Long Term Monitoring
In 2025, CFC worked with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the University of Montana, and the Bitterroot River Protection Association to monitor nutrient concentrations and algal growth on the Clark Fork and Bitterroot rivers. This long-term monitoring project gives us valuable insight into condition of these rivers, including an opportunity to interpret the patterns of nutrient concentrations and algal growth from headwaters to the Idaho border, and an opportunity to track these metrics over time as water availability, wastewater treatment, land use, and population change.
Click on the links below to see the results and interpretation for our 2025 nutrient and algae monitoring on the Clark Fork and Bitterroot.
A set of additional resources is also available for download. The additional resources include:
- The full Clark Fork River and Bitterroot River reports
- The most recent 5-year trends report (through 2022)
- The full dataset collected in 2025
- The Sampling and Analysis Plans for the Clark Fork and Bitterroot
- The Quality Assurance / Quality Control reports for the 2025 monitoring