Montana
Diverse coalition challenges Montana’s exempt wells
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) As Montana’s streams continue to dwindle in the continuing drought, a diverse group of organizations and individuals are once again challenging Montana’s rule on exempt wells, saying the state has repeatedly ignored court rulings.
On Wednesday, six Montana organizations and three individuals filed a complaint in Lewis and Clark County district court alleging that the Montana Department of Natural Resources Conservation has ignored court rulings and the rights of senior water-right owners by continuing to allow subdivision developers to exploit Montana’s exempt well law.
The plaintiffs include the Clark Fork Coalition, Montana League of Cities and Towns, Montana Farm Bureau Federation, Trout Unlimited, Montana Environmental Information Center, Association of Gallatin Agricultural Irrigators and Mark Runkle, a housing developer.
“From rapid growth to ongoing drought, Montana’s water resources and water users are facing unprecedented challenges,” said Andrew Gorder, Clark Fork Coalition legal director. “The cumulative impact of over 100,000 exempt groundwater wells can no longer be ignored. We’re asking the court to conserve our limited water resources and ensure that the constitutional protections afforded to senior water rights, including instream flow rights, are preserved.”
Over the years, especially since 2006, the Legislature has considered more than a dozen bills, most with the intent of enabling the proliferation of small wells – those that pump less than 35 gallons per minute – that the state has exempted from needing a water right or permit. The few bills proposed to keep exempt wells in check have usually failed in the Legislature while the DNRC has been reluctant to insist on regulation. So the incorporation of exempt wells in new subdivisions has exploded at a time when the state, particularly western Montana, is struggling with dwindling water supplies.
According to the complaint, census data show Montana’s population increased by almost 203,000 residents between 2000 and 2021. Over 87% of that growth occurred in six counties—Gallatin, Yellowstone, Flathead, Missoula, Lewis and Clark, and Ravalli – and those are also the counties where hundreds of new wells are pulling huge amounts of water out of their respective aquifers.
The complaint says Ravalli County is the most extreme example of population influx and exempt well development. Census data show 10,000 people moved to Ravalli County between 2000 and 2021, and 84% of the 6,000 new homes were built outside of incorporated areas. As a result, there are now more than 24,000 wells in the county and only 288 are for municipal or public water supply systems. So it’s not surprising that household wells, such as those south of Lolo, were running dry this summer in the Bitterroot Valley.
So many unregulated, unmetered wells together are using more water than agricultural producers who are required to have water rights before they can use water for irrigation or stockwater. If such water rights holders don’t receive their full amount of water, they are allowed to ask other users junior to them to stop using water. But that system doesn’t work when they try to make a call on a subdivision full of exempt wells. So, as courts have found, exempt wells violate Montana’s first-in-time, first-in-right system of water rights.
Over the decades, the number of water rights granted in each river basin account for more water than the basin holds, so starting in the 1990s, the state closed several basins to new water rights, including the Upper Clark Fork, Blackfoot and Bitterroot river basins. Eventually, groundwater rights were limited too when the courts ruled groundwater and surface water were linked. But that hasn’t stopped developers from drilling more household wells.
Back in the 1960s and ‘70s when Montana had only a half-million residents, exempt wells weren’t as much of a problem. But as the population surged and subdivisions multiplied in the 1980s, some Montanans could see danger, and a 1982 state conference recognized the threat to water supplies posed by an increasing number of unregulated wells.
In 1987, the DNRC developed a rule prohibiting the combined appropriation or use of exempt wells from a single aquifer without a water right, which should have stopped subdivisions from installing multiple exempt wells. But real estate and contracting lobbies were gaining strength. In 1993, the DNRC changed the definition of “combined appropriation” to require that the wells be physically joined before being required to get a water right, giving developers an out to use individual household wells.
A 2008 DNRC report, written for the newly created Legislative Water Policy Interim Committee, found that “exempt wells had become a major source of unregulated groundwater use in closed basins, areas with high population growth and increasing subdivision development.” The DNRC acknowledged that water rights owners could have their water use curtailed while subdivision exempt-well use continues unabated.
