The Clock is Ticking and the Future is at Stake

[Brenda]

Make no mistake, those solutions are anything but simple, easy or cheap. Sitting here in a snowless January in Montana with open water on our lakes and temperatures that barely sink below freezing, the enormity of the climate crisis is dramatically coming home to roost. And no snow in winter generally means a grim summer ahead — and a difficult but necessary prioritizing of limited resources among a host of competing interests.

As just one example, will our world-famous rivers and wild trout survive yet another brutal summer of chronically-dewatered streams? Given the recent experiences, particularly on the Big Hole River, the trend is downward as water quantity, quality and trout populations continue a steep decline.

Nor is the Big Hole alone in its misery. The equation is simple and applies to virtually every drainage in the state. Low snowpack in the mountains means earlier and far less runoff. And when the tributaries cease to rush to the rivers the available water for the competing interests is likewise severely diminished.

Increasingly, the attempts to deal with the supply and demand equation through social means, such as watershed groups, continue to fail dramatically. Lower river flows mean hotter water, more concentrated pollutants, more stress on the broader riverine ecosystems, and significant, perhaps irreparable, extirpation of the most fragile species.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/05/the-clock-is-ticking-and-the-future-is-at-stake/