How Development Forced Bozeman’s Namesake Creek Underground

On Earth Day in Bozeman, Montana, those abuses were top of mind, serving as fodder for considering one of America’s fastest growing small cities, an “it” town that Time Magazine, to the chagrin of old timers, proclaimed one of “the world’s greatest places” for 2023 and set in a region (the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem) which holds the headwaters for three major river systems (the Missouri-Mississippi; Snake-Columbia; and Green-Colorado). Click on the video above.

One of Bozeman’s slogans has been that it’s “A City That Works.” But work for whom, for what, and how within the context of avowing "sustainability"?  Along Bozeman’s namesake creek in front of city hall a stone’s throw from Main Street that is said to represent the values of the community, a crowd gathered to help dedicate a multi-media art installation.

Indigenous artist Ben Pease (who is Crow (Apsáalooke)/Northern Cheyenne (Tsétsêhéstâhese)/Metis and European ancestry) and his friend and colleague Jim Madden presented “Revitalize Relatives” to honor this smallish yet consequential ribbon of water which they call a life force emanating its own spirit.  By way of an optical illusion in which Bozeman Creek appears to roar through stained glass panels featuring bison thundering across pastoral grasslands, the point of this interactive “thought piece” springs to life.

Yes, it’s true, Bozeman Creek literally vanishes for a stretch underground, passing  beneath structures on both sides of Main Street before resurfacing.  Rather than giving the creek deference, earlier developers covered it up, subduing it, trying to pretend it didn’t exist—something Madden considers a travesty; something that allegedly could never happen again today. Still, the plight of Bozeman Creek is symbol of how nature is treated as an afterthought or dispensable.

Pease and Madden were joined in the artistic unveiling by Marsha Small, Northern Cheyenne, who said we are doing such things at our own peril. Small and Pease refused to hold back their indignation. Small said the entombed stretch of Bozeman Creek deserves to be liberated, freed from its undignified cordon of concrete and neglect, brought back into the sunlight instead of being branded a hazard or nuisance kept out of sight and mind of modern Bozeman denizens.

“I’ve been a water baby all my life, from swimming in muddy creeks to slow moving rivers, to kayaking lakes and dancing in the rain, to asking water for guidance and actually hearing it talk to me in 2005,” Small said. “If you haven’t heard water talk to you, you aren’t listening. ‘Mother Earth’s blood,’ as my Gramma Aggie called it, is the strong element of all. Without it we cease to exist. We know this but yet we still take the water spirit for granted.” 

As she and Pease spoke they called for a few moments of quiet, amid urban sounds, to hear the calming rush of water emanating from the mountains. Small has choregraphed conferences centered on water far and wide. She said the abuses that humans are heaping upon Bozeman Creek caused her to ask for forgiveness. You can't save what you don't hold as dear as a beloved relative, and like a beloved relative affection is not motivated by greed.

“I took law and environmental classes learning how the rules and regulations are imprisoning our water spirit,” she said. “We are guilty of it right here in Bozeman as you can see, the jailing of a free water spirit. It has been shared with me, from elders, community members and other beings that Bozeman Creek should go back to being free instead of being cemented into a square path. That is our mission, Bozeman, and surrounding communities. How can we do better to work with the water spirit. Especially Bozeman Creek?”

Metaphorically, we all have our own versions of Bozeman Creek, and we forget that were a single rivulet of water found to exist on the Moon or Mars, holding the beings and web of life that most do here, it would be a cosmic, reality-shaking discovery.

One might think that in the Greater Yellowstone region, where fly-fishing is sacred, water would receive veneration. Yet so much remains uncertain. Let’s take a little tour.

In Jackson Hole, Flat Creek originates on the National Elk Refuge and wends southward through the town of Jackson. It shares a troubling predicament with Fish Creek on the west side of the Snake River and circuits through the town of Wilson. Both carry elevated levels of fecal contamination that can cause humans to get ill from E.coli bacteria and other health threats.

In Livingston, Montana, there’s a spirited debate happening over whether a new proposed multi-million dollar public recreation center should be built in a flood plain beside the Yellowstone River where a torrent in June 2022 left the nearby new hospital surrounded by high water.  In the Livingston Enterprise newspaper, a story recently appeared indicating that the city manager said the river corridor was not an ideal place for the new rec center.  

