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Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch

Cattle and Clean Water at Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch From 2005 to 2021, Clark Fork Coalition and partners ran Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch (DCCR), a 2,300-acre working cattle ranch in Montana’s Deer Lodge Valley, to be a living classroom for the largest river repair job in the West, located in…
Grant Creek Restoration

With new, intensive development happening along its lower reaches, the future of Grant Creek depends on community investment in the creek’s rich cultural and ecological functions before it’s too late. Right now, we have an amazing opportunity for holistic, headwaters-to-confluence restoration and protection of this native trout stream and wilderness…
Annual Clark Fork River Cleanup

The Clark Fork River Cleanup is an annual tradition when the community comes together to clean trash along the river banks before spring runoff and high water hits. Hundreds of people—including individuals, families, friends, schools, and business teams—join together for a good cause and celebrate the river we love and…
River Ambassadors

During the summer, Missoula River Ambassadors can be spotted at busy river access sites and community events, on popular day-float stretches, and immersed in conservation and restoration projects dotting Missoula’s urban river corridor. This team of community ambassadors guides the ever-growing river-recreation culture toward stewardship. During peak river season from…
Clean Smurfit Now

The Smurfit-Stone pulp mill operated on the banks of the Clark Fork River near Frenchtown from 1957 to 2010, discharging enormous amounts of wastewater into the river. More than a decade after the mill closed, the 3,200-acre industrial site is still leaching harmful chemicals into the river and our aquifer.
Exempt Wells Loophole

In 1973, the Montana Legislature passed the Water Use Act, which created a process for permitting new water rights. To reduce permitting burdens on small, individual users, it exempted groundwater use for “domestic, agricultural, or livestock purposes.” This meant applicants did not have to prove that the water was physically…
Milltown Dam Removal

For 100 years, Milltown Dam blocked the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers near Missoula, trapping toxic sediments that washed down from mines in Butte and contaminating local drinking water wells. Now, the dam is out, the mining waste is gone, fish can swim back upstream, and two mighty…