Butte-Silver Bow ARPA water projects marked completed, but Moulton plant restart remains unresolved
State records mark Butte-Silver Bow’s major ARPA-funded water and wastewater agreements as completed, but residents in Walkerville and upper northwest Butte still need confirmation that the Moulton Water Treatment Plant has returned to service.
The distinction matters. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s ARPA grant-status document, dated July 21, 2026, reports grant and agreement status. It does not by itself confirm construction acceptance, plant commissioning, operational restart or post-restart water sampling.
Seven Butte-Silver Bow projects are marked completed
The state report lists seven projects for Butte-Silver Bow in Silver Bow County. The listed ARPA awards total $14,589,817, and each entry shows a zero remaining grant balance. All seven agreements are marked “COMPLETED.”
The projects are $3 million for Moulton Water Treatment Plant filter replacement; $3,987,000 for Metro wastewater solids handling; $2,449,977 for Metro wastewater effluent management; $1,714,866 for Basin Creek Dam No. 1 rehabilitation; $651,379 for the West Side stormwater reroute; $1,849,119 for Moulton Dam No. 1 spillway and embankment improvements; and $937,476 for the Rocker sanitary sewer lift station and connection to the Metro wastewater treatment plant.
The report’s figures describe ARPA awards, disbursements and remaining grant balances, not necessarily the total cost of every project or proof that each facility is operating under final conditions. The West Side stormwater entry, for example, shows $495,602 disbursed against a $651,379 award while also showing a zero remaining grant balance.
Moulton project affects Walkerville and upper northwest Butte
The Moulton Water Treatment Plant is north of Walkerville and has a rated capacity of 2.5 million gallons per day. Butte-Silver Bow’s 2025 drinking-water quality report says the plant primarily serves the Walkerville community and the upper northwest side of Butte.
The report says the Moulton plant was shut down in February 2025 for the filter-replacement project. Butte-Silver Bow procurement documents describe the work as replacing the outdated mixed-media filter system with a modern membrane system at the plant’s 2.5-million-gallon-per-day design capacity.
The local report, published in July 2026, does not say that Moulton has returned to service. Instead, it says the plant is expected to return to service in 2026 and that retroactive sampling will be conducted after the restart.
Restart and sampling are the remaining checkpoints
The 2025 report covers monitoring from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025. It states that most normal Moulton sampling did not occur because the plant was shut down. That is a statement about missing routine plant sampling during the shutdown, not a finding that the system violated drinking-water standards.
For customers in the Moulton service area, the practical questions are whether the plant has been placed back into operation, whether commissioning is complete and when the promised retroactive sampling will be finished. As of Aug. 4, 2026, the documents reviewed for this article do not confirm those steps.
Residents should look for a current Butte-Silver Bow Water Utility notice or other official operational update rather than treating the state grant-status label alone as confirmation that the plant has restarted.
Other projects support system reliability
The remaining awards address wastewater treatment handling and effluent management, Basin Creek Dam rehabilitation, Moulton Dam improvements, stormwater routing and the Rocker connection to Metro. Those projects affect the broader Butte-Silver Bow water and wastewater system, but the July 21 state record does not provide project completion dates, final construction acceptance or current facility-performance data.
Confirmed: the state lists all seven Butte-Silver Bow ARPA agreements as completed, with a combined $14,589,817 in listed awards and zero remaining grant balances.
Not confirmed by that record: the date Moulton returned to service, completion of commissioning, completion of retroactive sampling or the plant’s current operating condition.
Butte-Silver Bow’s water-quality report directs utility questions to Jim Keenan at the Big Hole Water Treatment Plant at (406) 723-9429.
Sources
- Montana ARPA Water and Sewer Grant Awards — Grant Status, July 21, 2026
- Butte-Silver Bow Annual Drinking Water Quality Report for 2025
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