The Water Policy Interim Committee would conduct two additional studies of exempt wells in 2012 and 2018, which would find exempt wells problematic for water supplies and water law, but prompted no action.
Finally in 2009, a group of water rights holders, including the Clark Fork Coalition and rancher Katrin Chandler, petitioned the DNRC to rewrite the 1993 rule to protect senior water rights. When the DNRC refused, they went to court. In October 2014, a district judge ruled in their favor, saying the 1993 exempt well rule violated Montana’s Water Use Act. The state appealed, and meanwhile, the Legislature tried to pass laws to bolster the 1993 rule even though many legislators say they’re pro-agriculture.
In September 2016, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the district court finding that the 1993 rule on combined appropriation was inconsistent with the Water Use Act. DNRC went back to its 1987 definition of combined appropriation, and that should have put an end to the use of multiple exempt wells in subdivisions. But it didn’t.
In 2022, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and others filed a court challenge to stop a 442-acre subdivision with exempt wells in Broadwater County that had gotten DNRC approval because it would be developed in four phases that were considered individually. The district court sided with Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, saying the DNRC’s “interpretation here would allow developers to circumvent exempt well limitations easily and unilaterally by simply slicing any project into phases each small enough to fall under the exempt-well ceiling for the aggregate acre-feet.”
District judge Michael F. McMahon said the DNRC ignored the 2016 Montana Supreme Court ruling and he expected that the department might do the same in future situations.
“The economic impetus to develop land is overwhelming and relentless. If there is going to be any check on uncontrolled development of Montana’s limited water resources, it will have to come from DNRC, which is statutorily charged with fulfilling Montanans’ constitutional right to ‘control, and regulation of water rights,’ a duty DNRC has manifestly avoided or undermined for over a decade to the detriment of our waters, environment, and senior water rights holders whose protection is the ‘core purpose’ of the Water Rights Act,” McMahon wrote.
The 2025 Legislature killed Senate Bill 358, which came out of recommendations from a DNRC working group, which included some of the plaintiffs. SB 358 would have significantly restricted the use of exempt wells in four aquifers where DNRC data and analysis shows that wells are affecting senior water rights owners: the Helena Valley, the Bitterroot Valley, the Missoula Valley, and the Gallatin Valley.
DNRC data show that between 74% and 94% of all groundwater use within these aquifers are from exempt wells, compared to 1% to 5% that are permitted wells, according to the complaint. In the Missoula and Bitterroot Valleys, more than 15,000 exempt wells serve rapidly growing residential areas, making up 74% of all groundwater rights in the Missoula Valley and 89% in the Bitterroot Valley. DNRC has recommended that the Legislature close both the Missoula and Bitterroot aquifers to additional exempt well development.
Because efforts to work with the DNRC and the Legislature have been stymied, the plaintiffs are turning to the courts and asking a judge to find the Exempt Well Law is unconstitutional by violating the property rights of water-right owners and by limiting their right to participate. They also want the DNRC to stop implementing the Exempt Well Law and rewrite it to conform with the water law of prior appropriation.
“Farmers and ranchers have followed the rules and invested generations of work based on secure access to water,” said Scott Kulbeck of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation. “Everyone has to play by the same rules. When some folks skip the permit process and pull from a water source that’s already spoken for, it hurts their neighbors. This case is about protecting the way Montanans have managed water responsibly for generations.”
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
MISSOULA — Four out of five members of Montana’s Public Service Commission were in a federal courtroom in Missoula Thursday morning, as the PSC’s former president challenges the disciplinary action taken against him earlier this year. Now, newly released documents are shedding more light on to what led up to this point.
(Watch the video for a closer look at the case.)
New documents shed light Montana PSC dispute
Commissioner Brad Molnar has sued President Jeff Welborn, Vice President Jennifer Fielder and Commissioner Annie Bukacek – the three PSC members who voted in May to require him to work remotely, after an investigation into complaints about his workplace conduct. Molnar has claimed he is being unfairly punished for constitutionally protected speech, and he asked Senior U.S District Judge Donald Molloy to allow him to return to the PSC offices.
