On Tuesday morning, I woke to find that the half-foot of snow in our backyard had completely melted overnight. There were puddles in the driveway and muddy pawprints leading from the kitchen to our dog’s bed in the living room. As the day dawned, it became clear that unseasonably high temperatures had turned the snow-covered Gallatin Valley into a soggy mess, and I immediately thought of water — or the lack thereof.
In the space of 12 hours, we’d lost what had been the first significant snowfall of the season and were left with bare ground as next summer’s water supply rushed along the curbside, down the drain at the corner, and off to parts unknown, perhaps the wastewater treatment plant, perhaps directly into a creek and then on to the East Gallatin River.
While this is undoubtedly an oversimplification of an infinitely complex process, unusually warm winters are one factor impacting Bozeman’s uncertain water future, contributing to a management challenge the city intends to solve with revisions to the Integrated Water Resources Plan, a guiding document that influences how officials meet water demands as the city grows and the climate changes.
Located in the drought-prone Lower Gallatin Watershed, Bozeman has a finite water supply primarily sourced from winter’s snowpack. “We’ve got a water supply system in the Gallatin that’s having supply-side challenges,” Clayton Elliott, IWRP Water Advisory Committee member and Montana Trout Unlimited’s conservation and government affairs director, told Mountain Journal. “Climate change is leading to lower yields of water in our river systems, less water and more frequent droughts, and changing the nature and timing of that water flow — early runoff, later rain in the winter months and we’re not building snowpack in the way that we’re used to.”
Additionally, water rights have been overallocated in Montana for nearly a century. “We’ve given out pieces of paper for water six times more than what we have available in a standard water year,” Elliott added.
At a Bozeman Commission meeting on the evening of December 9, utilities staff and consultants briefed officials on the project. “The city developed its first IWRP way back in 2013,” project manager Matt Wittern told the audience. “It looks forward 50 years to estimate how much water Bozeman may need and where it’ll come from.”
Now, because of rapid growth, supply and climate changes and better data, the plan needs an update, according to Wittern. “Climate change will likely alter the hydrology of your watersheds,” he said, “requiring us to elevate new solutions to meet future demands.”
According to Director of Utilities Shawn Kohtz, Bozeman’s successful water conservation program can be attributed to the 2013 plan, progress that has led to a shift in the local water supply outlook. “The 2013 IWRP set the priority to develop a water conservation program, among other water supply projects,” Kohtz said in an email to Mountain Journal. “Implementation of water conservation measures since [then] has yielded the positive results.”
“We’ve given out pieces of paper for water six times more than what we have available in a standard water year.”
Clayton elliott, Montana Trout Unlimited, IWRP Water Advisory Committee member
In 2023, for example, Bozeman adopted the Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, whereby newly constructed developments must limit turf to 20-35 percent of the landscaped area because irrigation represents such a high percentage of Bozeman’s water use. This encourages xeriscaping and planting drought-tolerant flora, saving significant water throughout the high-demand summer months.
While these measures have reduced the city’s per-capita water use and avoided any shortage so far, water quality still suffers throughout the valley, and summer in-stream flows continue to lag. Fifteen stream segments in the lower watershed are impaired, meaning they do not meet certain standards established by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and low flows are a contributing factor.
“You’re seeing a lot of stressors that are being induced by low flows,” TU’s Elliott said. “The state of the fishery is still robust, in the Gallatin specifically, but there are a lot of warning signs.” The city of Bozeman, Elliott added, is but one relatively minor part of a complex and highly over-appropriated water system.
While the planning process is far from finished, updates to the 2013 IWRP that take ecological health into account have already been incorporated. The Technical Advisory Committee, a WAC subcommittee, has pushed to include nature-based solutions such as wetland protection, beaver-dam mimicry and riparian restoration. “I think there will be recommendations that come out of this that ask the city to step up investments into natural-system function,” Elliott said.
When taken together with other water-saving measures, these nature-based processes could contribute to better overall health of the watershed. “I hope at the end of the day that whether you’re a water user in the city of Bozeman, an agricultural water user in the Gallatin Valley or a fish living in the Lower Gallatin, those investments will be good for you over the course of the next 50 years,” Elliott added.
In the new year, the project’s Water Advisory Committee will reconvene to continue refining recommendations from the project team, but Bozeman residents will also be called on to participate. “Recommendations from the project team will be stress tested by the WAC and by the public,” Wittern said. “This portion of the project is probably the most engagement intensive and ensures the community has had the opportunity to weigh in thoughtfully on the Water Resource Plan update.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: More information about the Integrated Water Resources Plan update process can be found at engage.bozeman.net/iwrp.
