Why Fairfield, Montana, is running out of water

Chuck Dale, Fairfield’s water supervisor, wasn’t satisfied with the rain that blew across northcentral Montana Wednesday. It wasn’t nearly enough to refill the depleted wells in the 800-person town about 35 miles west of Great Falls.

“Take a 30-foot cylinder, fill it full of dirt, pack it as tight as you can, pour six inches of water in the top and see what comes out the bottom. That’s the best way to put it into context,” Dale said. “You’re never gonna see anything drop out the bottom.”

The current water shortage — brought about by a combination of failing, decades-old infrastructure and a worsening regional drought — has strained the water supply of residents and the irrigation systems of local farmers. The town council has invested in infrastructure and imposed restrictions on water use, but it’s unclear if those steps will be enough to maintain Fairfield’s water supply.

If more wells start sucking air, Dale said, the town may have to bring in portable toilets.

According to a report from Great West Engineering, a consultant brought in by Fairfield’s local government, the water system loses about half of the water it takes from its wells. According to engineer Austin Egan, a standard rate of loss in a municipal water system is about 15%, more than three times lower. Engineers attribute a lot of the attrition to leaks in old, deteriorating pipes. Nearly two-thirds of the system’s pipes were installed in 1946.

According to Jake Garcin, a spokesperson at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the water loss in Fairfield is typical for an old system.

Garcin wrote in an email to Montana Free Press that other small Montana towns, including Fairview, Alberton, Martinsdale and Circle, have recently addressed aging infrastructure. DEQ also said Lockwood, a community just east of Billings, has also struggled with old plumbing.

But in Fairfield, the short supply this early in the year leaves the town with only a few options.

In the summer, the town’s demand will climb to 650 gallons per minute for 16 hours a day. But right now, the town can only pump about 450 gallons per minute for about seven hours a day. When the next two wells go dry, which Dale worries could happen at any time, the town will be down to about 250 gallons per minute.

It might not take until the summer for residents to experience inconveniences. Across Fairfield’s eight wells, three are nonoperational. Another three are running at partial capacity.

“I’d say if we pop these next two wells, then we’ll bring outhouses to the school and to some of the bigger businesses,” Dale said.

Dale said the town last had to ship in outhouses 23 years ago. After that, the town drilled a new, deeper well.

“Theoretically, we should never reach a problem again having that extra well, that deep well, but we’re already there again,” Dale said.

Dale said he knew water supply would be an issue ever since last year. Low quantities of water for irrigation last summer tipped him off that the town’s wells would struggle this spring. That’s because some of the water used by local farmers to irrigate their fields seeps into the groundwater that Fairfield’s wells also draw from, and many area farmers had to shut off their irrigation a month or more earlier than they typically do.

But there wasn’t much Fairfield could do to make up for the water supply loss. The town has tried to drill four new wells in the last two years, including two last week. None found enough water to warrant installing a pump.

At a crowded meeting last week, the Fairfield Town Council passed a slew of measures to mitigate the declining water supply. It allocated funds toward improved plumbing, increased water rates and limited non-essential water use, such as lawn watering.

Christi Hardin, who has spent most of her life in Fairfield, told MTFP Wednesday that she likes to grow tomatoes and peppers in small pots. But she doesn’t plan to plant any this summer because of the shortage. She is prepared to face more significant inconveniences soon.

“Last year was bad. But this year is worse,” Hardin said.

The dryness in Fairfield, the hub of a sprawling farming and ranching landscape, has also pinched agricultural production. The surrounding Sun River Project, an agricultural area comprising two irrigation districts, hundreds of miles of canals and about 93,000 acres of land, is also facing a shortage.

Susie Konen, a Fairfield farmer who irrigates her barley fields, said that the limited water supply makes her more dependent on the weather.

“It’s tough. We’ve been in a drought before,” Konen said. “It affects our production.”

For Karli Johnson, a Choteau rancher just north of the Sun River Project who also works as a lobbyist for the Montana Farm Bureau, the years of drought led to a decline in hay yield. That has been a contributing factor in the decision to reduce her cattle herd, she said.

Her ranch struggled with dryness last season, too, though July rains provided much-needed relief. But Johnson is now in a similar position, hoping for a wet summer, because the winter’s high temperatures meant precipitation didn’t create good snowpack along the Rocky Mountain Front.

Eric Larson, a water supply forecaster with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, told MTFP that the snow that did arrive this winter melted out in record time across much of the state, including areas of the Rocky Mountain Front that feed into the Sun River. That means that irrigation districts that support local farmers and ranchers have a shorter window to capture the mountain snow necessary to keep rivers, reservoirs and ditches wet through the hottest months of the year.

Erling Juel manages the Greenfields Irrigation District, a century-old network of reservoirs and canals that extends 50 miles to either side of Fairfield. Juel said he’s holding back as much water as he can to fill the district’s three reservoirs because he’s “gun-shy” after two dry years. Even though he’s trying to capture as much water as possible — and does, in fact, anticipate that he’ll be able to fill the district’s reservoirs — he’s still bracing for the possibility of a supply shortage.

“Our best reservoir is the watershed itself,” Juel said. “If the snow and ice can stay put on the ground, in the trees, and melt slowly, and give us time to use it, that’s our best reservoir.”

Unfortunately for Juel, the snowpack that feeds his irrigation district is sitting at about half of its typical level for this time of year. Due to the dismal snowpack, the roughly 550 farmers and ranchers who receive water from the irrigation district should expect to receive 25% less water than they do in a typical irrigation season, Juel said.

Juel added that he anticipates that the canals running through the 200-square-mile district will be operational in early May, two weeks earlier than usual. That’s at the request of the district’s board, which is eager to use as much of the Sun River’s runoff as possible. And once those leaky canals and irrigation ditches are flowing with water once more, Fairfield’s water table should start rising, he said. But the relief, if it arrives, will be temporary.

Both Juel and Dale, Fairfield’s water supervisor, are working with infrastructure that’s 80 to 110 years old. Refurbishing and replacing the Greenfields Irrigation District’s equipment could maximize efficiencies and extend the irrigation season. It would also reduce the likelihood of the type of catastrophic failure that the St. Mary’s Irrigation Project experienced in 2024, when Hi-Line irrigators and municipalities were left without a reliable water supply after a pair of 90-inch barrels conveying water from the St. Mary River ripped apart. But upgrading such large, old projects takes a lot of money and time.

“That’s our challenge that we’re facing here: How do we replace all of our aging infrastructure, (which) costs millions and millions and millions of dollars, and it takes 20-30 years to do,” Juel said.

For some Fairfield residents, years of drought have made limited water supply a new normal. Ken Naylor, a local who has lived in the area for decades, told MTFP that because the situation is so serious, he understands why the city imposed restrictions. But he bemoaned that this would be another summer away from his garden.

“I can’t water my lawn. It sucks,” Naylor said.

During last year’s drought, Naylor said he bought a dozen fake plants for his yard. He put them on display this year, too. It’s not clear when Naylor will be able to garden again, but he’s eager.

“I had a garden like you couldn’t believe,” Naylor said.

---

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.