Smart Irrigation = A Stronger Big Hole River

One of the biggest challenges in the Big Hole is balancing water for fish, ranches, and people — in a river that is free-flowing and snow-dependent. In drought years like 2021, existing water rights exceeded supply, flows crashed, temperatures spiked, and the City of Butte drew over 60% of its drinking water from the Big Hole, further straining the system. Low, warm water threatens the trout fishery — and the rural economies built on it.

Since 1997, the Big Hole River Drought Management Plan has helped keep the river alive through voluntary action, but irrigators now face a major barrier to further conservation: aging headgates and no way to measure water accurately. Without modern infrastructure, even willing water users cannot efficiently cut back during drought and must repeatedly enter the channel with equipment, adding sediment.

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What We’ve Done So Far

In 2022, BHWC secured ARPA funds to pay for engineered designs for

• 3 headgates on Wise River, and

• 3 headgates on Jerry Creek

Design work is underway and will enable irrigators to measure, manage, and conserve water in real-time — reducing losses and improving late-season flows without regulation or conflict.

In parallel, BHWC is preparing additional grant proposals to expand infrastructure modernization across the watershed.

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Status & The Funding Challenge

Although these upgrades clearly help the river by improving drought-season water conservation, there is no direct “fish habitat” component, so traditional funders have — so far — declined to fund construction. We are actively pursuing alternatives, but these shovel-ready projects are stalled for one reason only: funding.

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Why This Matters

• Keeps more water instream in drought through precision, not sacrifice

• Reduces annual river disturbance and sedimentation

• Keeps ranching viable, keeping working lands on the landscape

• Creates replicable pilots for expansion watershed-wide

• Protects the backbone towns that depend on fish and ag

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Help Turn Designs Into Conservation on the Ground

The planning is done. The designs are in place. We are ready to build — and donor support can directly unlock these first projects and demonstrate a new model for drought-resilient water sharing.

Support the BHWC Conservation Fund:
https://bhwc.org#donate

Together we can deliver creative, win-win, on-the-ground solutions that protect the Big Hole River and keep ranching viable — not someday, but now.