Changes by Jesse WellingNot many people know the significance of Muddy Creek, a tributary of the Sun River. At first glance, it looks like one river dumping into another one. Look closer and see the history. See the sand bar that it has deposited. Look back up the Creek and see the many deep, winding cuts and old dried oxbows. I sometimes wonder what it looked like before it had the name Muddy Creek, but it takes but minutes to realize the sandbar exists because of the dark murky water. Today, my house looks at Muddy Creek from the southeast. I had heard stories of how both the Creek and the Sun River have flooded and filled my house with mud, and when my family remodeled our house and took out the old cabinets, we found old dried river bottom mud underneath. We also saw the water line on the old wall studs. I had never known what actually caused the flooding, but someone once told me it was because Gibson Dam could not hold enough water. I later found out that the rivers would have flooded regardless of Gibson Dam's capacity, because it is not a flood control dam. Even so, most people who live in the Sun River Valley do not realize the effect their forefathers had on their region. Paris Gibson's influence and S.B. Robbin's ideas shaped the Sun River Reclamation Project. Originally conceived around 1900, the Project was an attempt to bring in homesteaders to fuel the economic growth of Great Falls. By the summer of 1905, they had convinced the Reclamation Service in Washington D.C. to give their approval and support, and had also gained the support of many local businesses. However, they did not have the local support of many dryland farmers and ranchers, who already used the river for some irrigation, as dictated by the Desert Land Act of 1877. All the farmers and ranchers really saw in the Reclamation Project was a way to divide up the rest of the remaining government land that they were already using for grazing and, initially, give it to some 200 homesteaders (Fabry 14-17). By 1935, 450 farms existed under the irrigation of the Sun River, while plans to double that amount were in the works. The water was not free, however. Before construction of the Reclamation Project, the water rights were adjusted (Fabry 17). Each individual 40 acres of land would receive a set amount of water. The water rights to each of these 40-acre plots were forever attached to that individual piece of land. If a person were to sell the land, the water rights were sold with it. The amount of water each piece of land received would be paid for by a yearly fee to the government. According to Claire Willits, who grew up about one mile north west of Simms, during the early days of the Reclamation Project the government used the fee as a lean on the property in case the farmer or family couldn't pay for the land. The Sun River Reclamation Project started with the building of Diversion Dam which directed water to Pishkun Reservoir and Willow Creek Reservoir. From Pishkun Reservoir the water traveled along the Sun River Slope Canal. It then split into two branches, the Greenfield main canal and the Big Coulee canal. The Greenfield main canal and its Southern branch parallel the Sun River for about five miles past the town of Sun River, the runoff of which spills into the Muddy Creek drainage, causing the excess erosion we see today. The Big Coulee Canal crosses the Valley and irrigates a small portion of the Valley before dumping into the Sun River. The Willow Creek Reservoir dumps extra volumes of water into the Sun River. At the Fort Shaw Diversion Dam, near Simms, the water is redirected to the Fort Shaw Canal where it then siphons the water to the base of Fort Shaw Butte. There it gravity feeds the water to the Valley and eventually drains back into the Sun River (Fabry 17). According to Claire Willits, before the 1950's there were only two main methods used to irrigate the Fort Shaw and Greenfield areas: flood irrigation and border dyke. Flood irrigation was more frequently used simply because it was easier to build. To effectively flood irrigate a person would have to take water, via ditch, from a water source higher than the highest field they would want to irrigate. They would then turn the water out on their highest field and let it saturate the soil below. Crop rows were best suited for this method because of the way they held the water to the contour of the land instead of letting the water run straight down the hill. Border dyke irrigation was more expensive because of the cost of the construction. Border dyke irrigation consisted of making ridges that fit the contour of the land, and then, using the same water source used for flood irrigation, each individual little "trap" was filled with water. Farmers made the ditches needed to flood or to border dyke irrigate using a horse-drawn slip. Lawrence Vincent explained it best as "a good sized barrel that just scooped the dirt up and dumped it some where else." The slips came in many different sizes depending on how many acre-feet of water a person needed to irrigate. The Reclamation Project had many positive effects such as providing irrigation, but it also came with its ecological problems, most of which could have been avoided if the efficient irrigating practices had been made known or available earlier. The biggest problem is that of Muddy Creek. The irrigation run-off from Greenfield sends extra water through Muddy Creek, causing more erosion than would naturally occur. This is very evident from the deep cuts and oxbows on the creek, also from the sand bar at the Creek's mouth on the Sun River. Another ecological problem that has since been solved is the leeching of minerals from the run-off and seeping from shallow, non-cemented ditches. The area of the Sun River Valley that this affected most is the area around Fort Shaw where the soil is very marshy and alkali. (Willits) The first house I lived in was about 30 yards from the Muddy Creek and about three-quarters of a mile away from its mouth on the Sun River. I used to play in an old barn that sat next to the house. It was my place to go when I was mad or frustrated. It had a watermark also from when the creek had flooded. Today, having looked at the history of irrigation in the Sun River Valley, I realize that nobody's heritage is free.
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