Trout Unlimited on the Jefferson

Partnership Moves Jefferson River from Triage to Long-Term Planning.

By Lisa Schmidt

Montana’s blue ribbon fisheries have suffered during the state’s six-year drought, but unlikely partners are working to change that.

“We want to improve the fishery on the Jefferson River,” says Bruce Rehwinkel, Trout Unlimited’s Jefferson River Project Coordinator.

“Fish need spawning tributaries, functioning riparian areas, a natural hydrograph with high and low flows, good water quality and quantity,” says the national, privately-funded conservation organization’s Montana spokesperson. “The Jefferson River has everything except water quantity.”

Bruce Rehwinkel, Trout Unlimited's Jefferson River Project Coordinator standing at the Waterloo Bridge.

The Jefferson River begins at the confluence of the Big Hole, Beaverhead and Ruby rivers, then flows more than 70 miles to where it meets the Madison and Gallatin rivers and forms the mighty Missouri. Lewis and Clark thought the Jefferson so noble that they named it for their biggest supporter and the president of the newly-expanded United States, Thomas Jefferson.

This river challenges anglers with a different fishing experience, Rehwinkel says. While brown and rainbow populations will probably never reach numbers that compete with the Jefferson’s tributaries, quality outweighs quantity. Brown trout commonly reach a hefty six pounds on the Jeff and all of the habitat components – clear water, spawning areas and cold temperatures -- are in place to increase the numbers of those weighty bait-chasers.

Except for the amount of water.

“This river has severe water problems, but we’re not that far off the money. If we can correct this one limiting factor, we can make a difference,” Rehwinkel says.

TU members realize that heavy-handed edicts from outsiders only increase resentment, especially along the Jefferson, where irrigators own almost all of the rights to use river water and describe their homeland in terms of generations. Many families reach back six generations, when homesteaders fed Montana’s 1860s gold rush miners.

So when irrigators, fishing guides, state agencies and conservation groups organized the Jefferson River Watershed Council five years ago, TU joined.

“The watershed council is collaborative problem solving. It is sitting down at the table together, building trust,” Rehwinkel says.

The voluntary council focuses its efforts along a 20-mile reach of the Jefferson River, from Twin Bridges to Waterloo, Mont., because most of the irrigation water is drawn from the river within that reach and the lowest flows occur just below the Waterloo Bridge.

During August, the poorest of low-flows, the Jefferson typically averages 84 cubic feet per second (cfs). On paper, irrigators hold rights for 800 cfs. As the latest, six-year drought continues to worsen, representatives from the four irrigation ditches have voluntarily cooperated to keep water in the Jefferson River and still keep crops growing. They’ve met their definition of success: 250 cfs flowing at the Waterloo Bridge -- enough to provide a network between pools for brown and rainbow trout.

In spite of shallow water, temperatures in the Jefferson rarely warm enough to harm trout. Shallow water leaves no hideouts from predators such as pelicans, though, so trout populations have declined.

“If we can return to good flows of 400 to 500 cfs at the bridge, we can get 600 to 700 fish per mile or more with browns. Conceivably, we can reach 1,200 to 1,500 rainbows per mile,” Rehwinkel says.

That goal contrasts with current populations of about 150 to 200 browns, with about the same numbers of rainbows, says Ron Spoon, fish biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Council members also are looking for other water-saving options, too.

The four irrigation ditches that draw from the Jefferson cut through sandy and rocky soil. Common consensus is that portions of each ditch leak significantly, but many debate whether that leakage is good or bad. Some argue that leaky ditches rob water from the river and trout while others claim that the “stolen” water travels underground downhill, recharging cool water to the Jefferson during the critical, hot days of August. The area boasts several perennial springs and some people believe the leaky ditches recharge those trout-spawning springs, creating a vital component of fish habitat. Others point to mountain snowpack from the nearby Tobacco Root Range as the most significant contributor to those springs.

Bruce Knight, Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Gary Nelson discuss work that has been done by the Jefferson River watershed council.

“I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle ground,” says Gary Nelson, rancher and chairman of the watershed council. “We get a lot of return flow from irrigation and I’m sure some of the swamps in the area exist because of leaks going on for a hundred years. Whether the leaks are good or bad, I don’t know.”

“There’s a lot of difference between the amount of water diverted and the amount used,” Rehwinkel says.

While the issue has long been debated, no one really knows how much water leaks out of the irrigation ditches or where it goes and how it affects the river’s floodplain.

Until now.

“The interaction between surface water and groundwater is important. TU doesn’t want to dry up springs that might be spawning habitat,” says Joe VanMullem, a hydrology consultant hired to study water flows, soil types, and irrigation structures in the Waterloo area of the river.

“We want to do our homework and get science-based information to the people who are involved in making decisions,” Rehwinkel says.

VanMullem and other consultants will be paid through a direct congressional appropriation to the Jefferson River Watershed Council, as part of a memorandum of understanding between the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and TU.

The $400,000 study and demonstration project, funded through 2008, will document reaches of the irrigation ditches that leak enough to make it worthwhile – economically and ecologically – to fix, where the leaked water flows and options to reduce leakage if and where it is needed.

“We hope to evaluate whether an application of ditch sealant will work. We’re not sure how much good it does and we have to look at it economically. A sealant might be good in a dry year, but not every year,” VanMullem says. “We can’t afford to line whole ditches either. If we can find the worst places, we can afford to line those.”

“Having five years to spend the money allows us to move ahead deliberately. We can decide the most effective place to spend the money,” Rehwinkel says. “Usually, grants require you to spend the money within a year or two so you don’t have enough time to evaluate the best way to spend it.”

The watershed council also is exploring options to develop trout spawning habitat. Last spring, Spoon hatched 8,000 fry at Parson’s Slough in Waterloo.

Rehwinkel helps to check fry at Parson's Slough.

Typical of complicated western water rights, Parson’s Slough is owned by Steve Schellhammer while the right to use that water is owned by Willow Springs Ranch. Through the watershed council, TU negotiated a deal to improve irrigation efficiency at Willow Springs Ranch so that extra water can be diverted directly to the Jefferson River. That diversion will provide a connecting route for trout to return to Parson’s Slough to spawn. Schellhammer hopes to use NRCS’ Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding to further improve spawning habitat at Parson’s Slough.

While the Waterloo project focuses only on a small reach of a single river, Rehwinkel says the impacts will be felt for generations.

“The NRCS money has taken us from triage to keep the river limping along to now when we can do something to permanently improve it long term. Now we have the information to know what to do,” he says.

Last Modified: 06/07/2005