Comment period extended for water agreement

<p>Kerr Dam is just one of the dams that regulates valuable water resources on the Flathead Reservation.</p>

by Bryce Gray
| June 28, 2012 12:00 PM

PABLO — Last Thursday night, community members from throughout the Mission and Flathead Valleys met on the campus of Salish Kootenai College to have their questions addressed regarding the future of their water.

The topic of conversation was the public review draft of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP) agreement reached between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) and the Flathead Joint Board of Control (FJBC) last month.

In the final stages of a marathon negotiation process, on May 31 the two sides released a document that acts to “clearly define how much water is available for the (irrigation) project,” said Gordon Wind, FIIP Project Manager.

One citizen in attendance said that the unease over the settlement is simple- “irrigators don’t want to be de-prioritized.”

“There’s probably more emotion guided by ignorance than there should be,” he added.

That lack of public awareness regarding the details of the agreement is exactly what officials on both sides are seeking to remedy. In an effort to do so, the key players who had drafted the preliminary agreement were all accessible at Thursday’s event, exchanging dialogue with concerned citizens and answering as many questions as they could.

“Changes can and should be made,” acknowledged CSKT attorney Rhonda Swaney, encouraging the public to engage in the discussion.

Electronic copies of the agreement are available online, and officials are hoping that the public will let its voice be heard during the comment period, which has been extended to July 16.

As is true throughout the West, the often-contentious issue of water rights in the region goes back a long time.

The Tribes’ claim to local water is bolstered by the conditions of the Treaty of Hell Gate, signed with the federal government in 1855. The treaty granted the Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreille people exclusive rights to a 1.3 million-acre tract that was intended to serve as a permanent homeland.

In the early twentieth century, however, the United States opened the reservation to homesteaders and tensions over how to share the area’s resources have festered ever since.

Despite the notoriously ugly nature of water disputes, numerous officials from each side insisted that business was conducted in good faith throughout the negotiations.

“It’s fair for both parties,” said consultant Alan Mikkelsen. “This is the best possible outcome to a very complicated situation.”

Echoing that sentiment, Pete Plant, hydrologist and Assistant Project Manager for FIIP, said that, “both sides have come to a balanced agreement.”

With no existing water agreement in place, both sides want to avoid supersaturating the legal system with a long, costly, and embittering litigation process.

“All parties agree that settlement is the best way to go,” said Jon Metropoulous, an attorney for the FJBC.

With irrigation constituting over 90% of consumptive water use on the reservation, the tentative FIIP agreement is only one part- albeit a major one- of ongoing water rights negotiations with the Tribes.

On another front, the Tribes and the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission (MRWRCC) are seeking to clarify how much water the Tribes are entitled to both on and off the reservation.

There has been some discussion of establishing a unitary administrative entity to simplify the complex issue of water management within the Flathead Nation.

Whatever the solution, the clock is ticking to resolve the debate, as an agreement will need to be met by the “sunset date” of July 1, 2013, when the Compact Commission is legally mandated to cease operation.