Water service has been restored to nearly all buildings at Montana State Prison after a two-week outage that left inmates without working showers, toilets and sinks, officials said Friday.
As of Friday afternoon, water service was back online in all buildings and housing units except High Side 2, where crews continue working, according to the Montana Department of Corrections. Officials said they remain optimistic that full restoration will be completed soon.
The prison lost water in its secure facility compound on Oct. 10 after multiple leaks were discovered in the system. The outage affected basic sanitation facilities for inmates and staff.
In response, the department and other agencies immediately deployed emergency resources, including water bottles, portable toilets, portable showers, dry shower kits and hand washing stations to maintain basic services during the outage.
On Oct. 15, the department began developing plans to install new, permanent water infrastructure to serve the prison. The project is funded by $21 million allocated in House Bill 5 by the 2025 Montana Legislature. The new infrastructure will serve both existing structures and new units currently under construction at the facility.
Earlier this week, corrections officials met with Sletten Construction, DLR and the Montana Department of Administration's Architecture and Engineering team to establish a construction timeline. Another meeting is scheduled for next week.
As water service stabilizes, the department will begin removing temporary assets like portable toilets from the facility.
The prison remains under a boil water advisory from the Department of Environmental Quality and will continue testing until the water is certified safe for consumption. Inmates continue to have access to bottled water during the advisory period.
Watch: Montana State Prison begins complete water system overhaul after failures (Oct. 17, 2025)
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