Secret water report released to public support, scrutiny
Megan Strickland
Flathead Joint Board of Control Commissioners Paul Guenzler and Trent Coleman listen to Chairman Jerry Laskody explain the funding efforts for an irrigation study
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ST. IGNATIUS – The Flathead Joint Board of Control has released a privately-commissioned study that predicts irrigators will receive substantially less water under the proposed Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Water Compact than is necessary to sustain agriculture for farms on the project, but generating as much buzz as the study itself is the manner in which it came into existence.
The report was quietly commissioned by four commissioners who opposed the compact that would settle water rights for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and spell out how much water is available to the irrigation project. The compact is currently under consideration in the Montana Legislature with a June 30, 2015 deadline looming for the Tribes to file their claims in the state’s water court if the compact doesn’t pass.
The commissioners have tried for nearly two years to get information about historic irrigation water use from the Bureau of Indian Affairs through a Freedom of Information Act request to no avail. Commissioners hope to use the data to verify whether or not the amount of water available in the compact is equal to historic use.
“We’ve been stonewalled,” Chairman Jerry Laskody said.
Frustrated with the efforts, the four commissioners turned to water expert Barry Dutton to write a report on historic use on the irrigation project based on four years of study on the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“He recorded how much water was actually delivered to the project,” Commissioner Tim Orr said.
Orr said the report states that the project will receive half of the water under the compact as it did in the years Dutton collected data.
The commissioners who commissioned the report said they thought it was critical to get the data they needed, and that secrecy was important.
“We did it the way we did it, because we felt it was imperative for us to keep this under wraps until we could get the report and distribute it,” Laskody said. “We didn’t want anybody to know what we were doing. We basically guaranteed funding of this with our own personal money. The report is out now. Copies of it are here if anybody wants them, and we would ask the board if they want to step up and pay the tab for this. It’s very useful information for our work as we enter the legislative session.”
In an interview after the meeting, Laskody said that the board’s attorneys had suggested a non-quorum of the board working together to avoid violating public information laws, because the board was concerned about leaks from executive session. Members of the board are on both sides of the compact, and either side could leak privileged information, according to Laskody.
He said he didn’t believe the board violated any public information laws in asking the board to pay $6,625 for the study.
“We took the risk,” Laskody said. “The board could have said no.”
But by the time of the vote on March 13, six of the commissioners had already agreed to chip in their personal funds to pay for the study – exactly half of the current number of members on the board. One seat is currently vacant on the 13-person entity.
And instead of coming forward with a request to pay the bill for the study as a separate agenda item, as has been the case with hiring other experts in the past, paying for the study came into discussion only after a commissioner questioned its position on the organization’s monthly bill list.
“I don’t remember ever approving that,” Commissioner Trent Coleman said as he looked over the warrants.
After the meeting, Commissioner Paul Guenzler said he didn’t have anything against the data contained in the study, but that he was unhappy with how it was commissioned.
“I think it was really unethical the way they went about that as far as hiring the guy and doing it and turning around and putting it in the warrants,” Guenzler said. “It’s nothing against the report. It’s all against the way they went about it. They obviously showed us that’s how they are doing things. They didn’t address it even close to properly.”
Guenzler said the incident reflected deeper problems within the organization.
“It shows we can’t trust our board,” Guenzler said. “We aren’t working united.”
The board’s legal counsel said the report could play a pivotal role in the compact’s fate in the legislature and in pending litigation matters that could determine ownership of the project.
“From our standpoint, this report has better information in it for purposes of lobbying efforts,” attorney Bruce Fredrickson said. “It is a terrific piece of work … I’m very pleased you guys went ahead and did that.”
Lobbyists are predicting the Montana House of Representatives will take up the compact bill, SB 262, in April.
