(air whooshing) - [Narrator] Coming up next on "Impact," amidst a year of economic turmoil, Yellowstone Gateway communities are uncertain about the upcoming tourism season.

- Yeah, unpredictability is not a good place to be operating under.

- [Narrator] And domestic groundwater wells have become an important tool for developers in high growth Montana counties, but opponents say they've gone too far.

- It's this tension between protecting those senior water aid holders while allowing for new uses in development.

- [Narrator] Those stories next on "Impact."

(pensive music) - [Narrator] Production of "Impact" is made possible with support from the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans, and viewers like you who are friends of Montana PBS.

Thank you.

(air whooshing) - Welcome to "Impact".

I'm Hannah Kearse.

Federal budget cuts and economic turmoil have created uncertainty for national parks tourism this year.

Montana PBS's, AJ Williams, speaks with the coalition of Yellowstone's Gateway businesses that are asking their delegation for help.

- [AJ] On a snowy spring day in Livingston, Dan Bailey's fly shop co-owner, Dale Sexton, rings up A customer.

(Dale speaking faintly) - Yeah.

- Okay, cool.

You saved 10%.

- [AJ] Sexton is happy to see the trickle of early season anglers coming through for gear, but is concerned that the sales may not pick up as the rivers begin to run towards summer.

- We're kind of the fly fishing capital of the world here in Livingston, Montana, and a lot of people come here to go fly fishing or to enjoy Yellowstone National Park.

It's not just unique to us, it's unique to the world.

We're taking phone calls weekly from people who are wanting to come visit Montana.

They're concerned.

- [AJ] Sexton says that his business in the store is just breaking even and guiding reservations are down 30% from last year.

Down the road in Gardiner, fly shop owner, Richard Parks, is experiencing losses as well.

- In January, they were running on a par with our booking rate.

Since then, they have been subpar.

Whether that'll last or not, we don't know, but if it does, we're gonna have a serious problem.

- [AJ] This drop in business is a ripple effect of larger economic uncertainty.

Tariffs, inflation, and insecure jobs loom as people plan their summer vacations.

For some tourists, this means canceling travel plans as Sexton and parks have experienced.

While visitors will still have to travel through gateway communities to get into the park, economist Patrick Barkey says there's reason to be concerned about their local spending.

- A recession this year could very well happen, yes.

With tourism being a discretionary item, it would at the very least change the nature of tourism.

It doesn't change the desire of people to travel to beautiful places like the one we're fortunate enough to live in, but it does affect their confidence in spending money.

- Unpredictability is not a good place be operating under.

There's nobody that represents those economic issues any better than small business owners.

- [AJ] That's why they've relaunched the Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition, a group of 355 businesses and counting that aims to get their voices heard by the state's delegation.

(upbeat music) (people chattering) They held a relaunch event in downtown Livingston in late March that brought together well over 100 community members.

- Tonight marks that relaunch and we're intent on building a larger and stronger coalition and even a greater voice.

And again, the intent is to protect our economy and our way of life.

And if you live here, you know they're one and the same.

They're so connected.

- [AJ] They worked with local county commissioners and the Gardner Chamber of Commerce to write letters to their congressional delegation asking for quote, "Clarity and direction regarding recent personnel and budget cuts."

And to quote, "Consider the impacts these financial and personal changes could have on our community."

- We don't like living in fear and just having a plan moving forward and not just being blindsided by these layoffs would would be nice.

So that's why we wrote the letter.

- [AJ] According to Yellowstone National Park, in 2024, they had a total of 748 employees, 392 permanent and 356 seasonal.

And this year, 2025, they should have a total of 769 employees, 382 permanent and 387 seasonal.

This means that they gained 31 seasonal employees and lost 10 permanent employees.

Yellowstone National Park did clarify these numbers include probationary employees who were laid off, meaning the numbers of permanent employees may be lower.

