Last week the Monitoring Montana Waters team had the opportunity to travel to Great Falls and join the Montana Watershed Coordination Council (MWCC) and Sun River Watershed Group (SRWG) for the 2024 Watershed Tour. The Watershed Tour allows partners to share, learn, and network as we tour on-the-ground projects that demonstrate the unique resources, challenges, and diverse conservation partnership strategies implemented in the Sun River Watershed.
The first stop on the tour was Wadsworth Pond, this stop highlighted a community project with many partners. The park is managed by Great Falls Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Great Falls Flood District. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, along with Trout Unlimited and Walleyes Unlimited, host a Kids’ Fishing Day here each year and are continuing to improve the park. Next up was Big Sky Bison, where SRWG contracted with the landowner to replace some old culverts. The property along Muddy Creek has deep eroded banks and with grants from US Bureau of Reclamation, DNRC, and other sources, partners are implementing projects to restore the streambank. J-Wasteway, another stop along Muddy Creek demonstrated how water quality is impacted by livestock and how return flows from irrigation operations start feeding into the creek causing higher than natural flows and large fluctuations that cause erosion. The last stop for the day was Spring Coulee Creek Farm, a site that included organic alfalfa farming, cattle grazing leasing, and three generations of restoration to the creek and riparian vegetation.
On the last day of the tour, the group started at Lowery Bridge to discuss local town problems relating to local flooding and the emergency actions landowners and municipalities took to protect infrastructure and crops. More problems were discussed such as the threat of aquatic invasive species, low trout numbers, high stream temperature, and the work that is being done to mediate future risks. The tour concluded at Arnold Coulee; the long drive allowed participants to see the Pishkun Supply Canal and see how important the area is to recreation, irrigation, infrastructure, and private homes and land. The group also learned about low tech process-based restoration and saw examples of a few different structures.
