Tribes using compact to gain ownership
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Editor,
As a life-long resident and owner of substantial property of and on what is known as the Flathead Indian Reservation, I am greatly disturbed about my domicile and my property rights here on what the United States Congress in 1908 described as the “former” Flathead Indian Reservation.
It is especially alarming when I read the statement of the Tribal Council as set forth in a formal statement adopted by it in May of 1996, which was described by the council as its “Mission and Vision,” and stating the following:
“Our mission is to adopt traditional principles and values into all facets of tribal operations and service. We will invest in our people in a manner that ensures our ability to become a completely self-sufficient society and economy. We will strive to gain ownership and control of all lands within our reservation.”
Couple the above set forth goal with a tribal chairman’s letter to a constituent reading as follows:
“Our long-term plan to repurchase the Flathead Reservation is going smoothly and quietly. At our present rate of acquiring land from non-tribal members we will control enough land by the year 2010 to demand that Congress purchase the remaining land and return complete control of the reservation to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes. Those whites which cannot be bought or taxed out will have to be encouraged to leave by other means.”
Those “other means” referred to in the above letter appear to be in the form of the Flathead Water Compact. If adopted this compact would provide that the tribe would receive 48 million acre feet of water reserved for the tribe’s use. This compares to 2 million acre feet reserved in total to the other six tribes in their compacts with the State of Montana.
Without water we non-tribal members can’t hope to maintain our crops, gardens and orchards, and are thus being encouraged “to leave by other means.”
I, along with some 300,000 other affected non-tribal member citizens are justified in our opposition to this water compact.
Lloyd Ingraham
Ronan
