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Water makes the town: Small communities face do-or-die decisions
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Good water – or the lack of it – is the only thing that stands between Broadview and its future.
Just 32 miles from Billings, and a world away from big-city living, the tiny community on the western edge of Yellowstone County has all but one critical element necessary for transformation into a thriving bedroom community.
By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Gazette Staff
"Billings people want to live here," Councilman Ralph Brewington said. "We get a lot of inquiries, but they find out about the water and they don’t want to move here.”
Lavina, 46 miles from Billings, could be on the verge of a growth spurt, too, if newcomers didn’t find the water undrinkable, Mayor Sid Boe said. Property owners usually hit all the water they want at 25 feet, he said, but the quality is poor. People who have lived there all their lives do just fine with it, but new people coming in don’t like it, he said. And the town needs to expand or it will die.
"Our businesses are going out,” he said. "We just lost our store. You have to have customers to stay in business.”
As it is, every house in town is occupied, he said. Because of the water situation, banks won’t loan money to build new ones, the mayor asserts.
So, reluctantly, Lavina became part of the Central Montana Regional Water Authority, an interlocal collaboration to resolve a regionwide water problem.
"It’s something that’s kind of forced on you,” Boe said.
Hobson Mayor Dale Longfellow, chairman of the newly formed water authority, approaches the prospect of a reliable regional water system with much more enthusiasm. The project has the unanimous support of the town council, he said.
"The water supply has a great deal to do with why a lot of small towns have fallen off along the way,” he said. "You have to have a good school and good water. I’m absolutely convinced of that.”
Hobson has a good school, and a lot of new families are moving in, he said. Now it’s time to tackle the water.
Each community has its own set of water problems.
Hobson residents rely on individual wells. About half have good water, Longfellow said. Many have been polluted with high concentrations of nitrates from farming and ranching operations or from contaminants seeping in from old septic systems.
The Bureau of Reclamation helped drill a community well to 1,250 feet. It produces about 60 or 70 gallons a minute, and people with bad water can pump out what they need and haul it away, he said.
But a full-fledged water system for Hobson isn’t on the horizon. Voters turned down a $1.6 million levy to build one, Longfellow said.
In Roundup, aesthetics are key, public works director Gary Thomas said. Water there contains iron and magnesium that give it a faint mineral tint and bad taste. It meets all federal and state standards, but many residents either drink bottled water or rely on reverse osmosis systems to remove the sodium and sulfates that give it a salty taste, he said.
"If standards change, we might not meet future standards with our existing water supply,” he said.
Locals are used to the water, he said, "but people that are new here, they don’t like the taste of it. They just don’t like the water at all.”
Roundup gets its supply out of a coal mine south of the Musselshell River. For present needs, there is plenty of water. But minerals in the water tend to clog pipes and damage appliances.
"Water heaters don’t seem to last very long over here,” Thomas said.
Neither do white clothes and sheets. When mineral deposits in the pipes break loose and land in the wash water, white clothes can take on a rusty orange hue, he said.
To remove distasteful minerals from the water would require an "unbelievably expensive” treatment plant, he said. The iron and magnesium would have to be filtered out first, and then the water would have to go through a reverse osmosis process to remove sodium and sulfates, he said. Maintenance on the regional system would be much less costly, but if the regional water proposal falls through, the town will have to look at it again, he said.
Roundup and Musselshell County were the driving forces behind the regional water supply project. But once other communities were approached, the idea quickly gained acceptance.
In Harlowton, Councilman Tom Horan said he fears that without the regional system, the town of about 1,000 people will be forced to build a new water plant to meet evolving water quality standards. Depending on size, a plant could cost between $10 million and $17 million, he said.
Three wells keep Harlowton water flowing now, but one of them is kind of "iffy,” Horan said. Sodium gives it a salty taste most people don’t like, he said. Residents tend to drink bottled water or have a reverse osmosis system in their homes.
Melstone’s 100 residents depend on the notoriously unreliable Musselshell River for their water. It stopped running in August. Although the town built an auxiliary reserve pond a few years ago, it was only a stopgap measure.
Mayor Tim DeJaegher said that the first pond is now dry and only about 45 to 50 days’ supply remains in the lower pond. Water has been rationed since August. If the Musselshell doesn’t start flowing soon, the town could face a water emergency.
It isn’t the first time in the past six years of drought that the river has dried up before reaching Melstone’s intake pump. In fact, town officials are caught in a continuing cycle of water crisis.
Recent Community Development Block Grants will help build a pipeline from a well 4-1/2 miles south of town, and a new water treatment plant is planned. Melstone still wants in on the regional system, he said, but couldn’t wait to find alternatives to its almost nonexistent water supply.
"The timeline works against us,” DeJaeger said. "They’re looking at eight to 10 years. We can’t wait that long. We’re out of water now.”
The regional system would provide a more long-term solution, he said. A new treatment plant has an expected lifespan of only 20 years, he said. If the town gets connected to the regional pipeline, the water wells he hopes to see on line as soon as December could serve as backup.
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Related story
To get clean water, 7 towns want to tap an aquifer almost 4,000 feet below ground
Please see: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?ts=1&display=rednews/2004/10/17/build/local/32-aquifer.inc
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