The opportunity to make a splash: Urban pond management in Missoula

Before the city was gridded with pavement and storm drains, Pattee Creek flowed openly through what is now Missoula, Montana. The Salish and Pend d’Oreille peoples lived in close relationship with this watershed, honoring its rhythms and relying on its abundance. Their word for Pattee Canyon—Sloʔté, “two valleys coming together to make one little valley”—reminds us that places carry memory, even when reshaped. Now mostly buried beneath development, Pattee Creek briefly resurfaces at Bancroft Ponds, a 5-acre constructed basin nestled within a neighborhood. Here, water pauses. Birds gather. Children play. Life continues in quiet, often unnoticed ways. This project is a reflection on that persistence—on the layered relationships between water systems, urban development, and community memory. Through personal narrative, historical research, and ecological review, I explore how urban water management at Bancroft Ponds reflects shifting values—moving from mechanistic, utilitarian models toward more adaptive, relational practices. Drawing from eco-feminist theory, Indigenous environmental ethics, and pond ecosystem science, I examine how integrating care-based stewardship with stormwater function, biodiversity support, and hydrologic connectivity can promote both ecological resilience and cultural remembrance. This work contributes to conversations in urban ecology, political ecology, and restoration ethics, offering a vision of stewardship that responds to both human and nonhuman communities with attention, reciprocity, and humility.