Even though Yellowstone employee losses were relatively small, they contribute to the National Park Service staff that were laid off or who voluntarily left as a part of the presidentially appointed DOGE subcommittee's efforts to reduce the total payroll by 30%.

On May 2nd, the Trump administration released its fiscal year budget request for 2026, which proposes approximately $1.2 billion in cuts to the National Park Service, the reductions target operations, recreation, and preservation budgets.

Yellowstone National Park declined to interview for this story, but Montana PBS was able to speak with former Yellowstone Superintendent, Dan Wenk, on the challenges these changes present.

- I think the superintendents are gonna do everything they can do so that the disruption that's been going on within the federal workforce so far this year does not impact visitor experience when they get to the parks.

Because this is a long-term gain.

This is not about just the summer of 2025, this is about the summer of 2035 and '45, '55 and beyond.

In the long-term protection of these resources, their delegations have to ensure the Park Service has ability to ensure the long-term preservation of the resources.

And I don't think it can be done with a 30% cut.

- [AJ] We reached out to all of Montana's delegation for this story.

None agreed to an interview or to provide responses to written questions.

Senator Steve Daines previously introduced the Gateway Community Recreation and Enhancement Act, and Montana PBS did receive a statement written by the senator's staff upon his behalf.

"Our national parks are the crown jewels of the United States, and one of Senator Daine's top priorities is ensuring our gateway communities are equipped for a busy visitor season.

Senator Daines will continue to work with appropriate agencies to ensure that critical services and jobs for Montanans are uninterrupted as President Trump works to reduce waste and bring back fiscal responsibility to the federal government."

Congressman Troy Downing, who sits on the House Committee on small business also provided the following statement.

"Government can identify savings without affecting service, and I remain committed to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse while safeguarding the programs and services that Montanans and our way of life depend on, including our national parks.

On the House Committee on Small Business, I've been a tireless advocate for policies that reduce red tape and boost access to capital for Montana's gateway communities."

(air whooshing) According to the Gardner Chamber of Commerce, they did receive responses from the letter they sent to their delegates.

And seasonal hiring has brought some relief.

However, this year's unpredictable changes have left the community feeling financially unstable.

- We were reassured once Yellowstone was able to hire in their full capacity, but there's still a bit of uncertainty if it could happen again.

Just reminding the delegation, you know, that we're here, how much our economy does impact the state of Montana and Park County.

- [AJ] According to the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research, Yellowstone Country accounts for $1.4 billion of the state's over $5 billion in non-resident spending.

262.8 million comes from Livingston and Gardiner's Park County.

Petcoff has spoken to several business owners in town who are seeing cancellations due to hesitation with international travel and staffing concerns in the national parks.

These tourism concerns are adding even more to business owners already full plates.

Livingston's Campione's co-owner, Jeff Galli, works on place settings at his restaurant for the evening's dinner service.

- Things are very up in the air, so there's no certainty.

So some jobs have been replaced and some jobs are on hold and some jobs might disappear in the future.

So, you know, we're a member of a small community and so, you know, anything that affects our population is something that we really feel at the restaurant.

It a hundred percent affects our business.

- [AJ] Down in Gardner, wildlife guides struggle to think about what these staffing changes could mean for the loss of institutional ecological knowledge and the longevity of their work.

- I think it's the longer term projections that have people concerned and people that have spent their entire careers in their fields that we're losing.

And I think those longer term impacts are of great concern.

- My ability to continue to live here and to be able to choose to live here is directly related to the resources that is our product.

And so that stewardship piece is directly connected to our bottom line.

- [AJ] That bottom line is what drove the Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition to not just send letters but also meet with their delegation in Washington DC to speak about how these cuts could affect their communities.

- Montanan's understand that when you live in a rural community, you really depend upon each other.

And when there are layoffs, it impacts everyone, not just the individual that lost their job, but you know, we may be losing a teacher, we may be losing kids in our schools, their housing may be dependent to their jobs.

So those are the sorts of conversations that we're having.

