Public discuss water agreement

POLSON – The whirlwind public relations tour for the historic water compact between the CSKT, Montana and the United States rolled into KwaTaqNuk Resort in Polson last Wednesday.

At the start of the hearing, members of both the CSKT and Montana negotiating teams reviewed the key tenets of the proposed settlement before opening the floor to public comment.

As he has done in countless negotiation sessions preceding Wednesday’s meeting, Chris Tweeten, chair of the state’s compact commission, echoed that the proposal is a vastly superior alternative to litigation.

“History has shown that litigation was very difficult, very expensive and very time consuming,” said Tweeten, who has been working on various water compacts with the commission since 1985.

Tweeten and other members of the commission believe that they have reached a settlement that is fair to irrigators and existing water users, while “recognizing the Tribes’ legitimate claims to water” on and off the reservation.

“We think the compact is ready for legislative consideration,” Tweeten concluded. However, he welcomed public comments and questions, adding that, “the time to change (the compact) is before it gets introduced as legislation.”

Eventually, the microphone was turned over to the crowd, who lined up to voice their concerns.

The ensuing question-and-answer session addressed everything from legitimate questions about the document’s finer details to farfetched conspiracy theories alleging an unjust water grab.

Potato farmer Dan Lake, of Lake Seed in Ronan, expressed cautious optimism that the compact’s designated farm turnout allowance (FTA) of 1.4 acre-feet per year might be approaching a level that some irrigators could find manageable, but overall, Lake stressed the need for more measurements to be taken into account before a final FTA is set.

“I asked if they could change their wording a little bit… so that we’ve got a period of time of several years where we can get water meters put on and start to get real water use data and then use that information to set a final FTA,” Lake said following the compact hearing.

“We’re just scared,” Lake said of his farm and his fellow irrigators. “It’s really hard for an irrigator to agree with this whole thing when we don’t know a sustainable number for us.”

Lake thinks that more time is needed to allow farmers to accurately gauge their water requirements.

“That’s the problem right now: None of us have ever been required to actually log water use by crop, by year. We don’t have that data, and we need that kind of data before we can come to the table and negotiate something in good faith.”

Lonnie Hill, a tribal member from Polson, stepped to the microphone at the hearing simply to thank the negotiating parties for their hard work.

“It comes down to trust,” Hill said. “And I trust that you’ve made the right decision.”

In response to Wednesday’s public comment period, CSKT tribal council chairman Joe Durglo issued a letter upholding that the compact would not negatively influence agriculture in the Mission Valley and reminding stakeholders that the 1.4 acre-feet figure was determined through a scientific, independent study.

Durglo’s statement (which can be seen in its entirety on page A2) said that many objections to the proposed FTA are mostly “grounded in fear, not in fact.”

Compact officials left for another public meeting in Hot Springs following the KwaTaqNuk session.

The compact’s “trigger date” of Dec. 19 is rapidly approaching, at which point the commission will vote on whether or not to submit the document to the legislature for approval.