Horse Creek Hills Foes ask for help from the Governor
 | Author:
Nancy Marks
Nancy Marks: MT43 News Secretary and News Editor |
Photo Credit goes to: Quincy Johnson, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper
Opponents of the planned Horse Creek Hills village on the east side of Canyon Ferry Lake are leaning on Gov. Greg Gianforte for help.
In an Oct. 26 letter, which they say is signed by nearly 100 longtime Broadwater County residents, they ask the governor to overturn the approval given to the project by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. They complain that the state agency wrongfully found that the subdivision’s 40 or more planned water wells were not subject to DNRC hydrological study and approval. They claim the wells could draw down the area’s groundwater to the detriment of nearby ranchers with senior water rights. The letter was made public by Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, a water conservation organization headquartered in Bozeman. In late August, UMW along with several area ranchers filed a lawsuit in Broadwater County District Court against both the county and the DNRC alleging they had wrongfully approved the subdivision project. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, besides UMW, are Tanya and Toby Dundas, Sally and Bradley Dundas, Carole and Charles Plymale, and Cody McDaniel.
In a conversation Mrs. Plymale reiterated, “The county and the state have not come to the plate to protect our water rights. We hope the governor will straighten this out by getting his agencies to follow the law.”
Following is the text of the letter:
As longtime Broadwater County residents, we’re writing to you with concern and disappointment in both our local government and the Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation in their review and findings of the new Horse Creek Hills major subdivision platted for the eastern shore of Canyon Ferry Reservoir.
We are a group of contiguous and surrounding property owners, cattle and grain ranchers, hunters, anglers, senior water rights holders, and community members. Many of our family histories on this landscape date back to the late 1800s. We’re generational Montanans raising our families and cattle alike on this landscape, yet our way of life, our water rights, and the wildlife we hold dear are threatened by the Horse Creek Hills subdivision.
Horse Creek Hills is a 4-phase, 435-acre new major subdivision that received DNRC approval to use a combination of exempt wells for water supply. We are aware that doing so is directly contrary to recent Montana Supreme Court litigation in Clark Fork Coalition v Tubbs, a case that resulted in a clear directive that the Montana DNRC cannot allow aggregated “exempt wells” for new development projects because doing so undermines the Montana Water Use Act and will lead to both violations of senior water rights and negative water supply impacts on the local environment.
Despite the Horse Creek Hills proposal being in the works for more than two years, there has still been no effort made to examine the potentially significant impacts of how 40+ new exempt wells could dewater and degrade local water resources that we community members rely on and value. The failure of Broadwater County and the DNRC to take responsibility and reasonably study the potential impacts of a new trophy home development sited amidst a rural, agricultural community is reprehensible. Several of the undersigned are already facing water supply challenges in our private wells, and we are collectively concerned that adding dozens of new exempt groundwater wells undermines our senior water rights and could devastate our agricultural water supplies and local rainbow trout spawning habitat in Confederate Creek.
Despite broad opposition to the subdivision from community members, Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks, Broadwater Conservation District, and conservation organizations, Broadwater County rubber-stamped the subdivision without properly examining the impacts it will have on the County’s residents, our livelihoods, our outdoors and wildlife, and our water resources. By not considering the impacts of a major subdivision like this, the County has violated their mandatory duties under the Montana Subdivision and Platting Act and failed to do their job to protect our senior water rights, ranching operations, and quality of life.
We have been left with no other option but to file a lawsuit and hold our local government accountable for failing to properly assess and address our concerns.
We respectfully urge your administration to lead your executive agencies to correct their wrongdoings: the DNRC needs to reconsider and revoke their sign-off on the use of exempt wells for the entirety of this subdivision. Doing so can help us all avoid unnecessary litigation. Please protect our rural community, our property rights, our senior water rights, and our precious water resources.
We appreciate your response.
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