The story also quoted Wendy Weaver, a civil engineer, executive director of Montana Freshwater Partners and one of the leading voices in river conservation in southwest Montana. "We should definitely reconsider investing huge sums of public dollars and other money into a facility that's going to be located in this high-risk area along the river," Weaver said. "I think flood hazards are considered one of Livingston's highest risks, according to [Park County's] hazard mitigation mitigation plan—and an important strategy for minimizing flood damage in the future is to avoid building in high-risk zones...and the floodplain along the river."

In Big Sky, Montana, recent algae blooms on the storied Gallatin River related to booming development are causing reflection about the cost of out of control speculative real estate. It's a sorry state of affairs, conservationists say, when one of the richest per capita resort communities in Montana cannot afford to insure the Gallatin is unsullied. Read this account by the river protection organization, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, on how an accident in winter 2016 resulted in 30 million gallons of treated wastewater and silt spilling into the Gallatin. Not long ago, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality announced more than 40 river miles of the Gallatin, stretching from the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park, past Big Sky and to its confluence with Spanish Creek, would be designated as impaired due to "excessive algae growth."

Nearby, at Gallatin Gateway, there’s a controversial glamping resort, whose approval by the Gallatin County Commission is being challenged in the Montana Supreme Court, that would result in operational pipelines being installed beneath the river and in areas prone to flood. 

At the 2.2 million-acre Wind River Reservation in Wyoming—equal in size to Yellowstone Park and a crucial part of the ecosystem—Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe leaders are working diligently with groups like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition to regain tribal water rights, guaranteed in treaties, that were never relinquished to the Bureau of Reclamation. Read this summary by Wes Martel (Eastern Shoshone) who leads GYC's efforts at Wind River.

Water rights fights also are brewing over the Upper Green River in Wyoming as downstream states in the Colorado River System fight new restrictions on water allocations. On the Madison River in southwest Montana, commercial and recreational anglers are battling each other and engaged with the state over how to deal with crushing human pressure. Similarly, in Paradise Valley, a number of different groups are coming together studying recreational overuse of the Yellowstone River. See video about the work of the Upper Yellowstone Watershed Group at end of this story.

Meanwhile, an array of conservation groups arrayed beneath the banner of Montanans for Healthy Rivers are trying to get lawmakers on Capitol Hill behind a bill called the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act that would add to the nation’s roster of stream stretches given Wild and Scenic status. If passed, it would bring added protection to 20 of Montana’s most iconic waterways—many in Greater Yellowstone and including the Smith River, where in one of its tributaries there’s a fight surrounding a proposed copper mine.

Indeed, water issues abound. This spring a separate controversy erupted in Grand Teton National Park over a plan by the federal Bureau of Recreation, an agency inside the US Interior Department, to carry out water releases on the Snake River from Jackson Lake through Jackson Lake Dam to levels that many say will harm wildlife. The Snake holds vaunted status as a national Wild and Scenic River, ostensibly the top designation for river protection in the US.

Brian Nesvik, director of Wyoming Game and Fish, raised concern and so have people who make their livelihoods on wildlife watching such as Taylor Phillips, owner of Jackson Hole EcoTour Adventures.

Consider: Jackson Lake and the dam are located upstream of the famed Oxbow Bend of the Snake River, touted as one of the premiere wildlife watching destinations not only in Greater Yellowstone but the world. Its ecological richness depends upon maintaining minimum flows of at least 280 cubic feet per second which support habit for an array of species such as grizzly and black bears, elk, moose, bald eagles, osprey, herons, cranes, egrets, river otter, Snake River cutthroat trout and dozens of other species.

However, the Bureau of Reclamation, which answers to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who has repeatedly claimed she is a committed advocate to protecting wildlife, is planning to radically reduce the flow to 50 cubic feet per second as a water management level. BuRec’s main priority is to delivering water to agricultural irrigators downstream in the Snake system in Idaho. The agency said that because of this epic snowpack year in the West, it needs to hold back releases from Jackson Hole because downstream reservoirs are full and does not want more pressure placed on Milner Dam, an obstruction made of rockfill near Burley, Idaho.

