On and off-reservation interests pull together to support compact
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POLSON – A grassroots group consisting of more than 230 farmers and ranchers kicked off a media campaign in support of the proposed Confederated Salish and Kootenai Water Compact last week, just as officials wrapped up negotiations of the document.
Members of the freshly formed Farmers and Ranchers for Montana, also known as FARM, say passage of the compact is critical to protecting the state’s farming and ranching business.
“I think it is pretty easy to understand the importance of water use not just to agriculture, but to all of Montana,” said Walt Sales, a Gallatin Valley farmer and co-chair of the group. “As an irrigator I spend quite a bit of time moving that water on the ground, but it has become a necessity to become more involved in water issues, and this water compact is one of them. Definitely, I feel getting passed will protect use of that water, which is becoming paramount.”
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Water Compact is different from other tribal water compacts passed by the state in that the tribes were granted water rights through a treaty executed by Washington Territory Governor Issac Stevens. Stevens treaties, unlike other treaties with Montana tribes, gave the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes off-reservation water rights.
In the compact settlement, the tribes have agreed to limit those claims to west of the continental divide. Off-reservation claims were limited to 14 streams and rivers, most of which are shared with the state, or would only go into place in the unlikely event of dam removal.
The compact has one final chance to be ratified by the Montana Legislature ahead of a June 30, 2015 deadline that will force the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to file their water claims in the Montana Water Court if the document isn’t ratified. If the compact is not ratified, the Tribes have said they will file as many as 10,000 claims on streams as far east as Billings.
That could create a problem for water users in basins that have already wrapped up adjudication through the Montana Water Court.
“Moving into the future I do have the next generation, my son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren are on the place,” Sales said. “I believe one of the main issues they will be facing in the future is the use of this water. I support the passage of this and believe we need this as a starting point and as a guide for the future.”
Flathead businessman and former legislator Scott Reichner voted against the compact in 2013, but has since changed his opinion.
“It hadn’t quite finished baking yet,” Reichner said. “I think in the interim we’ve had some great leadership from the attorney general’s office to bring the tribes closer to what the citizens of Flathead and the neighboring communities were interested in agreeing to.”
Reichner had 100 percent ratings from groups that graded legislators on private property rights during his time as a legislator. He said he believes the compact protects those rights.
“A compact needs to be done, there’s no question about it, for the property rights of those people in Flathead County,” Reichner said.
Reichner said that while some of the arguments made against the compact last session were substantive, many were not.
“I think presentation got the best part of it,” Reichner said. “You know how politics are, there’s misinformation, people don’t really understand the issue, then it just sort of snowballed from there.”
Lawrence Grosfield, a Big Timber rancher, former state legislator and former member of the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission, said his experience as a commission member makes him believe that the process of forming the compact has been thorough.
“I’m convinced it is a fair compact and it treats people from the tribe, on the reservation, as well as off the reservation, fairly,” Grosfield said.
The legislative session kicks off Jan. 5.