- [AJ] Barkey explains that because of the approximately $28 trillion national deficit, part of the federal government's financial responsibility is bringing down federal spending, which could include national resources such as the parks.

- But you put that in perspective though, what the capacity of the federal government is to continue the level of spending and by implication, the level of employment it provides indefinitely in the future.

We know we have a large debt so I'm not looking at the parks and saying, "Oh, here's waste, here's waste."

I don't even know.

I don't manage parks.

I don't know what those challenges are, but I do know that the direction the whole ship is going is not sustainable.

We need to come up with ways of managing our land so that we can reign in the spending a little bit.

- [AJ] Uberuaga believes that disinvestments in the park are counterproductive to supporting the overall economy.

- For every dollar invested in Yellowstone that brings $15 back into our economy, we should be investing in these places and investing in the people that manage our parks.

- [AJ] Looking forward to the summer season, business owners say that they'll likely survive another year if profits prove low, but that they want to be able to plan long term and that certainty is dependent on the preservation of their national park for decades to come.

- My business relies on Yellowstone Park and the integrity of our national forests and the sustainable and long-term management of those resources.

Without those, our business is not gonna be anywhere nearly as healthy as it is today.

- [AJ] Yellowstone National Park has a plan for the summer, however, staffing and funding moving remains uncertain.

As for the locals, their concerns grow as long range planning is clear out of sight.

For "Impact," I'm AJ Williams.

- All four entrances to Yellowstone National Park are open for the season.

Vehicle reservations are not required and entrance passes can be purchased at the gate or ahead of time on the government's Federal Lands Reservation website, recreation.gov.

When Montana's Water Rights Act was passed in 1973, it required all new juices of water to go through a rigorous permitting process.

However, users who plan to withdraw a small enough amount of water are allowed to drill exempt wells, which are not subject to the water rights process.

As Montana PBS's Sam Wilson reports, the exemption has become a point of contention.

(air whooshing) - [Sam] Up here at the top of the continent, water shapes everything, from the mountains to the rivers to the way we build our communities.

- I think we, especially in Montana, you know, we're fortunate to get out on our streams and our rivers and our lakes and we developed this relationship or this intuitive sort of understanding of how surface water works.

We don't have any kind of connection really with groundwater like we do with surface water.

And so it kind of, it gets ignored and it's just not as well understood.

But it's important to recognize that there's a tremendous amount of water in the subsurface, especially in the basins in western Montana.

- [Sam] Exempt wells are meant to give Montanans a quick way to access a de minimis or insignificant amount of that water that has been to be less than 35 gallons per minute and no more than 10 acre feet a year, which could supply water for up to 35 average Montana homes.

And as surface water becomes harder to come by, use of exempt wells has boomed.

- Through way up the whole scheme of my career, it's been probably 90, 95% of the work we've ever done has been exempt wells.

- [Sam] Though the vast majority of the roughly 130,000 exempt wells in the state are for domestic use, they can also be used for stock ponds or for irrigating landscaping like this well will be used for.

These wells can also be drilled in basins where all water rights have long been claimed, like in the Gallatin River aquifer, where 220 exempt wells have been recorded per square mile.

And there's the rub, one well might just be a drop in the bucket, but the math changes when thousands of wells draw from the same aquifer.

- This tension between protecting those senior water aid holders while allowing for new uses in development and really trying to figure out what is de minimis or that small amount.

We've got multiple decades of evolution here.

We've seen this state really grapple with how much water is allowed.

- [Sam] One sticking point is the combined appropriation of wells.

A parcel of land can be granted an exemption.

But what about when that parcel is subdivided into many lots?

That fight has been hashed out in court.

- [Sam] But the court also recognized that you can't stack one de minimis exception on top of another, on top of another to the tune of thousands of wells and keep the status of de minimis.

That is truly a large water use.

- [Sam] In 2024, the Horse Creek Hills subdivision near Townsend became a cautionary tale for developers using the exemption.

