hydropower and fish and wildlife are primarily nonconsumptive 

 uses, the water can be re-used to satisfy appropriations 

 downstream and/or nonconsumptive appropriations upstream. By 

 definition, consumptive water rights include appropriations 

 of water withdrawn from the stream or ground water profile 

 and used generally outside an aquifer or stream channel. 

 Consumptive uses usually affect the flow of the river by 

 causing a certain depletion. Water that does return to the 

 stream may not do so in a timely and predictable manner. 



The information in Table 3-2 suggests that the amount of 

 water claimed would exceed by several times the normal flow 

 or volume of the Clark Fork. The number of claimed irrigated 

 acres exceeds by about four times the 400,000 acres refer- 

 enced in Chapter 2. These statistics indicate that con- 

 siderable overestimating of water use occurred during the 

 claim filing as part of the general adjudication of the Clark 

 Fork. One reason that the number of acres associated with 

 adjudication claims is greater than the DNRC's estimate of 

 actual acreage in use is that the same irrigated acreage has 

 been claimed under more than one water right. 



Hydropower 



There are several large hydropower projects in the Clark 

 Fork Basin. These include the Bureau of Reclamation's Hungry 

 Horse Dam on the South Fork Flathead River; the Montana Power 

 Company's Kerr Dam on Flathead Lake and Thompson Falls Dam on 

 the lower Clark Fork; and Washington Water Power Company's 

 Noxon Rapids and Cabinet Gorge dams on the lower Clark Fork. 

 The hydropower claims for the five largest Montana facilities 

 are: 



Claimant River Flow 



Bureau of Reclamation South Fork 55,156 cfs 

 (Hungry Horse) Flathead 



Washington Water Power Co. Lower Clark Fork 35,000 cfs 

 (Noxon Rapids) 



Montana Power Company Lower Flathead 14,540 cfs 

 (Kerr) 



Montana Power Company Lower Clark Fork 11,120 cfs 

 (Thompson Falls) 



Montana Power Company Middle Clark Fork 2,000 cfs 

 (Milltown) 



3-3 



