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Water Quality Planning

Rev: 3/11/10

The State of Montana has been allotted $194,300 as part of the ARRA appropriation from Section 604(b) of the Clean Water Act. For the purposes of the stimulus bill only, 604 (b) funds will be used for data collection and subsequent planning efforts that are currently being implemented by local, regional, and interstate agencies.

DEQ selected 9 projects for the 604(b) funding that will:

  1. To continue monitoring efforts Flathead Lake
  2. To support Aquatics Task Group (ATG) efforts in the Powder River Basin Southeastern Montana to evaluate potential water quality impacts from coal-bed methane development
  3. To continue monitoring efforts in the Milk River
  4. Whitmore Ravine Stakeholder Strategy planning
  5. Irrigation Efficiency monitoring and strategy development for Upper Clark Fork
  6. Watershed Assessment for Little Beaver Drainage in Lower Clark Fork TPA
  7. Limited Area Watershed Assessment for the Clark Fork River around Plains MT to identify alternative solutions to sedimentation/erosion control other than traditional hard fixes.
  8. Rattlesnake Creek Watershed Plan development focusing on green infrastructure as well as water and energy efficiency improvements
  9. Water Storage Plan: The Mosby-Musselshell Watershed Group in cooperation with the Petroleum County Conservation District have proposed a watershed assessment for the Upper Musselshell and Mosby watershed to identify methods of storing and conserving water.

Detailed Project Listing

The nine projects are considered by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MT DEQ), Water Quality Planning Bureau (WQPB) as being relevant to support Water Quality efforts in the Monitoring, Non-Point Source (NPS) and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) programs.

Outcomes: The primary outcome is the knowledge gained about the water quality condition of the sampled waterbodies. From this knowledge, beneficial use support determinations will be made, and if necessary, water quality restoration plans will be developed. Secondary objectives are the planning efforts of some of these projects that will also help with the water quality activities in the Department.

Outputs: The primary output is to continue the collection of data in the nine project areas, the availability of the results in a public database, and a final report that will provide a summary of all the projects under this grant. This final grant report will assist in achieving the Project Objectives identified above in Section 1.0.

All ARRA funds were required to be under contract no later than February 17, 2010, one year from the date President Obama signed the American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA). All 9 of the projects were fully executed prior to the obligation deadline and DEQ provided a certification to this fact in a letter dated February 26, 2010 (see letter). Additionally, all nine projects are underway and commencing with putting the ARRA funds to work in their community. One project on Flathead Lake will be completed on June 30, 2010 while the other 8 projects will be completed by September 30, 2010.