The 442 acre tract on the shores of Canyon Ferry Lake was planned to be split into four phases with one exemption allocated for each phase.

After the subdivision was approved by Broadwater County, the Upper Missouri Waterkeepers sued arguing the law only allowed a single exemption for the entire subdivision.

The district court agreed saying, "The DNRC had violated broad swaths of the water use act, and in doing so, allowed the ongoing appropriation of millions, if not billions of gallons of water that under our laws should have been left in aquifers for the benefit of senior water rights holders."

- But I do think that it would be really wise for us to consider how we can get a handle on the cumulative impacts that we're having with exempt wells.

Right now, every decision is based on like a very narrow this instant and does it fit in this definition.

And it does not take into account the 20,000 decisions before.

- [Sam] Near Bozeman, the Sandhill subdivision proposed drawing even more water than Horse Creek Hills for fewer lots.

But after the Gallatin County Commission unanimously voted it down, developers came back with a new plan that put all 160 acres and 34 lots under one exemption of 10 acre feet.

While Horse Creek Hills is still a range land, construction on Sandhill begins this year.

- It's a really great example right now of a development that is adapting to the arid environment that we live in.

I think it will end up being a good project.

- [Sam] In the 2025 legislative session, a bill led by the DNRC tried to clear things up.

Among other things, Senate Bill 358 would've closed the exemption in the Helena, Gallatin, Bitterroot and Missoula aquifers while expanding its use for new subdivisions in much of the rest of the state.

Over 200 people attended its introduction to the legislature.

- Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

My name's Tyler s Samson, S-A-M-P-S-O-N, owner and operator of Bridger Drilling in Belgrade, Montana, and Vice president of the Montana Water Well Drillers Association and I oppose this bill.

People need water.

Even if you shut it down, even if you do shut, people are still gonna come here and people are still gonna need water.

The problem is they're probably not gonna move into Gallatin County.

They're gonna be moving to Three Forks and Anis and Livingston and all the places you guys didn't cover with the red blotches.

- Frankly, we were aligned with the well drillers.

The Upper Missouri Waterkeepers intent was we didn't like the bill and wanted to kill it.

And by God, the well drillers also didn't like the bill and wanted to kill it.

Different reasons.

In fact, we're on the opposite side of the issue entirely.

But you don't have to be in one of those basins to be impacted by a subdivision development that goes on next to your property.

The Horse Creek Hills, for example, Confederate Gulch.

I mean, there's been multiple lawsuits and court decisions protecting senior water rights and Confederate Gulch.

And now Horse Creek comes along and tries to take 40 acre feet out of the system without review.

And you know, you've been fighting it for it your whole life and then these guys just pop in, are proposing to pop in four wells and nobody's gonna protect you?

Well, 358 didn't protect them.

They still would have to sue.

- [Sam] The bill never made it out of the Senate.

And the question remains, how much do these exempt wells actually affect the availability of water?

- What makes this difficult in terms of trying to address this problem is that groundwater is connected to surface water.

We know that.

We know that the flow and the streams is reliant upon those groundwater discharges.

But groundwater responds, you know, much more, it responds very differently than surface water.

Groundwater is moving, but it moves at rates that are much slower than surface water.

We've seen a lot of development with domestic wells in the western part of the state, and we've been watching water levels.

For the most part, we see things respond to climate.

There was a big drought in the early aughts, you know, the early two thousands.

The Madison limestone up by Great Falls, water levels started dropping rather precipitously and at the same time, the number of wells going into the aquifer almost doubled.

And so it raised some alarms.

It's like, are we taking more water out of the aquifer than it's coming in?

Are we causing depletion?

And then after about seven years, climate turned around, the wells still kept going in, but the water levels recovered.

They came back up 30 feet and they were almost higher than when we first started monitoring this, even though the development still continued at the same pace.

So it became pretty clear that, you know, it's climate that controls the amount of water in this aquifer.

