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.