Letters to the editor
Wisconsin election
I just returned from two weeks in Wisconsin where I was visiting family and attending alumni functions at Beloit College, my alma mater, class of 1953. My first day of travel to Wisconsin was Tuesday, June 5, the primary election day.
The hugely big news in Wisconsin, of course, was the recall vote for that states governor, Scott Walker, prompted by the tremendous outcry and organized recall movement from the various unions.
The papers were fill with the news. Charles Krauthammer, columnist for the Washington Post wrote a syndicated column, which appeared in local papers entitled: “What it means. History was made against unions in Wisconsin’s vote.”
In the article he wrote: “Walker was able to make the case that years of corrupt union-politician back-scratching has been bankrupting the state.”
This got me to thinking. Yes, this is so true of much of historic union power, greed, and corruption. So, how about this observation on Krauthammer’s statement, just changing very few words: “We the people are able to make the case that years of corrupt politician special interest back-scratching has been bankrupting our nation.”
Are we up to it? It will not happen from the top down, regardless of who is elected president this November. It must be a grass roots movement, just like the Wisconsin union efforts, from the ground up.
Can’t you just imagine the outcry and battles from lobby’s and those funding-for-favors with millions to finance often greedy and selfish political interests?
And something additional to think about with a grass roots movement: Too often, as the movement progresses, it begins to stray from accurately representing what was in the hearts and minds of those starting the movement.
Greed, fear, and lack of integrity is no respecter of even an initially well-intentioned movement.
Bob McClellan
Polson
Don’t cap individuals’ water
While we are glad to see the adjudication process for irrigation water rights in the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP, also “the Project”) moving forward we have at least one issue with the draft agreement (Reference) between the Flathead Joint Board of Control (FJBC) and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) that concerns us; specifically, the FTA (Farm Turnout Allowance) cap of 1.4 acre ft per acre limit on water delivery.
We are disappointed that the water rights process has come this far and this is the first that we have officially heard of the proposed “water cap.”
In any negotiation there is “give and take” but each party also has some “must have’s” that are hard points that must be considered in the process. We are extremely disappointed that there were no sessions that we were made aware of, for the irrigators to weigh in with the FJBC on what the irrigators’ hard points might be. This compact process is a “one time only deal” and it’s important to get it right. Why weren’t the irrigators’ input consulted in the process?
There would have been as many different opinions about what was important as there are individual irrigators but in gathering this information several key themes would have been obvious that would represent the majority of the irrigators and this input would have led to a proposal that the majority of irrigators could get behind.
We know of no irrigators with double duty water who were consulted by the FJBC. We would ask the Board where the authorization to eliminate the duty system of water rights came from?
It is our understanding that the premise for the duty system was that certain soils could more beneficially use additional water and thus the double duty rating. This is a logical and scientific reason for allocating additional water. What has changed to invalidate this? When we purchased our ground, we were told by the Project office that we had “double duty water” and we purchased our property on that basis, paying a premium for this irrigation benefit.
This provided us the promise of water delivery in favorable years of as much as twice the allocated water from the Project and we considered this an “implied individual water right” that would be honored when the adjudication process was complete.
The proposed agreement limits water delivery to no more than 1.4 acre ft per acre so that anytime there is an water allocation of greater than 8.4 acre inches per acre, “double duty” ground would be limited to the 1.4 acre ft per acre cap. This is a “take away” from our viewpoint and a reallocation of water under these conditions. Where is that water going to go under those conditions?
As we understand water rights, they are rights attached to property and owned by the property owner. The Project is a distributor of the water per the water right attached to the property and the Project collects fees for operation and maintenance of the Irrigation District. Since water rights in the FIIP have not been adjudicated, the FJBC is representing the individual irrigators in negotiating water rights with CSKT.
It is our position that there should be a preservation of the “implied individual water rights” that each of the present irrigators have on record with the Project. To do otherwise, in our opinion, is not in the best interest of the individual irrigator and is not fair! Land with “double duty water” is inherently worth more than land with “single duty water” so this proposal results in a devaluation of our property.
Further we believe this cap acts as a disincentive for us and other irrigators to support project improvements that will increase the system capacity since we will not be able to utilize any improvements in system capacity due to the cap.
We believe we have always been strong supporters of the CSKT, FIIP, and the FJBC but we are disappointed in this erosion of our implied water right as proposed in the Reference. The elimination of our double duty water and the imposition of a 1.4 acre ft per acre cap do not allow us to support the reference agreement as written.
We strongly urge you to utilize the duty system of water allocations on record and used for Project operation (for probably over a hundred years) in the water agreement with the CSKT. It is based on a logical and scientific system of soil classification and should be retained. Utilization of the duty system need not change the total water use of the Project and will be a more equitable way to distribute irrigation water within the Project.
Rather than individual caps, it would be more fair to cap the entire irrigation system usage and distribute water based on the duty system. It will maintain our property values and also incentivize all irrigators to support improvements to the FIIP since they will all benefit proportionately from system improvements.
Sincerely,
Jerry & Christine Laskody
St. Ignatius