Dear Editor,
The CSKT Water Compact reminds me of Nancy Pelosi’s apt description of Obama Care, “We had to pass the bill to find out what was in it!” Hidden in the 1500 pages of the CSKT Compact are some huge giveaways to the CSKT and the U.S. Government that definitely do NOT benefit the citizens of Montana! Naysayers and doubters to the CSKT Compact were whipped into line by threats of perpetual, expensive and biased litigation!
So what does the CSKT Water Compact give to the CSKT ?
ALL of the water and water rights in the western 2/3 of Montana on a north-south line from Billings west to Idaho!
This includes ALL of Flathead Lake and Hungry Horse Dam and ALL tributaries running into them! Plus All the Missouri and Yellowstone River headwaters! Plus All the groundwater!
This is unprecedented as no other tribe in Montana or the U.S. has ever been given off reservation water rights before! The CSKT tribe is to be given between 28 million and 48 million acrefeet of water if S.3013 presented by Senator Jon Tester is approved by Congress. This is 10-20 times all the water given to all the other Montana tribes combined! Plus Tester’s bill gives the CSKT complete ownership and management of the Flathead Irrigation and Power Project, the largest irrigation project in Montana, of which the CSKT controls less than 8% of the project lands! Plus on approval of the compact water rights are to be held in trust by the U.S. Government through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. What a back-door attempt to give the feds control of Montana Water! Something they have been seeking to do for years! But the BIA has no expertise in water rights or law or management! What a fiasco!
Plus there will be a payment of $2.4 billion from the federal government directly to the CSKT tribal government supplemented by a Montana state payment of $55 million!!
What do the citizens of Montana get? Nothing! As the only thing that they can do is help pay for the taking of their valuable water! They can’t sue as their legal rights are now submissive to Indian claims and tied up in legal mumbo jumbo. This violates the U.S. and Montana constitutions and past legal precedents established over 170 years of government treaties, settlements, regulations and judicial rulings. This is an obvious taking of valuable property without just compensation but is being ignored by certain factions!
There have been several attempts over the years to finally put an end to more and more aboriginal claims by Indian tribes. They have all failed and just opened the gates to more claims and litigation! The CSKT Compact is no different and if approved other tribes will sue for more water too! And then other claims! For land? Minerals? Traditional areas? This list could go on and on!
There is also the question about fishing. The CSKT will control certain traditional waters for tribal fishing with time immemorial priority. What if they decide to expand those fishing rights, limit or stop non-Indian fishing? Listen up sportsmen. This may affect you too!
What about drilling a well on private property? Will that be allowed? What about developing water for livestock or a fish pond? So much for private property rights!
If you own land and/or water rights in western Montana as well as easternMontanaI suggest you go check to see if the CSKT has made a claim on them. They had agreed during negotiations not to make such claims but so much for that!
What effect will this have on property values and sales? What about credit, liens and loans? Lots of questions here? Remember Montana government has no control over water under this compact.
The recently created Peoples Compact addresses a lot of these issues and is a much more fair, legal and equitable solution to many of these problems with water in Montana. I suggest you check it out at:
https://the peoplescompact.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/framework-for-legislation-peoples-cpmpact-mending-fences-act-final1
C.T. Ripley
Huntley, MT
