Welcome to the newsletter about all things water in Montana!

MONTANA WATER NEWS will come your way via email every month with fresh news about meetings and water topics we hope are of interest to you. If you do not want to receive this newsletter, please scroll down and follow the directions to unsubscribe. If you are seeing only text in this email, or if it's not easy to read, please make sure your email program is set to view "HTML" messages, or view the newsletter online in the newsletter archives.

Announcing the Wild Fish Habitat Initiative Web Site

Wade Lake in Madison County, Montana after construction of the 600 foot long spawning channel at the south end of the lake.

The Montana Water Center is putting the finishing touches on the Wild Fish Habitat Initiative web site with funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This site provides information on habitat restoration research as well as technical resources and successful restoration case studies from throughout the northwestern US (Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and California). The case studies include narrative descriptions, project goals, restoration methods, project costs, landowner contributions, and monitoring data, all with the intention of providing landowners and managers with information with which to make informed habitat restoration decisions. Innovative techniques continue to be developed and tested.

If you have a case history you would like to see posted on the web site, email Molly Boucher, or visit the Wild Fish Habitat Initiative web site.

The next American Water Works Association Teleconference entitled "Emerging Issues in Water Utility Operations," will be held THIS THURSDAY, March 11, 2004, 12:00 NOON EST (10:00 AM MST). There are seven downlink sites in Montana.

To see an agenda and instructions for viewing, visit the AWWA web site or call the Water Center at 994-6690.

With Montana's Gallatin Valley population growing 34% between 1990 and 2000, primarily in rural subdivisions, work is cut out for Gallatin County's three water commissioners for the 18th Judicial Court. John Pruitt, Lezlie Kinne, and John Morse have all recently been trained in mediation to help settle water rights disputes among neighbors, before neighbors look to litigation. They cite new trends in urban growth - pond-building, changes of water use, drought, ditch easements, lack of public storage, enforcement issues - as contentious concerns among adjacent landowners.

"Mediation before litigation saves time and money, and gets neighbors to state their water-availability concerns face-to-face," says Pruitt. "I want everyone to know that the West Gallatin measured down to 208 cfs in 2003, the lowest since 1934.

We're losing the river." Kinne adds that "ranchers are good managers and their livelihood depends on good stewardship. More often than not, farmers, ranchers, and incoming landowners discover that they share common concerns."

Dorothy Bradley, District Court Administrator, serves as liaison between the commissioners' and the judge. She says that the rich stories from generations of water users breathes even more life into local water supply dilemmas. The key, she says, is to base legal decisions on science, which rests on the ability to effectively communicate good water science among water users. It is thanks to the foresight of the late Judge Mark Guenther that the system of mediation before litigation in the water courts was developed.

For information on water mediation in the court system call the 18th Judicial District Court Administrator at 582-2091.

So many meetings, so little time. Even so, there are a few that water folks just shouldn't miss! Find more information on these and other upcoming events on the Events Calendar at MONTANA WATER.

Big Hole River Foundation Executive Director Search , Butte, MT, Closes March 12, 2004 [INFO]

2004 Ground Water Protection Council Annual Policy Meeting, Washington DC, March 21 - 23, 2004 [INFO]

10th Symposium on Individual and Small Community Sewage Systems & 8th International Drainage Symposium, Sacramento, March 21 - 24, 2004 [INFO]

21st Annual Meeting of American Society of Mining and Reclamation, Morgantown, WV, April 18 - 22, 2004 [INFO]