Abstract
This article examines what is generally considered to be an unattainable goal in the western United States: integrated water resources management (IWRM). Specifically, we examine an organization that is quite unique in the West, Montana’s Clark Fork River Basin Task Force (Task Force), and we analyze its activities since its formation in 2001 to answer the question: are the activities and contributions of the Task Force working to promote a more strongly integrated approach to water resources management in Montana? After reviewing the concepts underlying IWRM, some of the issues that have been identified for achieving IWRM in the West, and the Montana system of water right allocation and issues it faces, we adapt Mitchell’s IWRM framework and apply it to the analysis of the Task Force’s activities in the context of IWRM. In evaluating the physical, interaction, and protocol/planning/policy components of IWRM, we find that the Task Force has been contributing to the evolution of Montana’s water resources management towards this framework, though several factors will likely continue to prevent its complete realization. The Task Force has been successful in this regard because of its unique nature and charge, and because of the authority and power given it by successive Montana legislatures. Also critical to the success of the organization is its ability to help translate into policy the outcomes of legal and quasi-judicial decisions that have impacted the state’s water resources management agency.
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Notes
The prior appropriation system utilized in the Western United States is also known as the “first in time-first in right” system in which senior users of water have priority of use over juniors.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the members of the Clark Fork River Basin Task Force for reviewing an earlier draft of this paper, the three anonymous reviewers and Harun Rashid of Environmental Management’s Editorial Board who provided insightful and helpful recommendations for its improvement. This research received no financial or in-kind support from any source and represents an undertaking supported solely by the authors.
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Shively, D.D., Mueller, G. Montana’s Clark Fork River Basin Task Force: A Vehicle for Integrated Water Resources Management?. Environmental Management 46, 671–684 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9552-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9552-9