologist Skye Cooley, former employee of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project. “That water is an important part of the Camas Irrigation District.”    

LITTLE BITTERROOT Lake is the largest of four reservoirs that serve the Camas Irrigation District, with a capacity of 25,007 acre-feet of water. It’s also the highest in elevation at 3,900 feet. An outflow gate at the dam controls how much water is released from the lake, down the river and into the Hubbart Reservoir and the rest of the canal system.  

A combination of low snowpack and rapid snowmelt in recent years has made refilling Little Bitterroot Lake difficult. Irrigation project officials meanwhile say it’s necessary to keep the lake’s outflow gate open year-round in a low-flow situation. 

“Typically, in a low-flow scenario, we operate the Little Bitterroot Lake as a flow-through reservoir,” said project manager Nick Belcourt during a July 22 Flathead County commissioners’ meeting. "Without any input flows coming in, we only take what water can be produced out of the reservoir.” 

Belcourt did not respond to the Daily Inter Lake’s requests for comment.  

The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project has a water right to the upper 8 ½ feet of Little Bitterroot Lake to meet irrigation needs. If that results in a drop of the water level, “that’s not their problem,” Cooley said, adding there’s no current regulation on how much water needs to be kept in Little Bitterroot Lake. 

“In fact, they’re doing exactly what the farmers they serve want them to do,” Cooley said.  

The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project is funded through fees paid by water users.  

“They’re paying for that water to be served to them,” he said. 

Since Cooley’s contract was terminated with the irrigation project in May, Handlin hired him as a part time consultant for the Little Bitterroot Lake Association. Cooley assisted Handlin in crafting a proposed three-year management plan to keep more water in the lake.  

The agreement calls to shut the outflow gates at the end of irrigation season on Sept. 15 and keep them closed until the start of irrigation season on May 15, so water can build up behind the dam. It also calls for the installation of a flow monitoring device at Herrig Creek to record the inflow of water to Little Bitterroot Lake and make those records available to the public.  

MONTANA REPUBLICAN Congressman Ryan Zinke is working with the association and county commissioners to present the agreement to the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project. 

“It might be an understatement to say Congressman Zinke has been extremely engaged on this issue,” said Garret Brown, a spokesperson for Zinke, in an email to the Daily Inter Lake.  

Zinke met with the Interior secretary to request that management of the lake be returned to the Bureau of Reclamation from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that oversees the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project.  

County commissioners made a similar request in a letter sent to the federal department in May.  

“In recent years, maintenance of the system has declined dramatically,” the letter read.  

Commissioners listed several maintenance issues in the letter, such as broken stream gauges, faulty floodgates and leaking canals. 

“It is clear the [Bureau of Indian Affairs] lacks both the resources and specialized personnel to meet the system's technical needs,” the letter read.   

The Department of Interior sent a response last week, saying it would work with the commissioners to address concerns. However, the letter did not respond to their request to transfer management to the Bureau of Reclamation.  

The federal department maintained that “snowpack levels have been below average for several years,” according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Hence, reduced snowmelt volume restricts [the Bureau of Indian Affairs'] ability to fill the four reservoirs.”  

The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project was authorized by Congress in 1904 between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Construction of the project was mostly completed in 1924, and the latter bureau assumed full control of it.   

Federal funding was provided under Section 3211 of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016 and the Montana Water Rights Protection Act of 2020 for maintenance improvement and repairs of the irrigation project. 

Reporter Hannah Shields can be reached at 758-4439 or [email protected].