Montana is experiencing unusually warm, dry conditions, and a new lawsuit challenges the state’s policy allowing "exempt" wells for rural subdivisions. Conservation groups, municipalities and agricultural organizations joined as co-plaintiffs, arguing these wells are draining groundwater, drying springs and harming existing water rights. An August sale of city water to a ranch allegedly caused springs to dry and led to an $8,000 fine now disputed in court. Plaintiffs want the state to prioritize current residents and sustained water supplies amid a warming climate.
Montana Lawsuit Targets 'Exempt Wells' as Groundwater Dries Up
Montana is experiencing unusually warm, dry conditions, and a new lawsuit challenges the state’s policy allowing "exempt" wells for rural subdivisions. Conservation groups, municipalities and agricultural organizations joined as co-plaintiffs, arguing these wells are draining groundwater, drying springs and harming existing water rights. An August sale of city water to a ranch allegedly caused springs to dry and led to an $8,000 fine now disputed in court. Plaintiffs want the state to prioritize current residents and sustained water supplies amid a warming climate.
06:52 PM, 11/14/2025Environment
Spring Meadow Lake State Park's lake has no inlet or outlet and is being drained as groundwater levels fall. (Photo courtesy Polly Pfister / The Daily Montanan)
New lawsuit challenges state policy as water supplies shrink
It’s mid-November in Montana, but temperatures across the nation’s fourth-largest state are in the high 60s. There are two weeks left in hunting season, yet there’s almost no tracking snow except at the highest elevations. The long, hot, dry spell that began in summer shows no sign of relenting, and even ski areas that can make snow can’t do so without sustained subfreezing nights.
Taken together, these signs point to a simple reality: Montana is approaching the limit of how much groundwater it can sustainably allow for new uses — especially for so-called “exempt wells” drilled for rural subdivisions that bypass the usual water-appropriation review.
Unusual allies unite
In a rare alignment, conservation groups and agricultural and municipal organizations have filed suit together. The Montana Environmental Information Center, the Clark Fork Coalition and Trout Unlimited joined the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, the Montana League of Cities and Towns and the Association of Gallatin Agricultural Irrigators as co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed this week against the State of Montana and the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC).
The plaintiffs say the state continues to permit exempt wells in basins that are already closed to new appropriation permits. Those wells, they argue, are drawing down groundwater, threatening existing water rights and harming springs, streams, wetlands and lakes that the state holds in trust for the public.
How exempt wells affect groundwater
The issue can be explained with a simple analogy: a milkshake with many straws will be gone far faster than one with a single straw. Groundwater is similarly finite. Individual wells don’t just draw water at a point; they form a "cone of depression" that pulls water from a much broader area and can reduce flow to neighboring wells, springs and surface waters.
"When a well lowers the water table, it doesn’t only affect the person who drilled it — it can harm downstream users and public resources that depend on connected aquifers and streamflows."
In August, that effect was evident when the City of Boulder sold water to the Crazy Mountain Ranch for its golf course. After springs and other sources ran dry, an existing water-rights holder complained to the DNRC. The agency ordered the city to stop pumping, deemed the well unlawful, and fined the ranch $8,000 — the maximum penalty allowed under the Montana Water Use Act. The ranch is contesting the fine in court.
The stakes extend beyond private disputes. Declining groundwater and depleted aquifers alter complex hydrogeological systems that sustain rivers, wetlands and lakes — resources held in trust by the state for current and future residents.
What’s at issue
Plaintiffs argue the exempt-well policy produces unintended consequences: permitting withdrawals that exceed what the basin can sustain, a problem made worse by a warmer, drier climate. They say state policy should prioritize existing residents and established water rights over speculative or new residential development that relies on unreviewed, exempt wells.
Bottom line: The lawsuit seeks to halt or limit the unchecked expansion of exempt wells and to protect public and private water users from further harm as Montana confronts prolonged drought and rising temperatures.