Just like that, a crucial link ensuring a steady supply of water to an arid region hundreds of miles east had been severed. And now, after enduring a dry summer, the tens of thousands of Montanans who depend on those pipes are staring down another season without water.

The pipes are important enough for an official name: the St. Mary Siphon, a key piece of the Milk River Project. That’s an ambitious irrigation system that diverts some of the St. Mary River into the smaller Milk River, which then flows north and east across north-central Montana. The Milk is the stuff of life on the Hi-Line, a vast agricultural expanse roughly following U.S Highway 2 for hundreds of miles. It waters the hay and grass crops that in turn feed the cattle grazing this land. It fills the drinking glasses and bathtubs of small-town residents along its banks. It forms the reservoirs that bring in boaters and anglers. There wouldn’t be much of a Hi-Line without it.

The Milk River Joint Board of Control, in partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation, began work on the siphon almost immediately, but this is no mere patch-up job. Officials quickly determined they’d have to replace the entire siphon. That meant no St. Mary River water flowing to the Milk until construction is complete,scheduled for late summer 2025—almost two seasons without the supplemental water that farmers, ranchers and outdoor recreationists have counted on for more than a century.

“It’s a catastrophe for the Hi-Line,” says local fisherman Bob Nelson. “It’s the same to me as the hurricanes down southeast. Devastating.”

THE SOURCE

Bill Powell was at home sipping coffee with his wife on the morning of June 17. The Powells own Hook’s Hideaway, a popular complex encompassing a motel, restaurant, rodeo arena and campground just northeast of the St. Mary Siphon, on the Blackfeet Nation near Babb.

Suddenly, Powell recalls, “A guy came whipping up here and said, ‘You’ve got a rodeo arena, do you have any animals in there?’ I said, ‘There’s some steers down there.’ He said, ‘You’d better get them out.’”

The busted siphon sent its deluge of water straight toward Hook’s Hideaway, inundating the arena. By the time one of Powell’s employees made it down to let the cattle out, the water was up to his waist. The flood missed Powell’s home and motel, but mud flowed under the bar, putting the floor and walls at risk of rotting. A few inches of mud also oozed into a cabin used for employee housing. Water tore a 30-foot-long hole across the only access road to the motel, forcing Powell to cancel two weeks’ worth of lodging reservations at $210 per night and forgo $1,500 a day in restaurant revenue. And it damaged Powell’s well system so badly that he had to buy new water pumps and haul water to run his operations in a 450-gallon tank in the back of a pickup all season. All in all, Powell estimates the siphon blowout has cost him up to $500,000—money he’s filed a tort claim against the Bureau of Reclamation to reimburse.

The Milk River Project was born at the turn of the 20th century to help develop agriculture in the water-challenged West. The Milk River naturally runs dry six of every 10 years. So engineers decided to pour some of the larger St. Mary River, which originates in Glacier National Park, into the Milk. The St. Mary Diversion Dam shunts some of its water overland into a 29-mile-long canal with several siphons and concrete drops until it reaches the North Fork of the Milk River. The Milk then heads up to Canada before winding back down into Montana just west of Havre. A couple of reservoirs help control the flow until the river meets the Missouri near Fort Peck Lake, a total of 729 river miles.

Engineers built the first of the St. Mary Siphon pipes between 1912 and 1915; the second started operating in 1926. The finished system irrigates about 120,000 acres, serving 700 farms, and provides drinking water for 18,000 people.

“I don’t think the Hi-Line would be what it is” without it, says Jennifer Patrick, project manager for the Milk River Joint Board of Control, which manages irrigation along its length. “There’s no other place for water besides the Milk River.”

And though it was intended to serve irrigators in Canada and north-central Montana, the Milk River Project has had benefits for the Blackfeet Nation, too. The canal snakes across tribal lands, providing stock water and serving as a de facto fence for the many cattle ranchers on the reservation. “Right off the bat, [the siphon failure] caused strife between all of our producers out there,” says Craig Iron Pipe, agriculture director for the Blackfeet Tribe. For decades, the canal water has kept herds separated; when the water drained out, the cows started wandering.

“The second damage that was done was when those cows mixed, they started breeding,” says Iron Pipe. “This guy has Charolais, this guy has Wagyu, this guy has registered Angus. Next year, you’re not going to have 100-percent Charolais, 100-percent Angus. It’s all going to be mixed. So how are they going to market their calves?”

