The folks who use the St. Mary Canal and the members of the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group must be feeling a little down today after reading this article in the Great Falls Tribune.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s (BOR) commissioner, Bob Johnson, basically told Senator Jon Tester to stick it when Tester asked about the BOR repairing the aging structure. Tester was told the users must pay for the repairs, estimated at $140 million, with the cost growing every day.
Tester did not even receive assurances that the BOR would support legislation to repair the problems. It must have made him feel kind of inadequate since some of these projects are in his back yard.
Here in Montana, we’ve heard about several water projects that will never be fully funded, mostly because of the loss of clout in the U.S. Senate, and especially because we no longer have a senior member on the Senate Appropriations committee.
In November 2007, the Tribune also reported, “So little federal money is trickling into Montana’s two fledgling regional rural water projects that, barring a drastic increase in funding from Congress, it’s possible they’ll never be built, according to project proponents.”
Look for that trend to continue.
The Western Word 
The Whitehouse? It’s congress and those on Approps that fund these projects. North Dakota hasn’t had much of a problem the last couple of years with their water projects and they have two democrats as senators. It’s called clout. Montana does not have it. -Jack
Uhh..I think the co-chair said that Montana farmers are not receiving help because of the Whitehouse. Did we read the same article. Heck, how many minutes is that in Iraq $$$.Just another reason to vote GOP in the next election.