Guest column: Gallatin Water Collaborative: Planning for a healthy water future
By Holly Hill and Lilly McLane Guest columnists
Link to Bozeman Daily Chronicle Article
Over the past two years, the Gallatin Watershed Council has been leading a group of invested, thoughtful stakeholders across the Lower Gallatin Watershed in a quest to strategically plan for the future of water in the Gallatin Valley. Landowners, representatives from city and county government, agricultural producers, conservation groups, recreationalists and more have been volunteering their time to find collective solutions to secure water availability as population rises, ensure water quality to support all beneficial uses, and create resilient landscapes as we balance climate change and a healthy ecology.
This group is called the Gallatin Water Collaborative, and recently was one of 21 groups nationwide to be awarded a $200,000 grant from the Bureau of Reclamation to continue this work, critical to the health and vitality of our shared watershed.
The Gallatin Water Collaborative began as an effort to update the Lower Gallatin Watershed Restoration Plan, with diverse input from stakeholders across the watershed. This plan had focused on stream and wetland restoration projects, but due to the unprecedented growth in the Gallatin Valley, it became evident that the scope of the plan needed to include more overarching considerations of water security, and all the tools from all of our toolboxes.
Currently, the water collaborative is organized into three working groups: community growth and development, water sharing, and stream and land stewardship. This team approach enables us to take deeper dives in research, planning, and partnerships within each issue bucket and share that information with the entire collaborative. Working groups have identified priorities and are pursuing actions such as developing a water budget and drought plan for Gallatin Valley, participating in the various city of Bozeman planning efforts, and seeking grants to revegetate and restore riparian corridors. By working collectively together, we can make certain that all stakeholders are at the table and that we are creating durable solutions for all.
We have developed several tools to help us all stay up to date with each other’s work and share opportunities to collaborate. Click through our partner priority map which lays out who is doing what, where. It shows impaired waterways, surface water testing sites, conservation and restoration program areas, conservation easements and more. Or checkout our events calendar, a clearinghouse for local, water related board meetings, conferences, workshops, and social gatherings. For participating partners, we maintain a centralized matrix of priority actions, supporting steps, project leads, and funding opportunities to help us connect and effectively make the best use of available capacity and funding. As the old saying goes, sharing is caring. We all care about our watershed, so let’s work together to protect it.
You can make a difference, too. Do you like to fish, swim, boat, hunt, bird watch, drink water or otherwise enjoy the quality of life a healthy watershed brings? Then you have a vested interest in the availability, quality, and healthy landscapes of water. Contact the Gallatin Watershed Council for ways to take action as an individual or business. If your group or organization has an idea, a worry, or a plan about water, we want to plug you in so we’re all leveraging collective resources to achieve the greatest impact. We’d love to hear about your passion, your work, and what is important to you about our shared watershed. Follow along with us at www.gallatinwatercollaborative.org.
Holly Hill is the executive director and Lilly McLane is the restoration director for the Gallatin Watershed Council, both based in Bozeman. They believe that our efforts to protect natural resources in the Gallatin Valley are strongest together.