And we see similar things in a lot of the basin fill aquifers in Western Montana as well.

Because conditions develop much more slowly in groundwater systems, by the time you start to see it, sometimes then it can be almost like too late.

It's like this slow moving freight train, right, okay, you you see it, but you can't just like slam the brakes on it.

- [Sam] Groups like the Upper Missouri Waterkeepers say they are already seeing red flags on the surface.

- We know by experience our streams are being depleted earlier and it's not just drought effects.

In the Gallatin River, if you don't have a water right that's pre 1890, you are shut off by the end of July in almost all years, and now are being shut off as early as the end of June with droughty conditions in early spring runoff so that water is being used, you know?

Don't pretend that pumping groundwater and consuming it doesn't impact your surface water water rate holder.

It does.

- [Sam] At the county level, there are more factors to consider than just the availability of groundwater.

Though it can be expensive to tie into municipal water or sewer system, raw land is even more expensive and exempt wells are often used in big lots for big houses.

- Any development that is on a parcel with an individual well and septic is not affordable in our county.

That is just how the economics work.

Affordable units in our community are in town.

They are serviced by municipal water and sewer and they are often multifamily units.

That's what hits, if we're lucky, an affordable price.

- And you could build all the condos and apartments you want, but that's only gonna attract a certain type of people.

And not a lot of people move to Montana to live an apartment, I don't think.

- [Sam] But a lot of people are moving to Montana and finding legally available water for everyone remains the crux.

Though no exempt will bills passed this session, the DNRC is looking at other ways of reducing reliance on the exemption, including making it easier for existing water rights to change hands, say from an irrigator to a municipality or subdivision.

- It is not a conversation about exempt wells, not exempt wells.

It's about a holistic package of meeting our future water needs.

If we need to continue to refine the permit process to make that easier, let's do that.

How do we make mitigation and availability and the flexibility around existing uses so that we can have a market around water use and mitigation a reality for Montana, that's gonna help us meet our needs.

I continue to think about storage as an essential component, particularly around the timing and availability of water.

Let's continue to build that out.

And we're continuing to be committed to that collaborative process.

- [Sam] Finding common ground will be an enduring challenge for the Montanans invested in that process.

- It's not just me.

There's a lot of other, quite a few other well drillers out there, contractors, and they're drilling every single day.

And there's guys older than me that've been doing it since they was as young as I started.

Nobody ever said, well, the whole subdivision's going dry.

Never once did they ever say that.

- If you wanna grow a hundred acres of alfalfa, new, you have to come through the water right permit process.

If your neighbor, under the exception, wants to irrigate a hundred acres of bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass in lawns, use the exception.

That's just not fair.

And it's not fair in Helena, Bozeman, Billings, Kalispell, Missoula, Great Falls.

It doesn't matter where you're, it's just not fair.

- We're in the early stages of conflict in scarcity in Montana, and we are now experiencing that persistent drought.

We are experiencing that high population change.

We are not so far down the line that the courts are the only ones driving those solutions.

And so being in Montana and water is a great time and place because we can still control our fates and futures.

- [Sam] For "Impact," I'm Sam Wilson.

- The debate around groundwater pumping is not unique to Montana and the problem is becoming so severe in places like California and Utah that the ground is caving in under farms and neighborhoods.

And at that point, the issue becomes much more expensive and difficult to solve.

That's all for today.

On the next episode of "Impact," Montana has measles cases for the first time in decades.

We'll tell you what health officials are doing to protect the public from wider spread.

And what to do about wilderness study areas has long been debated in Montana.

We'll look into where that debate currently stands and what the future could hold for these lands.

I'm Hannah Kearse, and from all of us here at Montana PBS, thank you for watching.

(upbeat pensive music) (upbeat pensive music continues) (upbeat pensive music continues) - [Narrator] Production of "Impact" is made possible with support from the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

And viewers like you who are friends of Montana PBS.

Thank you.

(air whooshing) (bright music)