Letters to the editor - Jan. 23

Salvation Army Kettle Drive an Outstanding Success

From the Friday after Thanksgiving to the day before Christmas, volunteers braved the cold and sometimes inclement weather, standing in the lobbies of Ronan Harvest Foods, Pablo Quality Foods, Super One Foods, and Walmart to ring the bell for the Salvation Army Kettle Drive.  Proceeds from the Kettle Drive went to: the Helping Hands Fund voucher program; Safe Harbor for lodging; and to the Polson and Ronan Police Departments, who write vouchers when the Helping Hands Fund office is closed. 90 percent of the funds raised stay in Lake County to help provide food, shelter, gas, utilities, medications, bus tickets, lodging, and meals to the needy. In addition, HHF also helps individuals with more long-term resources.

This proved to be the most successful bell ringing season yet. The 2013 Kettle Drive produced a total of  $15,174.72.Our goal was $15,000. Polson Community Church was again the winner of the Polson Ministerial Association’s coveted “Bell Trophy” raising $1545.40. It should also be noted that Safe Harbor collected $729.29 at Ronan Harvest Foods, the most money raised in the South Mission Valley. Sunburst Mental Health was the winner in Polson, collecting $626.71. The First Presbyterian Church Quartet sang for fours hours, filling one and a half kettles.

Thank you to all those who so generously contributed their time to ring the bell and to the Mission Valley Community for your generosity in helping to fill the Kettles! They were so full some days that the teller at the bank had to bring her ironing board and iron in to flatten out the bills before they could be counted…a good problem!

Linda Greenwood

Polson

Response to Erb

Dick Erb’s Jan. 16 letter called Talkin’ Water incorrectly stated that “letters and public comments” were the only source of the statement that “individual state based water rights are being transferred to the CSKT,” as if the letters and public comments are somehow incorrect.  

However, if Mr. Erb would read the Compact, he would find this language originates in the Compact itself, not in letters or public comments. Article III, Section 3 of the Irrigator Water Use Agreement states:

“This Agreement and the Compact specify the terms under which the United States and the Flathead Joint Board of Control (FJBC) agree to withdraw and cease prosecution and defense of all claims to water arising under federal or state law, held in their names and filed in the Montana General Stream Adjudication, and whatever permits and other rights to the use of water recognized under State law that are held in their names for use on the lands served by the Flathead Irrigation Project.”

The Agreement goes on to transfer those water rights to the CSKT, and that is what the people are correctly talking about in “letters and public comments.”

What law or ethical principle allows anyone to give up their neighbor’s water rights to another government?

Irrigator water rights exist under state law, and the evidence consists of the years of historic, beneficial use, the files of these water rights claims in courthouses across the region, and records of these rights in the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation files.  The Montana Water Court simply cannot award those rights to another government without breaking the law, unless the irrigators voluntarily give up their water rights.

And who in their right mind would do that?

David Passieri

Charlo

Fix the Compact, Avoid Litigation

There are so many problems with the proposed CSKT Compact that passing it as is will most certainly invite even more lawyers to town for endless litigation.

The easy way to avoid litigation is to take the time to fix the Compact.  This can be done by conducting the environmental, economic, and regulatory studies that can identify ways to eliminate or minimize the potential damage the proposed Compact will cause to western Montana.  Such studies can be done under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA).

Former Chief Justice of the Water Court, Judge Loble, stated so in a talk given in Ronan in Nov. 2013.  Rather than stick to ideology, he said, take the time to examine and adjust the Compact to fix the problems that have surfaced.

The purpose of the MEPA is “to declare a state policy that will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between humans and their environment, to protect the right to use and enjoy private property free of undue government regulation, to promote efforts that will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of humans.”

MEPA was “purposeful in establishing a process whereby Montana can anticipate and prevent unexamined, unintended, and unwanted consequences rather than continuing to stumble into circumstances or cumulative crises that the state can only react to and mitigate.”

Simply expressed, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Ed Wehrheim

Moiese