Irrigation commissioners say they want to focus on local control of project
Megan Strickland
Irrigation commissioner Shane Orien says his irrigators are most concerned about regaining local control of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project.
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ST. IGNATIUS – After hearing complaints from Flathead Indian Irrigation Project irrigators about delivery problems and concerns about possible future increases in operations and maintenance assessment, Flathead Joint Board of Control irrigation commissioners said May 13 that one of their main objectives is to regain local control of the project.
Control of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project has fallen to the Bureau of Indian Affairs since last irrigation season, when a Cooperative Management Entity consisting of equal representation of non-tribal and tribal irrigation interests dissolved after three years of operation. The dissolution resulted when the Flathead Joint Board of Control fell apart in a bout of political infighting. The board later re-formed and a federal lawsuit was filed to ask that the project be returned to local control in 2014.
“There are motions pending before Judge Christensen,” attorney Kristen Omvig told the board. “We have not had a ruling and I can’t really tell you when to expect that.”
Irrigation Commissioner Shane Orien asked if there was any way to speed up the process for the lawsuit.
“I want the heat turned up,” Orien said. “That is the number one thing I hear from my irrigators is ‘I want control of this project.’ They are sick and tired of watching water flow down the creeks. They are tired of being flooded out. They want somebody to manage this project efficiently.”
Omvig said the board’s legal team is exploring options to get more action in the lawsuit. Irrigators told the board that the current irrigation season that began April 15 has gotten off to a rocky start with a shortage of ditch riders, and irrigators are not happy to hear about a pending potential $7 per acre increase in operation and maintenance fees in 2016. Bureau of Indian Affairs officials let the public know about the potential fee increase, from the current $26 per acre rate, at a meeting in the first week of May. The officials said the increase in fees was long overdue to rehabilitate the aging system, which has an estimated $160 million in deferred maintenance needed to be fully operational.
“I want to know where the members stand on that $7 increase and what the h—- you are going to do to get it stopped,” irrigator and former project employee Wade Shepard said. “That’s unprecedented, and I worked there thirty years and I’ve never seen the O&M rates $7 yet. The BIA for twenty-six and a half years were never really excited about rehabbing the irrigation project. Why now?”
Irrigation Commissioner Tim Orr called the $7 increase “a threat.”
“I think it is the BIA pushing against us to try and scare the folks,” Orr said. “We are going to be involved in that budget process. We are not going to give them $7 per acre is what I am saying. That’s a threat. I’m not going to call it an idle threat, but we are going to have a budget and see what they are doing with that $7 per acre before we assess it on the folks.”
Commissioners said they still want to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to try and keep operation of the project moving as efficiently as possible, despite the legal battle underway between the groups.
Commissioner Dick Erb specifically asked that the project manager give the board some kind of draft management plan for how to deal with water shortages, which are anticipated if the summer forecast for dry weather and limited melting snowpack holds.
“I think the ditch riders are looking for some kind of guidance for dealing with this,” Erb said.
