Letters to the editor - April 11
CSKT finances
I, along with a whole lot of people, am just totally disgusted with our tribal council and the lawyers that work for the tribe (sit on their bums all day and do absolutely not a darn thing).
I have a question for Randall - what did we sell out? I’m guessing our air space.
Why doesn’t our tribe put an end to the chem-trails because we don’t need any more aluminum oxide or barium.
I looked up Salazar and there is absolutely nothing in there said about the money we received from the government.
Also, why did they have to negotiate with the people in secrecy?
It’s like Obama and the law he enacted in Congress, “No more whistle blowing.” That in essence means no one can tell one one another. It also means they can crook and crook and do any darn thing they please.
That’s not right. The tribe should come clean and tell us what they accomplished in secrecy.
Please take heed council staff, and start managing our money the way it should be managed. I told one councilman I wouldn’t mind donating $5,000 if it’s for a good cause.
Someone will stand up and try and lie to us once again. If any of our other $9,000 plus interest comes up missing or spent, someone will pay dearly. I don’t want the council to spend any more of my money.
Wake up and smell the coffee and be more polite to the people who voted you in. Smile once in awhile!
Magic McDougall
Hot Springs
Lies dooming the compact
Don’t be fooled. That’s how a recent letter started. And then the writer went on to try to fool people. For the record: There is nothing in the proposed Flathead Compact or the Flathead Water Use Agreement that takes away any persons water right or right to use irrigation water. Read the Agreement. Read the Compact. Nothing takes anyone’s water away, period.
The ruling by local district court has been totally vacated by the Montana Supreme Court, acting less than 36 hours after the last briefs were filed. The local district court erred in its application of the law. The Montana Supreme Court made that crystal clear. And contrary to assertions by some letter writers, things are not working here. There has not been a legal well drilled since 1996. The Compact protects all these wells, and allows others to be drilled.
Another person claims that the CSKT will be spending tribal money to litigate privately held Walton rights (allottee water rights). Again, don’t be fooled. Litigation means that individuals will be in court trying to protect their individual water use. But for anyone claiming a Walton right, it is most likely that the CSKT will end up administering those rights, as part of the CSKT water right, if litigation is the result of all this misinformation.
Another writer claims the CSKT are claiming the absolute right to fix and determine the regulation and use of all waters in western Montana. Again, totally false. Read the Compact, read the water use agreement. There is nothing in either document to allow this.
Approximately $100 million of work on the FIIP will ensue if the Compact is approved. Wells are protected. Development can take place. But apparently fear, falsehoods and intimidation seem to be the preferred alternative to reasoned discourse for these writers.
And for the record, I have 28 years experience in the water management and water rights arenas. I have served as a district court approved mediator in Montana water right disputes and have been recognized nationally for my work. Avoid litigation, approve the Compact.
Alan Mikkelsen
St. Ignatius
Uncertain future without compact
The Montana Water Compact Commission has successfully negotiated 17 water compacts. Their purpose was to negate the harshness of western water law, save the citizens and the state of Montana litigation fees and protect nontribal water user’s water rights.
The 18th and final compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes is on the verge of failure. The compact if ratified would have done its job. Off the reservation the state and tribe had negotiated rights, including co-ownership of some with the Fish & Game that protected existing users and would lead to no changing of water management off the reservation. On the reservation irrigators would have been given the water they needed, and all wells and water not included in the irrigation project would have been adjudicated through the state process. All parties were protected.
Without the compact the tribe will assert their off reservation rights to in stream flows in Western Montana, and possibly east of the continental divide as well. On the reservation there are over 700 wells in legal limbo with no right, all other wells & water rights will be adjudicated through the state but however they are decreed in the Adjudication, they will be unprotected from the tribes 1855 Hellgate priority date and the their time immemorial Stevens Treaty right.
The irrigation project may end up being a checker board of Walton Rights (rights arising from the purchase of allotment land with an 1855 priority date), homestead land with an early 1900’s priority date and other land with possibly even later dates. Added to that the tribe would assert their in stream flows. Tribal in stream flows would be given the senior water right followed by allotment land which would receive its water second and homestead land would receive its water third. All irrigators will have less water to irrigate with.
All water users with a priority date before 1973 will go to the state water court, all other rights will be determined by the DNRC at the individual water user’s expense.
We are now in uncharted territory headed who knows where.
Susan Lake
Ronan