HELENA — In 1992, the City of Helena was granted a groundwater reservation by order of the Montana Board of Natural Resources and Conservation.
A new project from the city will take advantage of that reservation, including drilling, developing and installing one 12 inch and 14 inch production well, and one monitoring well on the Missouri River Water Treatment Plant property.
“With these wells, we won’t have to put them through the treatment plant,” said Ryan Leland, the Director of Public Works for the City of Helena.
The Helena water reservation is one of the largest in the upper Missouri closed basin.
“Back in 1992, a court decision was made and allowed the city of Helena to have seven thousand acre-feet per year,” Leland said.
However, the order required that all reservations in that basin be fully developed and in service by December 31, 2025.
“Right now, we’re on a very very tight time frame to be able to get them done by 2025. so, we hope we can get enough contractors freed up to get the project completed,” said Leland.
The wells will be connected to the existing water delivery system located at the plant.
Development of the water reservation is important to the city’s present and future water supply and the potential to manage and guide growth in the Helena area.
“Be able to have more redundancy for emergencies if we have something, a power outage or something to go down on our controls on either of the treatment plants we will be able to use these wells much more efficiently,” Leland said, “New subdivisions come in as the city grows, we will need additional water sources.”
The reservation could provide up to $10.6 million gallons per day in June through August, and $5 million in September to May.
That’s over half of what the typical maximum daily water use was during those months in Helena, during 2021.
Bids were opened on June 27, 2023.
A single bid was received from O’Keefe Drilling Company Inc. from Butte, Montana for over $600,000 for all three wells.
