Milk River Consumptive Use Updates and Code Management - 2017

In 2017, the IJC proposed new consumptive use values for the Milk River in a report by Brent Paterson. This was necessary to reflect the changes that had taken place in the basin since the first values were created by R.E. Thompson in 1986. This project then compared Thompson’s values to the new Paterson values via a back-test using historical natural flow data from 2009-2016. While there was a relatively minor change between the Canadian values, there was a significant difference between the United States (US) values. Additionally, it’s seen that, despite having similar totals, the Canadian numbers follow a different distribution over time. As a result, the project revealed the differences between the two sets of consumptive use values and made recommendations for next steps to further improve the accuracy and reliability of consumptive use values for the Milk River.