Water negotiations have failed
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Editor,
If I told you that I owned all the highways in our community and that we would need to negotiate your use of my highways, would you believe me? If I said it enough times to convince your community management team that agreeing with my outrageous claim would be much cheaper, easier and the most reasonable way to proceed, rather than lengthy court battles (litigation) over your right to use my highways, would they give in to my demands?
If I were able to convince your management team and they accepted my basic premise, would you accept their position as valid – on your behalf? Now assuming I was able to convince you of this fallacy in basic ownership, how would you react when my most primary terms were: you sign over all the pink slips for your vehicles in the community to me, and then I’ll grant you specific hours during the day when you may drive my cars (graciously put at your disposal) on my highways; no more, but often less. And you will continue to maintain my cars at your expense, and I will require you to upgrade them to higher, cleaner operating standards that I will decide upon as we go forward; if you don’t, you will lose your driving privileges until such time that you do.
Does that sound familiar to anyone? No? Guess you haven’t been following the CSKT-FJBC Water Use Agreement currently under negotiation; a “private” agreement between two independent organizations – or so says our state reserved water rights compact commission.
So, who’s kidding whom, at this juncture? Are we so far down the road, at this point, that the truth is no longer necessary? Have we been lied to and bullied enough yet that not even a piece of rebar would be sufficient to provide a backbone for our community? Fallacious legalese and rhetoric from our state-appointed negotiating team has worn thin; they’ve failed – after 12 years – to “negotiate” (wink, wink) even a modicum of constitutional and ethical water rights resolution for the Flathead Indian Reservation per the 1908 Winters Doctrine.
Michael Gale
Ronan
