This fast-passing winter has been much warmer than usual, and less wet, worsening the troubling conditions that have plagued southwest Montana for years. Lewis & Clark County experienced severe drought for much of 2025, and as of mid-January the region’s snowpack is below normal for this time of year, despite the tragic floods to the north.
All of which left me wondering where we might be headed, in terms of water availability, given the growing water concerns across the broader Missouri River basin. Digging into that question, I’ve discovered, mainly thanks to the insights of water analyst Robert Glennon, that as a mainly desert region with many high-population areas, the American Southwest is a generation or two ahead of Montana in terms of both water loss and potential work-arounds.
Few have been examining this country’s water concerns for as long, or as well, as Glennon, the Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy at University of Arizona. He wrote the book Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Water, a quarter-century ago, but much of it has only become more urgent over time.
