The water compact name game

Editor,

            Has anyone else been noticing the blitzkrieg onslaught by all the pseudo-grassroots groups that have appeared out of nowhere who claim to embrace, love and accept the last of the “negotiated” Federal Reserved Water Rights packages?  Where have all of these groups been hiding?

            Has anyone else noticed that the last of the 18 Federal Reserved Water Rights settlements in Montana has morphed from the “CSKT Compact” to the MONTANA COMPACT???  The infamous “Name Game”: Global Warming to Climate Change, Irrigator Stipulation Agreement to Water Use Agreement to Adaptive Management, Flathead Irrigation and Power Project to Flathead Indian Irrigation Project and the hits just keep on coming.

            The battle for our very existence in Western Montana is taking an ugly turn for the worse, through cutesy threats, misinformation and emotional innuendo’s: Expensive Litigation Forever, Clogged courts till the cows come home, certainty vs. uncertainty, ad naseum.  What happened to the facts?  Don’t we deal in facts anymore?

            Where’s anything that supports this massive onslaught of misinformation?  From whence comes the justification to give THIS Reserved Water Right for ~5,000 “indigenous people”, control over ALL the water in Western Montana…held in Trust by the Federal Government?

Grassroot organizations that didn’t exist 6 months ago with a membership of WHO?  Knowledgeable, experienced, staunch supporters of a mislabeled Compact?  Not.  There is no such thing as a Montana Water Compact.  Really?  Yes, really.  Slight of hand is now slight of word; and you trust them?  Why?  Based on what?  Ask them the obvious questions and see how they answer – with facts or emotional dodge ball?!

Michael Gale

Ronan