Sister Mary Jo McDonald: 'The Fighting Nun' reflects on a life battling for Butte's underdogs

Lawyer Jim Goetz, an impressive Montanan in his own right, deeply admires Sister Mary Jo McDonald, a woman the champion of stream access considers a friend.

“She is a force of nature,” Goetz said. “It was wonderful working with her. She was definitely the ringleader.”

The two teamed up in 1990 for an especially memorable legal battle and won. The class-action lawsuit pitted Butte citizens weary of paying for foul water against defendants Butte Water Co. and Dennis Washington.

“It was a good lawsuit,” Goetz said. “It was not met with unanimous support in Butte.”

Yet McDonald held firm, he said, describing her as “sui generis.”

“She’s unique,” he said.

The lawsuit settled in December 1996 in District Court in Butte. Among other things, Butte-Silver Bow County won the rights to water from the Silver Lake Water System, and the lawsuit garnered millions of dollars to repair Butte’s antiquated municipal water distribution system.

The ruling by District Court Judge Thomas Olson observed that the case “has been vigorously contested up to the eve of trial” and noted McDonald “has been active throughout this long litigation and has exercised independent judgment in matters concerning the case.”

Goetz’s work defending Montana’s landscapes and streams has earned him numerous awards and induction into the Montana Outdoor Hall of Fame. He said Butte residents are indebted to McDonald for her informed and committed role as an environmental watchdog.

“But I don’t think she’s in it to get gratitude,” Goetz said. “She’s in it for the right reasons.”

And is still in it at age 84.

McDonald, who grew up in Anaconda and later served as a nun in Butte, lives now in the Sisters of Charity Mother House in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Yet she flew in for the Jan. 27 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency meeting at Montana Tech that focused on the action level guiding lead cleanup in Butte in residential soils and interior dust.

McDonald was less than impressed by the meeting.

“What a sham,” she said. “What a sham.”

She cited the EPA’s proposal in October 2024 to lower the lead action level in residential soils and interior dust from the long controversial 1,200 parts per million to 175 ppm — an announcement celebrated by many in Butte but also met with skepticism by those sure it would never stand.

McDonald recalled that EPA asked for public comment on that action level standard with a deadline of Valentine’s Day 2025. The EPA promised it was working on a “responsiveness summary” to those comments, but the agency never followed through.

Instead, EPA announced in October 2025 that a new national lead directive would inform the action level chosen for Butte-Silver Bow County.

During the Jan. 27 meeting, Cyrus Western, the EPA’s Denver-based regional administrator, said the agency will announce a new action level in a few months. He promised it would be significantly lower than the 1,200 ppm standard, which he described as not acceptable

A week later, McDonald shook her head.

“So, now they’re going to study it again and they’ll release the lead level on June 1,” she said. “In the meantime, there will be a 30-day comment period when people will have to make remarks again.”

McDonald said she believes Atlantic Richfield, a subsidiary of bp America, has too much sway with the EPA and officials in Butte-Silver Bow County.

“How many of those people are going to say anything negative?” she said. “They can’t tell us the truth.”

McDonald's visit also stemmed from concerns about what she has described as a lack of transparency regarding the massive Sabey Data Corp. data center being considered for a site in the Montana Connections Business Park west of Butte.

McDonald has recalled that she was an inquisitive child who liked to wander. Her mother even fastened a harness to keep her child out of harm’s way.

The harness is long gone but the inquisitiveness remains. McDonald’s many admirers say she peers beneath the surface of public platitudes in a quest for truth.

She said her order, the Sisters of Charity, has a history of activism.

Goetz said her spirited watchdog work made him wonder at times.

“I was always interested in how much she could do without getting the bosses upset,” he said.

Evan Barrett, Mick Ringsak and McDonald were founders in 2024 of Butte Watchdogs for Social & Environmental Justice — “created to make sure the people of Butte were not cheated out of the cleanup they deserve, either by British Petroleum or the complicity of local, state or federal government.”

The logo for the take-no-prisoners group features a pugnacious nun wearing boxing gloves.

Barrett shared some thoughts about his fellow watchdog.

