Imagine owning a factory you could only operate for a few months of the year. The factory makes great products, and people want more of them, but you lack the funding or support to run the facility more than part-time.
That’s the situation Montana faces with the new Fort Peck Multi-Species Fish Hatchery. Built in 2006, the hatchery is a high-tech aquaculture facility with enormous capacity to produce fish for stocking in ponds, lakes, and reservoirs across Montana. Unfortunately, FWP has been forced to shut it down for much of each year.
The hatchery sits southeast of Glasgow on the banks of the Missouri River below Fort Peck Dam on 100 acres leased from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The federal agency designed and built the facility, then transferred ownership to Montana. In 1999, the Montana Legislature authorized the sale of a $5 warmwater stamp to fund the yet-to-be-built hatchery’s operations.
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