Three members of downtown Billings’ Business Improvement District (BID) delivered a sixty-five-gallon water trailer to ZooMontana on Monday. According to the press release, the BID team custom-built the water trailer for the Downtown Billings Alliance (DBA) and BID to give to the zoo as a donation. 

The BID team has built two other water trailers for the city. Joe Stout, the BID Operations Director, says it took around three months to build the water trailer since they had to wait for the ordered parts to arrive. James Chandler is a BID Team member and Associate Development Director for DBA. He adds that they learned a lot while building the three trailers and feels the one they delivered to the zoo is the best one yet. 

“The trailer will allow us to water all of the nooks and crannies here at Zoo Montana,” said ZooMontana’s Animal Curator, Travis Goebel. “ We have a lot of potted plants and trees, including the new one we just planted, that will be kept healthier year round with the help of this trailer.” 

During a visit to ZooMontana, DBA and BID members learned that only some exhibits have underground irrigation. The parts of ZooMontana that do not have underground irrigation must be manually watered. During the summer, the DIB team uses these water trailers to water all 185 flower baskets downtown in BID’s eight-mile clean boundary. Watering these flowers takes roughly 150 gallons of water daily. 

“Our team jumped at the opportunity to give Zoo Montana one of our favorite downtown tools to help them care for their awesome facility,” said Katy Easton, CEO of the Downtown Billings Alliance. 

Both ZooMontana and the DBA are local non-profits and members of the Billings Cultural Partners, consisting of 32 leaders. Each leader is a part of history, education, art, and natural science organizations. Their mission is to strengthen and enhance the quality of life in Billings through collaboration and contribution.