And without easy access to canal water, cattle have had to walk farther to drink, thereby reducing cows’ milk supplies and producing lighter calves—in other words, less valuable ones. Given longstanding inequities in the ways the U.S. Government has treated the Blackfeet, “It’s very, very hard to make a living here on a ranch,” Iron Pipe says. The St. Mary Canal running dry sure isn’t helping.

THE DAM

Only one boat braves the persistent wind one sunny afternoon in October at Fresno Reservoir.Bob Nelson had planned to fish, too, but the whitecaps on the 7,388-acre lake have changed his mind. Nelson, a retired high school teacher who’s now on the board of the local Walleyes Unlimited chapter, has had plenty of opportunity, though: He typically spends 15 to 20 days fishing at Fresno every year. Nelsonal so serves as the recreation representative on the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group, a coalition that formed in 2003 to develop solutions for upgrading the aging irrigation facilities “before they face catastrophic failure.” (“We haven’t done very well,” says group co-chair Marko Manoukian, an irrigator near Malta.)

“This is a tremendous recreational place,” Nelson says, looking out over the reservoir, a deep-blue oasis among the grass lands just west of Havre. Besides the day-to-day fishing—stocked walleye, plus northern pike and perch—and the angling tournaments, Hi-Liners come to Fresno for wakeboarding, tubing, Jet Skiing, swimming and camping along the shoreline. Fresno is the first storage capacity along the Milk River, and right now, it’s 23 feet below full pool. (That’s not only because of the siphon break; engineers had already lowered the reservoir level to work on repairs to Fresno Dam.) Only one boat ramp remains usable; the other one, at nearby Kremlin Bay, now sits 50 feet from the water. “It gets like it is now, it puts our fish in a real crimp,” Nelson says. “They’ve managed to survive, but anytime you have water, you have more life.”

Nelson jokes that recreationists like him are “a parasite” on the back of the Milk River irrigation system, but the reservoir and the river itself provide habitat for aquatic and riparian species, which in turn attract wildlife watchers, hunters and anglers. The reservoir hosts an average of 12,350 angling days every year, mostly locals, generating $1 million annually for the area. “The Milk River is a hidden jewel of Montana,” Nelson says.

With the siphon under construction, everyone downstream of the Fresno Dam now has to rely on what’s currently stored in the reservoir to get by—plus any rain and snow that might fall. In this region, that might not be much. Nelson say she hears people worrying aloud that the reservoir will dry up and all the fish will die, but he doesn’t think things will get that dire.“ The fish will suffer, but they’ll survive,” he says.

“I don’t think the Hi-Line would be what it is [without the Milk River
Project]. There’s no other place for water besides the Milk River.” – Jennifer Patrick, Milk River Joint Board of Control Project Manager

And then there’s the people.The roughly 18,000 residents of Hi-Line towns including Havre, Chinook and Harlem count on the Milk River for their drinking water. Jennifer Patrick of the Milk River Joint Board of Control says that municipalities will have priority and definitely will receive their contracted amounts of water through next summer. But the siphon failure is still causing problems for Havre because of issues with its water treatment plant. Fresh St. Mary River water helped alleviate some of the problems by diluting contaminants and reducing turbidity, but since June, they’ve had to manage without. The city imposed water restrictions on residents last summer, and officials say that’s likely for next summer, too.

“The worst-case scenario is that it’s a dry winter,” says Trevor Mork, director of Havre’s public works administration. “Then we’d begin the summer season on a fairly tight water conservation. There’d be no irrigation of lawn grass, very limited activities such as car washing.”

Mork says the city is looking into reviving its defunct municipal system of wells or tapping into smaller tributaries to get by without the St. Mary River infusion. “We’re trying to make sure we have our plans B, C, and D ready to go.” That kind of adaptability has become more and more important across the West, as drought fueled by climate change already challenges human systems built for a different time—and any failure leaves us especially vulnerable.

DOWNSTREAM

Out in the big-sky landscape east of Havre, fields full of neatly stacked hay bales line both sides of Highway 2. Here and there you’ll see a herd of cattle, or even a few pronghorn. Small towns every 30 miles or so offer groceries and hardware stores. But this is primarily irrigator country. And nobody will feel the effects of the broken St. Mary Siphon more than those who rely on the Milk River to water their crops or feed their cattle.

