PARK COUNTY — The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Crazy Mountain Ranch reached a consent decree Friday, which was approved by the Park County court.
The consent decree negates the need for a hearing that was scheduled for Monday, regarding the Ranch's use of water to irrigate a new golf course.
The ranch had recently been under fire from residents in Big Timber, after the city announced that they would be selling 100,000 gallons of water every day to the ranch to help irrigate the new course.
Crazy Mountain Ranch General Manager David Hardwick said he hopes that the consent decree will help residents better understand what the legal issues were at hand, stating that the issue was more about where the water was being used than the water itself.
"We apologize for getting ahead of the process on the irrigation of the golf course," Hardwick said in a statement to MTN. "With this consent decree the DNRC is allowing us to continue to irrigate the course with purchased water while it considers our May application for a change in place of use. It's important to know that DNRC does not dispute that Crazy Mountain Ranch has only used water that it is authorized to use — this is a resolution of a dispute about where we are using that water."
