Irrigation project bled dry before 2010
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Editor,
A letter from the Office of the Solicitor for the Department of the Interior, dated Dec. 21, 2007 to the Chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes concerning a tribal request to get control of the federal irrigation project through the PL 93-638 process states: “The 1908 Act states that, after the Project passes to the ‘owners of the land irrigated thereby,’ the Project shall be maintained at their expense. Congress clearly intended that, after transfer, operation and management of the Project would no longer be funded or subsidized by federal funds.”
If the project was not transferred to the irrigators until 2010, then the federal government (Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs) was responsible for the long time physical degradation and disrepair of the project — not the irrigators. The irrigators did not assume financial responsibility for the conditions of the ditches and canals and head gates, etc., until just four years ago.
Anyone want to venture a guess where the federal funds to maintain and operate the Flathead Irrigation Project went during the period 1908 – 2010? Based on the photos used by the “proponents” of the Water Compact and Water Use Agreement for this reservation, these federal monies were not used to benefit the project. Who will be held accountable for the fraud, waste and abuse and mismanagement of federal funds that allowed this project to be run into the ground before it was turned over to those irrigators who repaid the construction costs to the U.S. government? The project was bled dry before it was tossed to the landowners.
Michael Gale
Ronan
