Bill could put irrigation compact into effect despite protests against it

RONAN — State Legislator Dan Salomon said he will introduce a state bill to adopt the stalled water compact that would determine critical irrigation water rights in the Mission Valley.

Salomon, a dairyman with 600 acres in the Ronan area, said the dissolution of the compact might hurl irrigation rights issues into a long, protracted adjudication that will compel irrigators, the CKST and the BIA to spend millions on legal fees instead of improving the irrigation project and securing fair rights to water.

He must first get past the June 3 primary for state House District 93 where he runs against Republican Frank Delgado and Democrats Susan T. Evans and James Steele, Jr.

“I will introduce that bill in January during the next session,” Salomon said.

Salomon and rancher Susan Lake said most irrigators who make their living farming and ranching support the compact.

Salomon said irrigators face escalating legal fees and costs for maintenance and operation of the aging water project’s complex distribution system and legal costs.

“Those costs are going to bankrupt some of these families,” he said.

If he wins re-election, he is sure he can get his colleagues in Helena to pass the bill.

But some anti-compact irrigators believe they would have to give up all their water rights to the CSKT, then try and prove up their claims with the balance of power tilted toward the tribe.

Flathead Irrigation District Commissioner Bryan Bohn said he wasn’t aware of Salomon’s plan but he wasn’t surprised.

“They’ve been trying to push that thing through ever since they thought that was such a great idea,” Bohn said. “We’ve asked (Salomon) several times to represent the irrigators and he said he would but he turned around last spring and said, ‘I’m not gonna do anything until I know a majority are for this.’ But that wasn’t the case.”

Bohn said there is a lot of confusion and emotion regarding the critical issue, which would affect water rights and the economy in perpetuity.

“There’s people for it and against it and not big majority on either side,” he said. “But a slight majority here are against it and that’s why they had a recall.”

Voters recalled two pro-compact Mission Irrigation District commissioners who were replaced at a special April 14 meeting. (http://www.leaderadvertiser.com/community/irrigation-challenges-district-tries-to-restore-prior-structure/article_02d6ab82-cef9-11e3-9763-001a4bcf887a.html)

“The compact is treading on personal property rights and that’s the most important issue,” said Bohn, who works 2400 acres west of Ronan. “I once supported the compact but the more I learned about it, the worse it got.”

Bohn and other anti-compact irrigators point to specific wording that concerns them in the 38-page Water Use Agreement added to the compact, Bohn said.

“Page 15, Article G, states that irrigators must renounce all claims and relinquish all water rights to the tribe,” Bohn said.

Bohn said losing even some water would ruin most irrigators.

“If I lost half or even 25 percent of my water rights I’d be done,” Bohn said. “There wouldn’t be anything to talk about. We’d have to move some where’s else but my property here wouldn’t be of any value.”