Landowners deserve compensation for water
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Editor,
The United States, through its Congress, enacted legislation in 1908 creating the Flathead Irrigation District, representing to the prospective homesteaders that the lands were within the “former” Flathead Reservation.
Homesteaders and settlers bought these lands along with the attached water right, relying on that express understanding.
More than a century thereafter, these successors in title of the pioneers are now faced and threatened with the loss of these water rights and the catastrophic loss of the value of these lands.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes “in the exercise of their sovereign powers” are claiming the absolute right to fix and determine the regulation and use of all waters in Montana west of the Continental Divide by the means of the Flathead Water Compact.
If this claim is adopted, the present owners should demand that the United States, through the Department of Interior, compensate them in full for all damages suffered by this robbery of their water.
Lloyd Ingraham
Ronan
