Lawsuit says State isn’t Managing Rivers for the Benefit of All

[For more information, read source documents]

Graham Coppes entered the spring hopeful. Despite a slow start to winter, most western Montana river basins were reporting a near-average snowpack by April. But when warm May temperatures brought an underwhelming runoff, Coppes knew it would be a long, difficult summer for aquatic ecosystems and the $1.3 billion recreational economy they support. 

Slow-motion alarm set in as Coppes, a Missoula-based attorney, watched one blue-ribbon river after another dip to record lows. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks [FWP], which forecasted the difficult summer ahead in June, responded by partially or fully closing more than a dozen rivers to fishing after they reached low streamflow thresholds and high temperatures that can endanger trout.

In a lawsuit filed on Aug. 8, Coppes argued that FWP should have done more for iconic rivers such as the Blackfoot, Clark Fork and Big Hole to benefit the fish that live in them and the broader Montana public. Since then, rivers have remained at record lows, and Coppes told Montana Free Press in a recent conversation that the future is going to be “pretty bleak” for Montana’s aquatic ecosystems unless the state starts using and enforcing its water rights and reservations to bolster instream flows more assertively and proactively. ...

Guy Alsentzer with Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, says FWP is choosing politics over science, even as rivers are “diminished and degraded” by extreme drought and unchecked pollution.

Complaint: Public Service Commissioner Using State Resources for Private Business

Keila Szpaller, Friday October 31, 2025, 

Montana Public Service Commission (via PSC Twitter account).  Public Service Commissioner Annie Bukacek, also a doctor in private practice, is using state equipment to copy medical records unrelated to agency work, a complaint filed this week with the state ethics watchdog alleges.

Bukacek, elected in 2022, declined Friday to address the question and directed the Daily Montanan to the Public Service Commission director.

Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar filed the complaint, dated Wednesday, with the Commissioner of Political Practices, which monitors and enforces ethical standards for public officers.

In the complaint, Molnar, recently ousted as president, asks the Commissioner of Political Practices to estimate the money Bukacek owes ratepayers for her alleged abuse of state resources and levy penalties accordingly.  Bukacek is a licensed physician based in Kalispell, according to the Montana Board of Medical Examiners. She is on the Logan Health Medical Center receptionist directory.