Missoula Hits Water Hard by Al Darr
The article below appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on May 21, 1967
Missoula Hits Water Hard by Al Darr
Montana Power Co. was just six years into the Missoula water supply business when they sunk their first city well on 14th Street in 1935.
This was a brave departure for MPC because Missoulians were historically attached to their soft pure Rattlesnake Creek water.
Water quality will be diminished, said neighbors around the 14th Street well, and that section of Missoula will suffer discrimination.
C. H. Christensen, MPC manager here at the time allayed most of the public fears, and well followed well. The company has 16 wells in Missoula and East Missoula today, most of them reaching down to what they call “third water,” between 120 and 140 feet.
Cold lake water from the natural reservoirs behind Stuart Peak still flows bounteously through the venerable check on Rattlesnake Creek, then to the manmade reservoirs on Waterworks Hill.
But the creek system can’t meet Missoula’s staggering summer demand of up to 36 million gallons per day.
Missoula’s per capita water use, which peaks at close to 1,000 gallons per day per person, is exceeded by few cities and towns in the nation, according to Frank Head, water superintendent here.
This summer, as every summer since long before most Missoulians can remember, users are asked to irrigate their lawns and gardens in shifts, a maximum of 10 hours a day on alternate days.
“Missoula’s water situation isn’t a matter of supply but of delivery,” Head said. “We could provide a system adequate for everyone to sprinkle all the time, but if we did the public would object strongly to the increased fees we’d have to charge.”
As it is, according to Head, sprinkling every other day affords all the water that lawns and gardens can profitably use. Missoula’s stony, permeable soil absorbs water quickly, and the absence of puddles sometimes gives homeowners the impression that their flowers are still thirsty.
Head said the water department aims at maintaining pressure in the mains at between 50 and 60 pounds. Even in the newer, hillside additions, where tank reservoirs could be placed high enough to afford pressures in excess of 100 pounds, the water men have to be prudent. Pressure increases .43 pound per foot of elevation, so reservoir sites must be chosen accordingly.
Missoula’s private enterprise water system has had ups and downs since One-Eye Riley hauled aqua pure from the mill ditch on East Front Street in 1870. Extra cold winters have been the worst bugbear because the frigid water from Rattlesnake Lakes would freeze solid in the pipes without much warning.
Missoulians howled and threatened legal action in the colder seasons. Committees gathered like vigilantes, and experts probed the recurrent problem.
Now, according to Waterman Head, the likelihood of a pipe-crippling freeze is much slimmer. Water flows from the city’s wells at 52 degrees, summer and winter, and the pumps can always be switched on for a thawing operation. One well is actually employed regularly in the winter to temper the temperatures in the mains. A few residential pipes do freeze up every winter, but in recent years there has been nothing like the wholesale ice blockages of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
This Sunday Missoulian article featured 4 photos by Al Darr. The captions from these photos appear below:
Down to the Sea runs spill water from Rattlesnake Creek, more water at this season than Missoulians could use, yet the city’s consumption May 15 was more than 17.5 million gallons. C. P. Higgins and Frank Worden tapped the creek with wooden flumes in 1880, and their system, modified and expanded, has been the heart of Missoula’s water supply ever since. Today, Montana Power Co. has 16 wells supplementing the creek water in peak months.
Bypass channel at Rattlesnake Dam (right) carries a torrent of water in late May and early June, more water than can be impounded upstream and in the settling pond at the dam itself. Missoula water users are for the most part, content with their water supply, which is bolstered by booster pumps and wells. Gravity flow of Waterworks Hill, which is 180 feet above Higgins Avenue, kept main pressures up throughout the city for nearly half a century, but as the city spread southward and westward, wells became necessary.
Wells throughout Missoula keep pressures and water temperatures up to workable levels. Jerry Kirkpatrick of the MPC water department throws the switch on the pump at Agnes and Park. The pump will produce up to 1,200 gallons per minute all day long, then shut down automatically at night.
Rattlesnake Dam, tended by the John Klocks, serves Montana Power Co. as an intake point for the city system. Water is strained and chlorinated here after rushing from the icy Rattlesnake Lakes, which are also regulated with gates and weirs. City water is generally unmetered, so users may wash and irrigate to their heart’s content within the regulations laid down for summer sprinkling.
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