DEQ Attempting to Weaken Pollution Permit Protections

Montana’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is proposing significant changes to its groundwater pollution discharge permitting rules, and some of the changes are for the worse. In Montana, groundwater connectivity to nearby surface waters has been well documented and is…

Action: Tell DEQ It Must Consider Climate Impacts

Attend a public listening session in Helena, Missoula, or online The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recently announce a comment period and listening sessions on updating the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), a critical component of environmental permitting and…

EPA’s New WOTUS Rule Leaves Montana’s Waterways Vulnerable to Pollution

Miles of Waterways Now Excluded from Federal Protection This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule after the Supreme Court ruled in the Sackett v. EPA wetlands litigation in May 2023….

Montana DEQ Must Improve Permit Terms for Industrial Factory Farms To Protect Clean Water

Waterkeeper and National Organizations File Comments to Improve Statewide CAFO Permitting    Yesterday, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and several national organizations submitted technical comments to the Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) on the proposed renewal of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation…

Speak Up: Improve Montana’s Water Quality

Increasing pollution, including the growing threat posed by nutrient pollution related to unrelenting development pressure, continues to challenge Montana’s clean water and world-class rivers. Once every three years, the Montana Department of Environmental Protection (DEQ) conducts a comprehensive review of…

What’s Happening with Wild Trout in Southwest Montana?

You’ve likely seen the troubling news that trout populations in the Jefferson Basin including the Big Hole, Beaverhead, and Ruby Rivers, have crashed to 50-year lows. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ (FWP) own data show that brown and rainbow trout…

Protect the Future of the Big Hole and Beaverhead Rivers

Support the BLM’s Public Lands Proposal Public lands in southwest Montana have been unnecessarily at risk from industrial oil and gas leasing and development under the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) public lands management plans for decades, threatening our wildlife,…

Two Years After Calling for a Cold Water Fisheries Task Force, Southwest MT Trout Populations Fall to Historic Lows

You don’t have to look far to see that Southwest Montana’s world-renowned wild trout fisheries have been on the decline for the past several years. A suite of troubling conditions – low snowpack and dewatered rivers, nutrient pollution driven noxious…

SW Montana’s Jefferson Basin Trout at Historic Lows; Recruitment Class Absent 

Governor Has Ignored Calls for Cold Water Fisheries Task Force Recent reporting from the Montana Standard exposed an emergency situation on the Big Hole, Beaverhead, Ruby, and Jefferson rivers.  Wild trout populations in these rivers have plummeted to 50-year+ historic…