Matthew Monforton, Molnar’s attorney, told the judge that barring Molnar from the building was limiting his ability to do his job.
“He has not been officially kicked out of office, but his voice has clearly been diminished,” said Monforton.
But Natasha Jones, an attorney representing the other three commissioners, said the findings were about behavior, not just speech, and that the PSC’s action was a reasonable response.
“These are serious concerns about a pattern of conduct that has made employees quit,” she said.
Jonathon Ambarian
On Tuesday, Molloy ordered the release of redacted versions of two full investigative reports into Molnar’s conduct – more than 100 pages of documents. Monforton had moved for the full reports to be made public, and Molloy ruled attorneys for the other PSC members hadn’t shown a compelling reason to keep the documents under seal as long as the names of people involved in the investigation were obscured.
While the names remained redacted in the investigation reports, the attorneys for Welborn, Fielder and Bukacek also filed additional documents – including a public declaration from Bukacek and from former PSC executive director Alana Lake, providing information about their allegations against Molnar.
The two reports, from an outside investigator, cover Molnar’s alleged actions over two periods: the first from February to August 2025, and the second from August to October 2025. The investigation began after the first formal complaint, filed by Bukacek in May 2025 – though the reports say employees had been bringing up concerns about Molnar’s behavior informally for several months prior.
Bukacek’s complaint claimed Molnar had repeatedly made what she called “sexualized and demeaning comments.” The examples she cited included saying the PSC should replace “Taco Tuesdays” with “Topless Tuesdays,” reminiscing about watching girls in bikinis as a teenager, and commenting about the beauty of women in areas of China who didn’t get “old and wrinkly.”
In her declaration, Bukacek also claimed Molnar had “maliciously disseminated false information” about her and “engaged in behavior that was dismissive, derisive and otherwise abusive.”
“My primary concern now is not for my safety nor my feelings, but for the rest of the staff who may not have the temperament to speak up or may feel too intimidated to speak up given concerns over job security,” Bukacek said in her declaration.
MTN News
The investigators determined Molnar had violated the PSC’s code of conduct by making comments of a sexual nature, and that it appeared his behavior had continued for some time after he was warned about it. They also found he had behaved unprofessionally and in a belittling manner toward Bukacek, though they said Bukacek herself had at times used “language that could be considered inappropriate” in emails to staff or other commissioners. Bukacek told MTN she “readily self corrected” any behaviors that were brought to her attention.
The investigation also found a violation in connection with a complaint from a PSC staff member, who said he “felt bullied” by Molnar when the commissioner sent an email complaining about his team not being “people with competence.”
However, much of the first report and the entire second report was focused on conduct after the initial complaints, when Molnar was accused of retaliating against people who participated in the investigation. Lake said in her declaration that she saw “an immediate and significant change in his behavior toward staff involved in the process.” She claimed he said he would use an attorney and private investigator to go after people who filed complaints, and she accused him of publicly criticizing her in interviews and removing her job responsibilities because of her handling of the investigation.
Lake said Molnar’s actions led to “declining morale within the agency,” undermined staff members’ ability to do their jobs and damaged her reputation. She said that led her to resign as executive director.
“I believe no employee should be forced to choose between reporting misconduct and protecting their career, reputation, or personal well-being,” she said in her declaration.
Lake has since become Helena city manager.
Jonathon Ambarian
The report said there was evidence to show Molnar had retaliated, including by “making disparaging statements about investigation participants” including Lake, by sending an email warning he could file complaints of his own against people involved, and by taking other actions investigators said could dissuade employees from reporting behavior in the future.
Monforton said during Thursday’s hearing that the initial comments Bukacek complained about were jokes Molnar had admitted were inappropriate, that he regretted saying them, and that he hasn’t made any similar comments in about a year. But he argued the vast majority of the findings against Molnar were about retaliation – and that those were primarily based on speech that the other commissioners don’t have the right to interfere with.
