Oppose the “Regulatory Accountability Act” – URGENT LEGISLATIVE ACTION

Montana! We want to alert you all about a bad federal bill making its way through Congress that, if passed, would make it much harder for environmental agencies to create rules protecting clean water and healthy landscapes. Senate bill 951, the “Regulatory…

Poison Pesticide In Our Waters

We must stop the pesticide industry from viewing the Clean Water Act as nothing more than a nuisance.  Did you know that the House Rules Committee recently passed a controversial and dangerous piece of legislation that will now move to the…

Public Talking Points – EPA Regulatory Roll-Back Comments

This year, President Trump issued Executive Order 13777 (‘Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda) demanding that for every new regulation proposed, the government must eliminate two existing rules. On top of trying to remove the regulatory safeguards that industry finds too costly, the…

Bad State Water Policy: Weak Montana River Pollution Standards

The 2015 Montana Legislature passed – and Gov. Bullock failed to veto – SB 325.  This bill sets up a loophole that prohibits state env’tl regulatory agencies from setting water quality protections that are strong enough to protect Montana’s rivers and…

Cleaning Up Urban Stormwater Pollution

(BOZEMAN, MT) – Upper Missouri Waterkeeper filed a Complaint today, Friday December 30th, 2016, with the Montana 18th District Court challenging the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) new statewide, General Permit for municipal separate storm sewer systems (the MS4…

Smith Mine Update

This November 2016 Tintina Resources – the Australian backed company proposing a new copper mine in the headwaters of Montana’s famed Smith River – applied for a Clean Water Act Section 404 Permit (AKA, a dredge and fill permit) to…

Waterkeeper In the News

Have you seen Upper Missouri Waterkeeper in the newspaper? We’ve been hard at work spreading the clean water message – take a look below at a few public articles to which we contributed! New Water Forum discusses health of the…

Hot Topic: SB325 state workgroup

SB 325, originally sponsored by Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, prohibits the Board of Environmental Review (BER) from establishing water quality standards stringent enough to protect Montana’s rivers and streams, and will have a particular impact on irrigators on southeast Montana tributaries,…

Comment on Montana’s Triennial Review of Water Quality Standards

Every three years the state of Montana must open up its water quality standards for rivers, lakes, and streams and review, revise, develop or adopt changes necessary to protect public health and welfare, enhance the quality of water, and serve the…

New Comments on Black Butte Copper Mine Application

It’s been a little over two months since Tintina Resources submitted an application to Montana DEQ to open a copper mine near the headwaters of the Smith River. The mining permit application contains all the technical data from tests and…