Water rights or rights to use water?
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Editor,
It’s not about “water rights;” it’s about the right to put available water to beneficial use. It’s about understanding the agreed-upon baselines for applying this assumed right to use the water resource that exists on earth. It’s not about general platitudes and opinions; it’s about applying fair, reasonable and equal access to one of life’s two basic ingredients (water and air).
Unfortunately, this endeavor involves humans, with all of our frailties — including greed — and this greed for riches and control is the single most dominating element of the current water compact negotiation in play today. Smoothing over or ignoring this rough spot in our nature does nothing to resolve it. When was the last time you saw anyone fishing anywhere for primal sustenance? Safeway or Super One, maybe, but not in any stream or lake in these parts. You want to be part of the solution, then educate yourself with the details, not the wives’ tales, or the gossip or the general opinions and platitudes being written today by those who prefer to sound educated but provide nothing of substance to assist in the resolution of the situation, perpetuating the “part of the problem” scenario.
Try reading the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, the Montana State Constitution of 1889, the Flathead Reservation Allotment of 1904, the Winters v. United States case of 1908, the Citizenship Act of 1924, the Ciotti Decision, the CSKT v. Clinch decision – in fact, try this site for links to documents and facts, and educate yourself, rather than living by opinions: www.westernmtwaterrights.wordpress.com/water-rights-library/ How hard can that be?
Got water? Need it? Want to keep it? Want to be treated equally and fairly and reasonably? Educate yourself, and then talk to your neighbors; find out for yourself, unless of course, water is not high on your priority list for life. The current negotiation will affect pretty much all of Western Montana, not just the Flathead Reservation. Get informed or be left on the corner with a parched throat and a property value of zero.
Michael Gale
Ronan
