We’re the city of water
Missoula, Montana - Photo courtesy of the Clark Fork Coalition
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Friends of Confluence West –
2021 has been a damn tough year. So as we wave goodbye to this year and ring in a (hopefully) much brighter 2022, let's go out on a high note.
Here's a story of local government leadership, smart collaboration, and residents with a high 'watershed IQ' in Missoula, Montana – the "City of Water."
Last month, we shared a similar story about another western community with a high watershed IQ and how its historic partnerships have 'built back better' from a catastrophic wildfire.
The first part of this story starts with gnarly challenges. Thanks to the pandemic, there's been a big influx of new residents to the Missoula area. As with so many smaller communities in the West, this has meant everything from a housing boom to strained infrastructure and increasing demands on water supply.
Karen Knudsen at the Clark Fork Coalition takes the story from here (see below.) Many of you are familiar with the Coalition's work tackling the largest Superfund site in the United States and leading one of the West's best success stories - removing the dam at the confluence of the Upper Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers.
For the West,
Kimery
P.S. Why support Confluence West? It’s all about the elephant. Learn more: www.confluence-west.org and please support our work.
“By most any standard of measure, it's clear that investing in river restoration and protection is the best way to enhance the quality of life and ensure the best possible future for the people who live, work, and play in Missoula.”
- Karen Knudsen
Q: Where should we start this current story?
Knudsen: Let's start with the important back story. In 2016, Missoulians paid eighty-four million dollars to buy back their water system from a multi-national corporation. Since then, our local government has dramatically expanded operations, infrastructure, and policy to make sure we're thinking ahead for secure water supplies and healthy, resilient urban streams.
Q: What's happened in the four years since the acquisition of the water system?
KK: COVID has been a real wake-up call for our community – all of a sudden, so many people began moving into the Missoula area. So we had to get a lot smarter and a lot better at what we do – fast.
One of the most exciting things we're working on right now is a campaign for a forgotten wilderness stream - Grant Creek or, in the Salish language - Nɫɫq̓esuʔl̓m, the "Little Wide Creek" You Can Cross."
This creek leads a double life … maybe even a triple life. Its headwaters are a stronghold for native Westslope cutthroat trout and begin in the glacier-carved cirques of the Rattlesnake Wilderness, thousands of feet above the Missoula valley floor. For 10 miles, it flows through thick forests and then a lightly-developed agricultural valley.
But over the next 9 miles, things get spicy. The creek passes under I-90 and has to run the gauntlet of human impacts. It's diverted for irrigation, piped and re-routed to accommodate roads and rails, rip-rapped and altered to control flooding, bisected by culverts, trampled by hooves, and degraded by runoff. And if that wasn't enough, the creek now faces major residential developments slated for its lower few miles.
Thanks again in no small part to local government leadership and active community stakeholders, the stage is set for an ambitious headwaters-to-mouth revitalization of the creek that will pay dividends for fish and wildlife, climate resiliency, and the mutual relationship Missoulians have with their natural environments.
Q: Who are you working with on the Grant Creek campaign?
Local government agencies and planners, elected officials, landowners and businesses on the creek, and resource experts are all engaging in this headwaters-to-mouth restoration vision for Grant Creek. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will be integral, along with national conservation groups who either hold easements or property in the Grant Creek watershed.
Q: What does this creek mean to the Salish and Kootenai peoples?
I can't speak for members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. But we understand that for millennia this creek pointed the way for the tribes' annual spring journeys to the Bitterroot-rich meadows of the Missoula and Bitterroot valleys. While Grant Creek experienced dramatic and devastating changes over the past 150 years, this rich cultural history is both inspiration and motivation for the restoration campaign ahead.
Q: What's next for this "City of Water"?
KK: Where to begin! Missoula has undergone an amazing transformation in the last 15 years. After a long, hard century of treating the river as a waste receptacle, Missoulians have discovered that the Clark Fork running through the heart of town is wild, wonderful, and accessible to all. It connects people to nature. It is cleaner and healthier than it has been in decades. Its trout fishery is taking off. Its bird and wildlife habitat keeps improving. By most any standard of measure, it's clear that investing in river restoration and protection is the best way to enhance the quality of life and ensure the best possible future for the people who live, work, and play in Missoula. So the focus in this "City of Water" has become restoring, protecting, and preserving the river and its tributary streams and creating a sense of connection to and reciprocity between people and their hometown river.
Karen Knudsen
Karen is the Executive Director of the Clark Fork Coalition. She's been working with the Coalition since 1993, including stints as its River Smart Growth program director, communications director, business manager, and education and outreach coordinator. She also serves on the boards of the Watershed Restoration Coalition, a landowner-driven nonprofit working to conserve natural resources in the ranch lands of the Upper Clark Fork basin, and Climate Smart Missoula, which fosters partnerships around climate resiliency. Karen is a founding member of the Healthy Headwaters Alliance (started by Confluence West, now housed at the National Wildlife Federation) and is a long-time advisor to Confluence West. She holds a B.A. in economics from Colorado College and a master's degree in public administration from Syracuse University. In her spare time, she's outdoors as much as possible, enjoying Montana rivers and mountains with her husband and two college-age children.