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Silver Lake pumps to release about 20 million gallons per day to support Clark Fork River flows
Summary
County and project staff described a temporary release from Silver Lake into Warm Springs Creek — roughly 20,000,000 gallons per day for about 45 days (approximately 900 million gallons total) — to support low flows in the Clark Fork River; staff framed the release as substantially larger than water-use claims tied to a proposed data center.
County staff and a project narrator described Aug. 5 how the Silver Lake Aqueduct pump station is delivering large supplemental flows into Warm Springs Creek to help stabilize the Clark Fork River during a low-flow period. Jim Keenan described the operation and the system monitoring in place.
“Each of the pumps makes about 15,000 gallons a minute, and we're planning to pump that 20,000,000 gallons per day into Warm Springs Creek for a total of 45 days,” Jim Keenan said while narrating a short project video. Chief Executive Gallagher contrasted that rate with a previously reported data-center water request, noting the project’s daily flow substantially exceeds the annual request cited by data-center proponents.
Officials emphasized the operation is being monitored in real time and will run for a limited duration to mitigate low flows; the county framed the scale comparison to help respond to public concerns about hypothetical large water withdrawals for development.
