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Irrigation election candidates weigh-in on issues

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The Flathead Joint Board of control has seven candidates vying for positions in three districts during the upcoming election on May 3.

In the Flathead Irrigation District, Division 2, incumbent Wayne Blevins is on the ballot with Janette Rosman. 

Wayne Blevins, 54, started ranching 34 years ago. He said the Montana-Confederated Salish and Kootenai Water Compact is the most important irrigation related issue at this time. He wants “to keep the historic water deliveries” flowing to the project. He would also like water rights to stay with project lands.

He feels that a two-thirds majority vote wasn’t used to pass the water compact in the Montana legislature, and he would like a current lawsuit to overturn that ruling. He said that other compacts in Montana required a two-thirds vote to pass.

In the next 10 years, Blevins wants to see the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project turned over to the owners that irrigate the land “as per the Flathead Allotment Act” for better project management and an improved irrigation system. He said to accomplish that goal, irrigators need to want to keep the rights that Montana originally developed.

Janette Rosman is running for the Flathead District. She has lived in Montana for most of her life and moved to the Mission Valley in 1994. She has land in both the Flathead and Mission Districts with irrigation water for about 70 acres. She also manages a real estate office. 

“I believe the most important irrigation-related issue is to return control of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project to the irrigators,” she said. “All involved parties have to respectfully work together in collaboration to arrive at workable solutions.”

She also believes the water compact is an important issue. 

“I am not an attorney, but was impressed by the knowledge of the state attorney, Melissa Hornbein, and the fact that current and former Montana governors and the state attorney generals support the compact,” she said. “ I rely on their knowledge of the law. Many years of study and review have been invested, and it is time to work towards its completion.”

In the next 10 years, she wants the FJBC to work for irrigators with less money going towards lawyer’s fees, the FIIP controlled by irrigators, and a developed working relationship with irrigators and the tribe.

“What I will need from the irrigation community is to hear their concerns about irrigation management,” she said. 

She also wants people to think about what they say about irrigation issues: “Before they repeat something, is it true? Does it build up the purpose of what we are doing? What will it accomplish for the farming and ranching communities in our valley in the future?”

In the Flathead Irrigation District, Division 4, Shane Orien and David Lake are on the ballot. Incumbent Orien wasn’t available for comment.

David Lake has lived in the Mission Valley all his life. He graduated from Ronan High School in 1981, and he earned a degree in agronomy from the University of Montana. 

“I am running for the board because I am passionate about agriculture,” he said. “Irrigation water is so vitally important to our future and is key to the economic stability of many families in this valley.”

He says the board faces three important issues.

“I think the board must do everything in their power to control costs, strive to assist the project operator in delivering irrigation water as efficiently as possible, and work to bring the project back under irrigator control.”

In the Mission District, incumbent Jerry Laskody is on the ballot. Ray Swensen is also on the ballot, but chose not to comment at this time.

Laskody is a retired aircraft propulsion engineer and has been a cattle rancher for 40 years. He has been in the Mission District for about 13 years. The water compact is at the top of his list of important issues facing the irrigation project. He said that the compact ignores historic water delivery. 

“It reduces the proposed irrigation diversions by up to 70 percent with attendant reductions in water deliveries,” Laskody said. “The water not diverted for irrigation is to be turned into in stream flows with no scientific basis for increasing these flows from the present level of approximately 280,000 acre-foot per year.” 

He said that the compact also isolates citizens from being able to seek legal recourse for monetary damages in both state and federal courts.

“All this will effectively destroy the 128,000 acre Flathead Irrigation Project and agriculture as we know it in this part of Western Montana,” he said. 

Another problem, he said, with the compact is that it wasn’t passed in congress with a majority two-thirds vote. He said the issue has been brought to members of the executive branch of the state government, the governor and the attorney general without action.

“That left us with litigation as the only way to address the violation of the constitutional requirement for a two-thirds majority vote for passage of legislation that indemnified the State of liability for damages,” he said. 

If the compact is defeated, Laskody wants to see the irrigation project management return to the owners that irrigate the land.

“This will lead to a well-managed and well-maintained irrigation system with improved water efficiency,” he said.

In the Jocko Irrigation District, Jennifer Kaplan is running unopposed. 

 

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