But wildlife advocates say such drastic measures are unnecessary. Click here to read the petition that Phillips drafted and welcomes citizens to sign. As Nesvik stated in a press release, the notion that flows must be reduced in a year that has experienced huge snowpack in order to serve ag interests at the expense of a crown jewel river that supports one of the richest convergences of wildlife, does not make sense. 

“This decision by BOR has the potential to impact spawning native fish, anglers and recreational users and visitors at Wyoming’s beloved Grand Teton National Park,” Nesvik said in a press release. “Reducing flows during a year when we have significantly more water available than normal is hard to comprehend and Wyoming cannot support this reduction. The State of Wyoming is calling on BOR to develop alternative solutions quickly to keep flow rates at the minimum level to conserve wildlife.”

The good news is that on May 16, 2023 and as a result of public pressure brought by citizens, conservation groups and state and federal agencies, BuRec agreed to maintain enough flows.

Nature tourism is an economic engine across Wyoming but especially in the northwest corner of the state in Greater Yellowstone, Phillips says.  He praised the short-term compromise and says BuRec has generally been sensitive to the needs of nature in Jackson Hole. But he believes that it and downstream water users need a better, more holistic strategy.

“The biggest concern for me and all wildlife enthusiasts is as we look down the road in time,” Phillips says. “We can’t continually be placed in the same situation every year. We need sustainability and predictability. We need to permanently establish and maintain the minimal flow 280 cfs and doing that may require federal, state and non-profit dollars coming together to buy water rights to maintain natural hydrological flows during spring run off which is what the fishery needs. And what’s good for fish is good for all other species, including people and the economy.” 

Back in the Gallatin Valley, few citizens are probably aware of this: according to the Gallatin Watershed Council, 15 streams in the Lower Gallatin River watershed do not meet state water quality standards. They contain sediment, nutrients and/or E.coli levels that impair the use of water for beneficial human uses such as recreation and irrigation. Never mind what the tainted aqua means for fish, birds that eat the fish, amphibians and macro-invertebrates.  The watershed council is in the vanguard in Gallatin Valley with advocating to increase building setbacks from rivers and streams in order to protect wildlife habitat and water quality.

Bozeman Creek, a tributary to the East Gallatin, is counted on the list of E.coli concerns. Another impaired ribbon is the East Gallatin which happens to flow right by the back door of Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s home near Bozeman. “Excess nitrogen and phosphorus comes from fertilizers on lawns and farm fields, pet and livestock waste, and leaking septic systems,” the Gallatin Watershed Council states. “Sediment includes particles of sand, clay, and silt that are suspended in the water or settled on the stream bottom. While some sediment is natural in streams, excess sediment comes from erosion of stream banks and farm fields as well as stormwater runoff. High levels of sediment smother the gravels where fish spawn and aquatic insects live. It also reduces the natural vegetation growing in the stream while increasing the amount of blue-green algae. Excess sediment increases the cost of treatment for drinking water.”

Throughout the three-state Greater Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, lax county regulations combined with efforts by state legislatures to weaken laws pertaining to river setbacks for development echo of the folly that resulted in Bozeman Creek getting buried by bricks and mortar.

The public Earth Day gathering in Bozeman was sponsored by a novel non-profit organization, Mountain Time Arts, best known perhaps for staging an encampment of colorful and glowing tipis atop of Peets Hill overlooking Bozeman in autumn 2021. The group also helped organize gatherings of tribes and tipis in Yellowstone National Park in summer 2022 that may be coming to Jackson Hole later this year. Mountain Time Arts also has, among other things, produced dramatic art performance events around the Gallatin Valley highlighting water, history, climate change and indigenous connections to the region going back millennia.

Led by Executive Director Francesca Pine-Rodriquez, and having earlier won a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Mountain Time Arts is succeeding in its mission to wake people up. “What would Bozeman Creek be like if it was perfectly healthy?” Pine Rodriguez said. “It’s fun to imagine that question, and that’s what I wanted to inspire today.”

Bozeman is quickly nearing a point where current municipal water supply will soon be outstripped by demand. The town relies on snowpack for its water, with 80 percent streaming through Bozeman Creek and Hyalite Creek, the latter fueled by Hyalite Reservoir. The other 20 percent rises from a developed spring at the headwaters of Lyman Creek in the Bridger Range. 

