St. Mary project moving ahead; Daines says Interior has approved the project

When the St. Mary pipelines were built to provide water in 1915 to northern Montana, construction workers hit winter, too.

Then, said Jennifer Patrick, the project manager for the Milk River Irrigation Project Joint Board of Control, they had no choice but to wait — it was simply too cold to pour concrete.

One-hundred ten years later, more than 18,000 people depend on the water that’s diverted near Babb from the Milk River in order to irrigate some of the state’s richest farmland.