Stevensville inching closer to water rights application

The Town of Stevensville continues to make progress on its work to acquire permits and water rights for the Twin Creeks Well Field, the primary source of domestic water for the Towns residents.

On Thursday, October 14th, the Town Council will be asked to approve a scope of work for NewFields, a hydrology firm that the Town Council approved a contract with back in May. NewFields was hired to assist the Town’s water rights attorney and engineers in a Global Permit Application with Montana DNRC for the Twin Creeks Well Field and Well 1, located downtown.

NewFields’ work will be conducted in multiple phases. The scope of work that the Town Council is considering at their meeting on Thursday will include preparing for and conducting a Pre-Application Meeting with the DNRC Missoula Regional Office. This is a preliminary work phase, intended to compile and document the Town’s water rights portfolio, historic and proposed use, and conceptual mitigation plan approach, as well as to gain concurrence on the Global Permit Application approach with DNRC.

While NewFields and the Town have been working to formally outline the scope of work to complete the project, the Town’s engineering firm has been working with the administration to determine a future place of use. A place of use is attached to a water right to regulate where water from that right is used. Stevensville’s existing place of use records vary by water right, which the Town has 22 different water rights in its inventory today. The new place of use map will be large enough to accommodate growth in the community for the next 50 years.

The Global Permit Application will ask the DNRC to permit 3 of the 4 wells at the Twin Creeks Well Field. The permit will also seek to update the place of use for 2 of the Town’s other wells. One well at Twin Creek is already permitted with water rights, but the place of use only includes the Twin Creeks Subdivision. The other well located downtown is also permitted, and has water rights, however the place of use excludes much of the new growth that the Town has experienced over the past 20 years. The application will use the portfolio of water rights that are already owned by the town to mitigate the groundwater impacts of the well field.

Stevensville’s water rights challenges have been a battle spanning multiple administrations, attorneys, and engineers. The Town had submitted a change application in 2015, which was terminated by the DNRC due in part to the town’s inadequate historical data for water use. This caused the project to stall as officials searched for answers and a solution. Mayor Brandon Dewey says that in 2017 the Montana Water Court began an adjudication of rights within the Burnt Fork area. “This put the project on hold as water rights that the Town owned were involved in the court’s adjudication,” said Dewey. The Water Court’s Closing Order of October 26, 2020 decreeing the last of the Town’s Claims, allowed the administration to proceed.

Mayor Dewey says that over the past year officials have been working to acquire contracts with the appropriate professionals to do the work, and get authorization from the Town Council to proceed with the work needed to prepare the full application. According to the Mayor, the project is a significant investment fo time and funding for the community and cutting could cost the Town. "We want to get this right and then move on so that it doesn't continue to cause concern for our residents and the community." said Dewey.

If the Town Council approves the proposed scope of work at their Thursday meeting, NewFields will deliver the Technical Memorandum and be prepared for the Pre-Application Meeting with DNRC within 90 days.

“Based on the Town’s extensive package of rights available for mitigation, insight gained from the previous change application that was terminated in 2015, and advantageous changes in Montana water law since that termination, the Town feels very confident that it will be successful in obtaining the Permits and Change Applications necessary to expand its Place of Use and mitigate increased use,” said Water Rights Attorney Ross Miller.

According to Miller, permitting and change applications is a lengthy process and exact timing is difficult to predict, successful completion of the Town’s Permit and Change Applications by year-end 2022 is a reasonable estimate.

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