Landowners forced to plow through aging irrigation network
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
ST. IGNATIUS — On April 9, the Bureau of Indian Affairs officially turned over control of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project to a cooperative management entity composed of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Flathead Joint Board of Control. In the four months since, FIIP project manager Gordon Wind and his team of ditch riders have inspected hundreds of miles of irrigation canals and ditches, and what they’ve found isn’t pretty.
“In a sense, (the BIA has) given us a Titanic that’s rusty and headed for an iceberg,” Wind said.
The problem? Lack of maintenance over the past 30 years or so, Wind said. He gave an overview of the irrigation project’s condition to a small group of landowners at a public meeting Monday in St. Ignatius.
The FIIP services 128,000 acres on the Flathead Reservation, with 17 dams and reservoirs and 1,300 miles of ditches and canals, and much of the system is more than 100 years old. Without proper maintenance, the waterways and control structures have fallen into serious disrepair, Wind explained. His project photographs showed flattened ditches clogged with weeds, canals obstructed with debris and unauthorized fences, dams and spillways in disrepair and “hundreds of locations where (ditch riders) can’t get through” to maintain waterways.
And not only does the system need an overhaul, it also needs improvements like better methods of measuring water flow. For the most part, ditch riders have to eyeball water levels and make educated guesses about amounts — a poor system, Wind explained, since there’s no way to accurately tell how much water each user is getting.
“The project, in the reviews, has been criticized for not having measurement up to par,” he said. “We can’t manage what we can’t measure … we really have to incorporate water measurement on our distribution system. It’s something that we really need.”
But before upgrades can be made, Wind and his team have to try to conquer repairs.
“We’re just trying to fix what’s broken … it’s failing as fast as we can keep up with it right now,” Wind said. “We’re playing catch-up.”
The good news is that, since April, the cooperative management entity has made several changes that will help the project run more efficiently, Wind explained. The FIIP now has 41 employees, 22 of whom are ditch riders. Under BIA control, the project employed nine full-time administrative people and laid off around 20 ditch riders each fall, rehiring for those positions in the spring. That meant that during the winter months, when water flow is low and canals are more accessible, no maintenance was done on the waterways.
The CME is taking a different approach, Wind explained. Office staff was downsized to four full-time employees, and the 22 ditch riders will work year round.
“So we’ve tried to … cut the fat, so to speak,” Wind said. “You’re gonna see more work done year round in the field.”
In winter months, ditch riders will stay busy cleaning ditches, clearing trees, casting structures such as turnouts, building cattle guards and “whatever it takes,” Wind said.
Even with more year-round employees, the CME’s budget for 2011 is less than what the BIA required. Rather than pay more administrative personnel, the CME has allocated more of the budget toward materials and supplies.
“We’re trying to put the money where the money should be,” Wind said. “All we need is the materials, and we’ll put these people to work.”
The project’s anticipated 2011 budget is just under $3.4 million and would require a rate increase of $2 an acre.
“You’re gaining that tenfold by having control of your project and having control of your money,” Wind told landowners.
Assessment rates haven’t changed since 2007, Wind added, and the CME board should finalize rates for 2011 by the end of the month.
