Hi-Line farmers and ranchers between Havre and Malta may not have much of an irrigation season in 2025 for the first time in more than a century, the result of the massive mid-June failure of aging infrastructure used to increase and sustain water flows in the Milk River.
At a public meeting in Malta Tuesday night, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials told about 100 people in attendance and more than 50 watching online that the agency determined it would be impractical — financially and logistically — to implement a temporary fix for two failed steel siphon pipes near Babb that allowed the St. Mary Canal to plunge down a hillside, across the St. Mary River, up and over a smaller hill, and toward the upper Milk River to the east.