“Sister Mary Jo is the North Star for the people of Butte, always fighting for what's right, ethical and moral for the people,” he said. “In a community that has a history of massive exploitation, she is always there to champion causes that benefit folks on every street corner of the Mining City.

“Corporate profits and losses don't concern her,” Barrett added. “The health and safety of everyday citizens drives her forward in her mission to make Butte a better place for all.”

He referenced “The Flying Nun,” a TV sitcom airing from 1967 to 1970 that starred Sally Field as a nun who could fly.

“Many remember ‘The Flying Nun’ from early TV days,” Barrett said. “Butte is blessed with having a Fighting Nun in Sister Mary Jo, who wakes up every day dedicated to making life better for all of us.  I am proud to call her a friend and share missions of betterment with her.”

Erik Nylund first met McDonald nearly 20 years ago when he worked as a regional representative for then-U.S. Sen. Jon Tester.

“As I learned about her work and passion for people and kids in particular, she became an invaluable resource in my job to help people struggling or falling through the cracks,” Nylund said.

He said he learned McDonald was sometimes attacked by government officials for her environmental advocacy.

“She takes that sort of thing in stride, unlike people who face losing their jobs, frequently saying, ‘What are they going to do to a nun?’” Nylund recalled. “I appreciate heroes like Sister Mary Jo who will speak up and do the right thing when it’s uncomfortable, and the many people who get attacked need a person like her to stand up for them. And she always does.

“The thing I someday really hope to learn from Sister Mary Jo is her ability to inspire people to step up to do the right thing,” he said.

Mary Josephine McDonald was born in Butte but grew up in Anaconda. She said her childhood was fun, playing kick-the-can in the street, baseball and softball.

Her father, Leo McDonald, was an electrician and once served as the president of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Her mother, Josephine Bechtold, worked as a school teacher after the couple’s three children got older and a priest showed up to recruit her.

Mary Josephine attended St. Paul’s School and then Anaconda Central High School. She planned to attend Montana State University but a priest at Central, Father McCoy, strenuously objected. After Mary Josephine talked to her parents and realized St. Mary College in Leavenworth, Kansas, would offer scholarship money, Mary Josephine eventually chose St. Mary.

Home for a Christmas vacation, she told her parents she planned to join the Sisters of Charity in Leavenworth.

During an August 2020 interview with The Verdigris Project, an oral history endeavor in Butte, McDonald talked about the decision to join the Sisters of Charity, entering in 1960, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

“I think meeting the Sisters that were there at the college, and how they viewed life and how they interacted with us, and how they were involved outside the college in the Leavenworth community and helping individuals with needs, and how they really paid attention to their students,” she said “I think it was how they lived their life and the example they set.”

For a time, McDonald wore a traditional habit, but rules about dress became more liberal.

As a young nun she was moved often — from Sheridan, Wyoming, to Grand Junction, Colorado, to destinations that ultimately included Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City and Topeka.

In 1980, she happily arrived in Butte, where she taught at Butte Central Junior High and then served in pastoral ministry at the St. Ann Catholic Church in Butte.

Ten years later, after a prayer group at St. Ann focused on the hardships associated with the dysfunctional water system in Butte, McDonald mused aloud about a possible class-action lawsuit. A woman suggested she call Goetz.

Later, McDonald, along with fellow Superfund watchdogs Fritz Daily and Ron Davis, as the Silver Bow Headquarters Coalition, sued the state of Montana to change the name of the Metro Storm Drain to Silver Bow Creek, thereby requiring the state to treat the channel as a state waterway and candidate for remediation.

In August 2015, District Court Judge Brad Newman granted summary judgment for the coalition.

Daily, one of the McDonald’s fellow environmental watchdogs, died Jan. 27.

“I lost a friend, a very good friend,” she said.

Daily was 80 years old. McDonald turns 85 in March.

She does not anticipate abandoning the path blazed by the Sisters of Charity.

“We vowed to take care of people,” McDonald said. “That was our job. Will I keep doing it until my dying breath? I hope so.”

She said she is grateful for the life she has been led to live.

“God always has a plan for every one of us.”