Right now, skeptics are incredulous. While Bozeman is pushing aggressive water conservation measures pertaining to lawn watering and installing more efficient toilets and shower heads—all noble gestures—they say citizens are being asked to conserve water in order to make sure there is enough available for surging growth many members of the public do not want. 

Moreover, and this is one of the things many citizens are unaware, the city’s multi-million-dollar sewage treatment plant is saddled near the banks of the East Gallatin River. While state of the art, there are many chemicals that cannot be filtered out and the East Gallatin remains water quality impaired.

What might be shocking to some is that effluent releases from Bozeman's sewage treatment plant account for about 33 percent of summer flows in the East Gallatin River. The tertiary treatment system removes 98 percent of pollutants and allows a viable trout fishery to exist. Read this recent newspaper essay by Loren Bahls on his assessment of the difference between the East Gallatin that flows through Bozeman and the Main or West Gallatin that passes by Big Sky.

In the past, Pease has mused: "Many times, the question is more important than the answer. What really matters, is the path."

With his young kids splashing in the creek as he spoke, Pease noted how, before he and Madden completed the stained-glass piece and an accompanying hand-drawn map panel, he wanted to become better acquainted with Bozeman Creek. As best as he could, he walked its course upstream to Mystic Lake inside the Custer Gallatin National Forest.

Pease began the trek, he said, with expectations that he would be inspired, but confessed he was disappointed by what he found in certain stretches—trash, human and dog waste, drug needles and other things unbecoming for such a liquid gem.  Not only was Mayor Andrus present at the ceremony but former mayor Carson Taylor made a land acknowledgment, and nearby stood mayor-elect Terry Cunningham who in 2024 will take the helm of local government. 

On the shores of Mystic Lake, which are feeling the crowded effects of industrial recreation, a variety of species, from grizzly bears to moose, elk, mule deer and others come to drink. There aren’t many cities in the West that can boast such a nearby wellspring. 

Poor land use and planning decisions in the past are not easy or inexpensive to undo. Estimates on the cost of restoring Bozeman Creek range in many tens of millions of dollars to higher. That’s why, Pease said, it’s important to not continue to make similar mistakes. Foremost, it demands that communities reflect on why decisions are made that result in squandering aspects of nature that cannot be replaced. Rivers and streams are some of those and he worries that greed is dominating many of the decisions related to development.

“I thought the messages of Ben and Marsha was powerful and poignant and right on the mark,” Madden, who helped found Mountain Time Arts said. “ What I took from it is we as a culture really need to respect the voice of the creek and let it be a creek and not tell it what we want it to do. We have an opportunity to make amends with the natural world. MTA is hoping to use art to amplify that message.”

Madden said he knew Pease had embarked upon a hike along the creek but he was shocked by what Pease found. “Speaking for myself, I can think of how great it is here and yet we live in this little bubble in town. We look at the mountains and just kind of turn a blind eye to that stuff.”

Small noted that globally 2.2 billion people, according to the UN, lack access to safely managed drinking water. She said clean water ought to be guaranteed as a human right and, in a bioregion like Greater Yellowstone, recognized as an emblem of ecosystem health, it is the sacred underpinning of biodiversity. 

Last summer, many who participated in the Mountain Time Art's Yellowstone Revealed Initiative project (as part of the park's 150th anniversary celebration) remembered approaching a teepee encampment set up near a river and something stirred deep inside them. It was a sensation Pease hoped to feel when he traveled to the headwaters of Bozeman Creek but it evaded him.

“I think it’s important to make the invisible visible. The art installation is a reminder of the crime of what’s been done to a river,” Madden says. “Everyone who lives here loves this place in some fashion. No matter what sphere one runs around in, many are limited in their knowledge and understanding of all the spheres. We are using art to amplify the different voices, with different perspectives, waiting to be heard.”

The power of "Revitalize Relatives" is that it isn't an optical illusion. Water molecules are present in everything that is alive. It runs through us, makes our blood liquid, yet in Bozeman, Montana, in its namesake creek, we still regard it as an afterthought.  That's not how human reciprocity works with the natural world.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Feeling daunted? Need inspiration?  Watch the short videos below highlighting how diverse neighbors arrayed together in the Upper Yellowstone Watershed Group are trying to preserve and protect the integrity of the Yellowstone River in Park County, Montana. Also view the new trailer for the short film "They Call Me Madison" from the Madison River Foundation coming in summer 2023.