Monforton said it’s unreasonable to punish Molnar for what he said in the July news conference where he announced he was under investigation, in interviews with the media or in commission meetings. He said Molnar’s conduct doesn’t rise to the level of actual retaliation.
“This is an elected official, engaging in speech in his forum,” Monforton said.
He said Molnar may have made harsh comments toward staff, but that he had the right to raise objections about the way the agency does business.
Jonathon Ambarian
Monforton also argued the retaliation claims no longer justify keeping Molnar out of the office, since Welborn, Fielder and Bukacek voted to remove him as president in October and he no longer has the authority he’s accused of misusing. He said there haven’t been further complaints about his behavior since that time.
“We’re not asking for the moon and stars, we’re asking for the status quo as it existed for the last seven months,” he said.
Jones said there is enough evidence to show Molnar would have been punished regardless of whether any protected speech was excluded.
“This is not about a couple of jokes,” she said.
Jones said Molnar made maliciously false statements about people like Lake, and that type of statement isn’t covered by free speech protections.
She also said Molnar’s exclusion from the PSC offices is temporary, and that the PSC will reconsider whether to let him return if he apologizes for his actions, accepts the agency’s code of conduct and undergoes training.
Molloy indicated he saw indications that there was “acrimony” on both sides of the situation, and said he was skeptical it would be resolved easily.
“It would be nice if instead of juvenile behavior, there was professional behavior,” he said.
However, the judge said there was an avenue for Molnar to pursue if he wanted to reach a resolution.
Molloy took no immediate action Thursday. He told the parties he would rule as quickly as he could.
Carrie Gilbertson has been executive director of Cancer Support Community Montana for just under two months, stepping into the role in April with more than 15 years of nonprofit experience and a lifetime of Montana roots.
The organization provides psychosocial and mental health support to anyone affected by cancer — not just those with a diagnosis, but also family members and others walking alongside them.
WATCH: Meet the new leader of Cancer Support Community Montana 🎗️
Cancer Support Community Montana names new executive director
“This mission of providing psycho-social supports and mental health supports for anyone impacted by cancer, not just that person who has the diagnosis, but also family members, anyone who is walking alongside someone as they experience that often scary diagnosis, that’s just something that’s important to me,” Gilbertson said.
Gilbertson’s role extends beyond the Bozeman office. Cancer Support Community Montana’s Missoula location is already up and running, and a Helena location is expected to be operating soon. Each presents its own set of challenges.
“Each hospital is different. They might have different resources. Their social workers might be connecting to things in a different way. So understanding what those hospitals need, what different participants need in each community, is going to be different just because the communities are different, resources are different,” Gilbertson said.
The Bozeman office has been operating for more than 20 years, providing a foundation that supports the organization’s broader statewide efforts.
“I think this is a crew that looks at what does this community need what do our participants need what are some of the changing landscapes in cancer care what things are the gaps that we see that we can maybe just jump right in and you know let’s see if we can provide that for people so that’s something I really love about this crew that I work with and just this mission that there is some flexibility in being able to adjust and adapt as we learn more,” Gilbertson said.
Those adaptations show up in unexpected ways. The organization converts its parking lot into a pickleball court every Friday morning.
“I didn’t know there was a pickleball court. I pulled in actually with my daughter pulled in and she was is that pickleball court and I was like oh, it kind of looks like it is so yeah that’s fun, every Friday morning we clear out the parking lot and put up the net and I haven’t played yet I’ve been watching just to kind of see how that game works but they take it pretty seriously,” Gilbertson said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 17, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from June 17 drawing
03-26-49-53-61, Powerball: 12, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from June 17 drawing
11-16-18-33-51, Star Ball: 09, ASB: 05
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 17 drawing
01-16-17-27, Bonus: 01
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Montana Cash numbers from June 17 drawing
13-22-35-36-39
Check Montana Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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