In 2009, the City of East Helena annexed hundreds of acres of former ASARCO smelter land in an effort to restore the tax base the city lost when the smelter closed in 2001.
Yet city officials neglected to secure the property’s water rights – an oversight that, in the wake of the state’s October denial of water rights for the former ASARCO land, may have left East Helena with inadequate water for the thousands of new homes it now hopes to build there.
“The city did not discuss the water rights in 2009,” said Terrie Casey, East Helena’s mayor in 2009. “We were primarily focused at that time on annexing the land for the city. The reason that I, and the City Council, were wanting to get it into the city limits was for future development. The city lost a huge tax base when the smelter closed down, and we wanted to make sure development stayed within the city limits.”