Dennis Kleinjan’s family history on the Hi-Line goes back four generations. His great-grandfather and great-aunt Martha homesteaded along the Milk near Lohman, and he now grazes cattle, and grows alfalfa to feed them, on the same land. Kleinjan also works as a ditch rider for the irrigation system—he’s the one who physically opens the headgates to farmers’ fields in his districts when it comes time to water. “We’ve known for a lot of years that [the Milk River Project] was bad,” he says, but it was simply too expensive to get the necessary repairs done. “We’ve been Band-Aiding it for years. Everybody knew it was going to go.” That doesn’t make dealing with the failure any easier.

Here’s how it works when the system is running normally: In May and June, farmers receive their first irrigation from the Milk River. The Milk River Joint Board of Control works with the Bureau of Reclamation to release the proper amount of water from Fresno Dam, which then winds its way through a system of canals to individual producers growing grass hay, alfalfa, and to a lesser extent, corn. Producers water their crops—using flood irrigation or more expensive pump-powered pivots—and then harvest their first hay cutting in June. The flow turns off in early July in the larger districts to dry out the algae that typically forms in the canals, then goes back on from mid-July into September for a second irrigation and cutting. If there’s enough water left, sometimes producers get a third irrigation and cutting in late summer.

This past summer, the first irrigation went smoothly. Then the siphon blew. The Hi-Line had to work with what was left in the depleted Fresno Reservoir and municipal water towers, plus any natural precipitation the region was lucky enough to get. The joint board ended up shutting down irrigation two months earlier than usual.

“The second [irrigation], due to the water shortage, we only irrigated 60,000 acres,” out of the total 120,000 acres across the region, says the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group’s Manoukian. Forget about a third irrigation. He estimates that cost the region $7.8 million in lost production. But that’s pocket change compared to what could happen in 2025 if rain and snow fail to recharge the reservoir. “Next year if we don’t irrigate, we’d miss the growing season. I’ve estimated it’ll be more than $44 million in production lost.”

It’s possible that Mother Nature could lend a hand with a wet winter and spring. But historically, that kind of weather hasn’t been the norm on the Hi-Line. “There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Patrick says of the mood among irrigators now.

Farmers have been forced to come up with emergency plans. “What I’ve decided to do is buy more hay for the winter of 2025, to replace what I believe will be a shortage of my ability to produce hay,” Manoukian says, a move that cost him an extra $11,000. He raises cattle and sheep and grows alfalfa for forage. “And I’m trying to capture whatever winter precipitation we have by planting a winter forage crop.”

“This year it’s survival mode,” Kleinjan says of his own operation. He plans to keep a couple of fields in hay production rather than rest them as he’d intended. “I’m going to have less yield than I would like,” he says, estimating he’ll get about half the tonnage he’s used to growing. Kleinjan will also stockpile his hay rather than selling it to conserve the feed for his own cattle.

Ken Blunt, who uses Milk River water to irrigate his 45-acre hobby farm of alfalfa and grass hay just east of Malta, is bracing for a financial hit next year. He expects his profits from hay sales—his only income in retirement—to plummet. “Not much you can do,” Blunt says, echoing a familiar refrain across the Hi-Line this year: “Just hope it rains.”

On top of the potential for lost production, irrigators must also help foot the bill for siphon repairs. Producers may have to help pay back a state loan at the rate of $3.30 per irrigated acre for the next 50 years, absent any federal aid (details were still being finalized at press time). “Our water taxes are high enough,” Kleinjan says. “You add $3 an acre, all of a sudden, that’s a big hit.” He especially worries about newer farmers in the area. “There’s going to be some younger guys trying to get going; it’s going to really financially hurt some of them.” Without much precipitation, he predicts, “It’s going to break some guys.”

How far does the break go? “All of us irrigators know what’s going on,” Kleinjan says. “The rest of the public? They don’t know where the water comes from. They don’t care. They’ve never had to care.” But this might be less and less true. As drought and hotter temperatures shift the weather patterns and waterways of an already-dry West, perhaps the St. Mary’s Siphon failure foreshadows what lies ahead for everyone in the region— not just farmers like Kleinjan.

“Everybody needs water,” says Iron Pipe of the Blackfeet Nation. “Right now, water is really life.”

ELISABETH KWAK-HEFFERAN is a Montana-based writer and editor who focuses on climate solutions, public lands, and environment.

DAVE GARDNER is an adventure and lifestyle photographer based out of Montana. Whether it’s a swamp in Arkansas, a river in Idaho or somewhere deep in the mountains, Gardner loves to use his camera to tell stories of wild people in wild places.