The struggle for water in Fairfield, Montana, is taking shape on multiple fronts at once: drought has left wells under pressure, and leaking infrastructure is draining supplies before they reach residents’ taps. Chuck Dale, the town’s water supervisor, said he was not satisfied with the early spring rain that moved through northcentral Montana, describing it as insufficient to refill depleted groundwater sources that Fairfield relies on for drinking water.
Fairfield’s water shortage has strained residents and also local farmers’ irrigation systems, with the town council taking steps to manage the problem. The town has invested in infrastructure and moved to restrict certain uses, but Dale said it remains unclear whether those measures will be enough to hold the system through the spring and into the higher-demand summer months.
According to a report from Great West Engineering, a consultant brought in by Fairfield’s local government, the town’s water system loses about half of the water it takes from its wells. Engineer Austin Egan, reached as a comparison point for municipal water losses, said a standard rate of loss in a typical municipal water system is about 15%, and engineers attributed much of the attrition to leaks in old pipes. Dale and engineers noted that nearly two-thirds of Fairfield’s pipes were installed in 1946.
Jake Garcin, a spokesperson at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, said in an email to Montana Free Press that the amount of water loss in Fairfield is typical for an aging system. Garcin said other small Montana towns—Fairview, Alberton, Martinsdale and Circle—have recently addressed aging infrastructure, and he also pointed to Lockwood, a community east of Billings, as another place where old plumbing has strained supply.
The shortage is also reflected in how much water Fairfield can pump right now compared with the summer demand expected to follow. Dale said the town can only pump about 450 gallons per minute for about seven hours a day at present, while summer demand is expected to rise to 650 gallons per minute for 16 hours a day. Dale said if the next two wells stop producing, Fairfield could fall to about 250 gallons per minute.
Even before the summer peak, Dale said residents could see inconveniences because several of the town’s wells are already affected: across Fairfield’s eight wells, three were nonoperational and three were running at partial capacity. Dale said he expects that if two more wells “pop,” the town would bring “outhouses to the school and to some of the bigger businesses,” adding that the town last shipped in portable toilets 23 years ago after drilling a new, deeper well.
Fairfield has tried to expand supply by drilling additional wells, but local results have not solved the problem. Dale said the town has attempted to drill four new wells in the last two years, including two the previous week, but none of those wells found enough water to install a pump. He said he has known supply would be an issue since last year, when low quantities of water for irrigation helped tip off that Fairfield’s wells might struggle in the spring.
Dale said the shortage is closely tied to how farmers’ irrigation interacts with groundwater. He said some irrigation water seeps into the groundwater that Fairfield’s wells draw from, and that many local farmers shut off irrigation a month or more earlier than they typically do. In the drought context, that earlier cutoff meant less recharge for Fairfield’s well system and left less buffer heading into the current season.
The drought pressures extend beyond Fairfield into the broader agricultural network that depends on irrigation infrastructure and winter precipitation. The Sun River Project, described as an agricultural area spanning two irrigation districts, hundreds of miles of canals and about 93,000 acres of land, is also facing a shortage. Susie Konen, a Fairfield farmer who irrigates barley, said limited water supply makes her more dependent on weather and affects production, adding, “It affects our production.”
Karli Johnson, a Choteau rancher north of the Sun River Project who also works as a lobbyist for the Montana Farm Bureau, said drought helped reduce hay yields and contributed to her decision to reduce her cattle herd. Johnson said the ranch had some relief when July rains arrived last season, but she said she is now again hoping for a wet summer because winter’s high temperatures reduced the precipitation’s ability to build snowpack along the Rocky Mountain Front.
Eric Larson, a water supply forecaster with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said the snow that did arrive melted out in record time across much of the state, including areas of the Rocky Mountain Front that feed into the Sun River. Larson said that pattern shortened the window for irrigation districts to capture mountain snow needed to keep rivers, reservoirs and ditches wet through the hottest months.
Erling Juel, who manages the Greenfields Irrigation District, said he has been holding back water to fill the district’s three reservoirs because he is “gun-shy” after two dry years. Juel said the “best reservoir” is the watershed itself, but he said the snowpack feeding his irrigation district is at about half of its typical level for this time of year. He said the roughly 550 farmers and ranchers served by the district should expect to receive 25% less water than they do in a typical irrigation season, and he said the district is seeking to use more of the Sun River’s runoff by requesting earlier canal operations in early May.
While Juel said the irrigation district expects a temporary improvement once canals and ditches are back in operation, he warned that infrastructure age remains a continuing constraint. He and Dale said both Fairfield’s municipal system and Greenfields’ equipment are around 80 to 110 years old, and they pointed to the challenge of replacing aging systems that can cost millions of dollars and take decades to complete. Juel tied the district’s modernization challenge to the need to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic failures, noting the St. Mary’s Irrigation Project incident in 2024 when damaged 90-inch barrels caused supply losses for irrigators and municipalities.
For Fairfield residents, the drought has already begun to change daily habits. Ken Naylor, a local who said he has lived in the area for decades, told Montana Free Press that he understands why the city is imposing restrictions but still wants relief for his yard and garden. Naylor said, “I can’t water my lawn. It sucks,” and during the last drought he bought fake plants, saying he displayed them again this year and is “eager” for conditions to improve.
As Dale and other officials weigh conservation measures against the risk of additional well failures, the near-term question in Fairfield is whether maintenance steps, restrictions and limited pumping capacity will be enough to bridge the gap to a better recharge season.