Montana Water Quality Designations
Need Re-Checking, Says Researcher

By Carol Flaherty

01/14/98 BOZEMAN -- Montana needs to re-evaluate its rivers to see whether their water quality designations match stream conditions, says a researcher.

Clayton Marlow, a Montana State University researcher who has specialized in the "riparian" or stream-area impacts of livestock grazing, says research near Missoula casts doubt on the accuracy of current state water quality designations.

About 14,000 miles of Montana's 50,000 miles of rivers and streams are rated as not meeting Montana water quality standards. Cottonwood Creek on the Bandy Ranch 44 miles northeast of Missoula is one of the streams that doesn't meet the standards.

However, Cottonwood Creek has much better water quality than its rating "impaired" indicates. A state water quality publication says "impaired" means the water is "generally unsuitable for any purpose." Instead of finding poor water quality, Marlow's research found that the creek's water is so good that "a lot of cities would be happy if their drinking water rated as well as this creek does."

Marlow's work on Cottonwood Creek began as a way to establish the degree of water quality impairment, demonstrate livestock grazing "best management practices" and document the improvement gained with each BMP adopted. Ed Bandy Jr. willed the 3,200 acre ranch to the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station and the University of Montana Forest and Conservation Experiment Station in 1988 as a site for agricultural, rangeland and timberland management studies.

"If this creek is rated 'impaired,' I have to wonder about the accuracy of other Montana rivers ' water quality ratings," he adds.

In a year of measuring twice a month, the creek had extremely low levels of nitrate, fecal coliform and suspended sediments. Some water is diverted from the creek to a ranch reservoir for use in dry months, and such diversions probably contributed to the impaired rating of the stream, partially because of a concern for maintaining trout habitat.

While monthly water quality records showed little cause for concern, there was a fecal coliform "spike" to about 2.5 times the state standard in Cottonwood Creek in mid-February 1997.

"What's interesting about that is there were no cows in the area of the high count," says Marlow. "We had moved the heifers out of the creek bottom as part of the BMPs, so the only thing going on was elk jumping into the creek to browse willows growing along the banks."

The coliform count in that case probably came from coliform being stirred up from the bottom of the creek.

As pollution from communities and industry is minimized, the focus of water quality enforcement has shifted to "nonpoint source" pollution, to which agricultural as well as most other human activities contribute.

As this shift has occurred, the responsibility for improving impaired waters also has shifted from municipalities and industry to agriculture, says Marlow. The change means that both public and private land managers are looking for ways to limit livestock's impact on water quality.

Water quality designations in the 1994 Montana 305B Report led to a series of grazing best management practices or "BMPs" intended for producers to use to improve water quality.

"Unless we can show that the water quality designations are accurate, landowners may be reluctant to implement BMPs intended to improve water quality," says Marlow.

The Bandy Ranch is about average size for Montana, and it supports itself entirely by cattle sales. Since no state money subsidizes its operations, suggestions derived from research on the ranch should be economically feasible for similar ranches, says Ranch Manager Joe Broesder. However, that also means that the economic impact of regulations affects it as much as other ranches.

Basically, from Broesder's point of view, the $4,000 it cost to construct a new heifer wintering facility away from Cottonwood Creek cost him the hay-baler he needed. He couldn't afford both.

"There's usually some resistance to changing the way we work," says Marlow, "but when you add to that a real skepticism about whether there is a need for the change, little is going to be accomplished."

"We need to re-evaluate the criteria used in designating stream and river water quality," says Marlow. "The first step should be to review the current list of streams and rivers to make sure there is a reason to act."

Marlow says the Bandy Ranch demonstration will continue in an effort to determine the effect of BMPs in maintaining water quality under a profitable ranch operation.

If you read this, we need to know who you are! Please send your name, city/state/country and the name of the topic you read to Carol Flaherty, MSU Communications Services, Bozeman, MT 59717 or email to Carol Flaherty carolf@montana.edu.

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