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Litigation better than concession

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Editor,

Susan Lake’s letter published in an Oct. 16 issue of a Missoula paper praised the wonderful value of the “Unitary Management Board” provided for in the proposed Flathead Tribal Water Compact.

If the compact were adopted, this board would include two tribal persons appointed by the tribal council; two members appointed by the state governor; these four in turn would appoint a fifth member to administer the rules and regulations provided for in the Water Compact.

Let us be realistic:

1. We irrigators have survived and prospered without any quantification of water rights for over one hundred years.

2. During that period of time, there has always been more than an adequate supply of water to satisfy the agricultural and livestock needs of the allotees and homesteaders. The so-called Tribal Compact would drastically change and reduce to a devastating degree the water entitlements these users have previously enjoyed.

3. We have no guarantees that (politics being what they are) the governor would not select Susan Lake or her counterpart to the board.

4. According to the Treaty of 1855 and the Homestead Acts, the waters on the Flathead Reservation were reserved for the purposes of agriculture and livestock.

5. Under no stretch of the imagination can the tribe claim that the treaty provided for the waters of all of Western Montana to be reserved by the treaty to generate electrical power for the Bonneville Power Co. in the state of Washington.

As to the enormously exaggerated fear of litigation, I can only say that litigation is preferable to concession. This is particularly true when we consider our water laws as set forth in the State of Montana Constitution and our water court.

As a former practicing Reservation Water Attorney, my conclusion is that litigation is much preferred to conceding to the conditions set forth in the Tribal Water Compact.

Lloyd Ingraham
Ronan

 

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