Montana

Jud

ge C. Bruce Loble has the kind of record jurists dream about. He has adjudicated 14,000 claims in Montana and has never once been reversed by the state supreme court. He holds virtually untrammeled power over the petitioners who come before him because he controls what they all want: water. For 12 years he has served as chief judge of the Montana Water Court, supervising six judges and overseeing as many as seven water commissioners at one time. Loble settles disputes between farmers and ensures that the state is fulfilling its commitments to its Native American tribes. Technically, he can even overrule the President. Once Congress approves and the President signs a water compact, it is returned to theMontana Water Court for final approval. I guess people think some obscure water judge in Montana is not going to abuse his authority," says Loble.

This summer, Montana's third dry one in a row, Judge Loble is guarding that trust. The 250-mile-long Musselshell River, which bisects much of the center of the state west to east, has run dry. Stunted brown patches of barley and drooping cornstalks along its winding path testify to the summer's record heat wave. Deadman's Basin, one of the river's three storage reservoirs, yielded a piddling 10,000 acre-ft. of water this year, compared with an average of 48,940 acre-ft. Due in large part to the lack of water, the state's winter wheat harvest was the smallest since the Dust Bow l year of 1937-42% of the wheat planted in the fall was abandoned, and the outlook for the spring harvest is dreary.

Even as the water disappears, newcomers to subdivisions in southwestern Montana are demanding their fair share of it. "As water gets short, tempers get shorter," says Loble. "To prevent anarchy on the streams, there needs to be a water cop." Thanks to Loble's careful oversight and the water court's new electronic measuring devices, which make sure that upstream users don't hog all the river flow, more people in Montana got water this year than in 1988. Sometimes, Loble says, just holding a meeting is all it takes to get two disputing parties to work together. And other times Loble gets tough. A few weeks ago, a rancherwas put on notice by a water commissioner for contempt of court for taking toomuch water out of the Musselshell. The penalty for the rancher's infraction was a $500 fine-and $500 more to stay out of jail. "Traditionally, irrigating farmers and ranchers just took all the water they could, regardless of other rights," Loble says. "This year we're enforcing our decrees."