Water rights talks continue

While snow fell outside, Tribal Council Chairman James Steele Jr. likened the continuing water rights negotiations to watching grass grow: It’s a necessary but excruciatingly slow process where progress is hard to measure.

The December edition of the monthly meetings between state officials and  the Confederated and Salish Kootenai Tribe representatives updated the need to wait a little longer.

The unitary management plan proposal revisions, which would be a groundbreaking one-of-a-kind joint water management ordinance between federal and state governments and CSKT was first presented  in July and is still being examined by Tribal representatives. A follow-up draft will be released to the public in the “near future,” a CSKT lawyer Rhonda Swaney said at the meeting.

The legal and logistical caveats of the plan complicates and slows the negotiation process, state Compact Commission head Chris Tweeten said.

“We’re basically building this as we go along,” he said. “The concepts need to be clearly expressed in a manner that is acceptable to both sides.”

On the technical side of the issue, level I and level II hydrographs distinction discussions carried over from the November meeting.

Flow volumes, characterizations and classifications are still being researched and set at the first level. Those distinctions are necessary to help define level II hydrographs.

The surveying process of the level 1 overall surface stream flows, lead to what will be defined as level II potential flows for the same bodies of water, CSKT Natural Resources Department head Clayton Matt explained in a November interview.

This month’s meeting reiterated the complicated and convoluted process of setting distinctions is slow, but necessary for clarifications to balance and project current and future water use projections.

As the July 2009 deadline for the expiration of the current water rights compact commission approaches, the slow processes of hydrographs and unitary management plans led to the discussion at the meeting of a possible legislative bill extending the compact commission. There was talk at the meeting as to if there is a possibility of a governor-supported extension bill.

“We can’t really elaborate now (on an extension) because we have not heard any of the details from the governor on his position and request,” Swaney said through an e-mail from Tribal spokesman Rob McDonald this week.

The e-mail also noted that the compact extension bill “as drafted will be heard by the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 7.”

The Tribal Council has not yet weighed in on the developments on that meeting last week, the e-mail said.