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. 

The State has Money for a Parenting Program at the Prison, But it’s not operating Yet

 After losing federal funding, the Department of Corrections hasn’t restarted a parenting program that state lawmakers put $120,000 toward earlier this year. The program had served roughly 160 fathers and 400 children during the program’s four-year tenure. By Zeke Lloyd

Frederick Maw VI was 14 months old when his father, Freddie J, received a 20-year sentence to Montana State Prison in 2018. Caterina Maw, Little Freddie’s grandmother, remembers driving alongside a “trembling and scared” child on a bus to a small red cabin in 2022 during her grandson’s first trip to meet his father. 

“He saw the swing set and he saw all the dads standing there with smiles on their faces — then he just got this huge smile and ran to his dad to give him a hug,” Caterina Maw said in a recent interview.

The pair reunited through a Montana Department of Corrections initiative called Connecting Adults and Minors through Positive Parenting, a multi-part program that included a three-month parenting course for incarcerated parents. Parents also were able to see their children in person and have dedicated video calls.

Montana Public Service Commission Declined to Make Declaratory Ruling

The Montana Public Service Commission declined to make a declaratory ruling incorporating climate change into its regulatory oversight of the energy sector.

A coalition of 41 businesses and nonprofits submitted a petition to the PSC in March of 2024 in the wake of a state district court finding in Held v. Montana that the state’s right to a “clean and healthful environment” incorporates a right to a “stable climate system.” 

The petition before the PSC had two parts. One asked the agency to adopt rulings “affirming its obligation to consider the adverse climate impacts of greenhouse gas emissions under the Montana Constitution and the statutory and regulatory framework governing its decision making.” The other included a specific rule giving the commission a framework for weighing the social, economic and environmental costs of different energy sources. That framework, developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is called the Social Costs of Greenhouse Gases.

In his presentation before commissioners on Tuesday, PSC Chief Legal Staff Lucas Hamilton argued that the authority for declaratory rulemaking rests with the judicial and legislative branches, not with an executive-branch agency such as the Public Service Commission. He urged the commission to reject the declaratory ruling part of the petition. The commission has not yet acted on the other part of the petition regarding the implementation of the Social Costs of Greenhouse Gases analysis.