Gov. Steve Bullock cited water-quality concerns and the health of aquatic life in his veto of Sen. Chas Vincent’s water degradation bill last Friday. This leaves a bumpy road for the mine-permitting process of the Montanore and Rock Creek projects.

The bill, SB347, which passed the Montana Senate 39-11 and the House 64-36, called for a change in the way state agencies defined  degradation on a case-by-case basis.

According to the bill’s language, degradation is defined as a “change in water quality that lowers the quality of high-quality waters for a parameter.”

How it is defined now measures degradation in a strict numeric way: 15 percent mean monthly flow, or 10 percent in the seven-day 10-year-low flow is the top limit for acceptable degradation. 

SB347, in Vincent’s words, sought to amend current laws to simultaneously take away the numeric measurements and expand what is required to determine the effect on flow. “Fifteen percent of a (large) stream is one thing,” Vincent said. 

“Fifteen percent of a cup of coffee is another. There’s a lot of relativism in this.”

Vincent’s bill deals specifically (not literally, but in the type of language used) with northwest Montana as an original headwaters area. Degrading a waterway by more than 15 percent in this region is a sort of “no-tolerance” policy. In the oil- and gas-producing counties in the east, water rights are easier to come by, and degradation is harder to enforce. Vincent said he is trying to level the playing field for mines to responsibly use and move water.

His amendments would have studies done in specific waterways to determine impact on fish populations. Every group seeking to impact waterways would do an environmental impact study on fish in the water.

The governor  and conservationists are wary of this language. Vincent had changed “aquatic life” to the less encompassing “fish population.” They also draw issue with a water degradation policy that is more difficult to quantify.

Bullock illuminated these concerns in his veto.

“Under existing laws protecting water quality, an activity that decreases water flow does not have a significant impact to water quality if the decrease is within measurable numeric limits. SB 347 would amend the Montana Water Quality Act, replacing these protections with a narrative standard that would require DEQ to determine whether the decrease in flow would ‘have a reasonable possibility to cause a significant adverse impact on a fish population,’” he wrote.

While the governor’s veto letter was dense, so was Vincent’s bill. Bullock and conservationists claim that Vincent’s bill would have taken water rights away from senior rights-holders and handed them to whoever wants to degrade water for projects.

Bruce Farling, executive director for Montana’s Trout Unlimited, was thankful for the veto, as he believes the bill not only would have negatively affected trout population and water quality, but who would have been allowed  to use it as well.

“They wouldn’t have to get a water right,” Farling said. “They can pump millions of gallons from a groundwater source. Anybody downstream is through.”

Farling said Vincent had options to make the bill more palatable to conservationists, but tried to ramrod the bill through the legislature. 

Vincent said he worked hand-in-hand with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation as well as the Department of Environmental Quality to ensure high water quality and senior water rights remaining untouched.

“I had a lot of very green, very environmentally aware, senators who voted for this,” Vincent said. “Because they recognized we were actually providing further protection for senior water-rights holders and aquatic life.”

Vincent said the veto was a surprise to him. Farling said he should have seen it coming. Both sides claim their opposition did not fully understand the bill.

With Bullock’s veto, the bill is, for all intents and purposes, dead. The two houses would have to approve it with a two-thirds majority to override the veto, and with a divided house, that chance looks slim. Revett Minerals and the Montanore Project will still have to get a water right to divert or pump water from their new projects, and Vincent – a strong mining advocate – is willing to help the companies jump through the legal hoops.

As for the mining operations themselves, they would have liked to see the bill signed by the governor, but will continue on the path.

“We’ve been working with the state,” said Eric Klepfer, Montanore’s environmental consultant. “We’ve been going through non-deg(radation) review. The effects would be insignificant at this point in the process.”