Snow is falling, and winter is here. With the water sample collection season behind us, we bring exciting news for future water quality monitoring efforts in western Montana. In the fall of 2023, the Flathead Lake Biological Station was awarded $6.6 million from the EPA to implement and lead a collaborative Pesticide Stewardship Partnership Program (PSPP) for the Upper Columbia River Basin of Montana. MMW, along with multiple other partner organizations, will be working with the PSPP to reduce pollution, improve water quality, promote citizen engagement, and implement green infrastructure throughout the Columbia River Basin (CRB) of Montana. This is an exciting opportunity, as Montana currently has no pesticide monitoring programs, and it gives us the chance to quantify the threats facing our aquatic systems. MMW and our volunteer water monitoring groups will be working closely with the Montana PSPP on expanding our sampling efforts to include pesticides and increasing water monitoring support for the CRB of Montana. For more information about the new MT PSPP check out the website. It is currently under construction, but is being populated regularly with more information and will include pages about pesticides, partners, projects and upcoming events. If you’d like to know more about the work MMW does or are interested in starting or joining a monitoring group feel free to reach out to MMW@flbs.umt.edu.