‘Talkin’ Water’: confused or misleading?
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Editor,
Dick Erb’s Jan. 16 letter called “Talkin’ Water” incorrectly stated that “letters and public comments” were the only source of the statement that “individual state based water rights are being transferred to the CSKT”, as if the letters and public comments are somehow incorrect.
However, if Mr. Erb would read the Compact, he would find this language originates in the Compact itself, not in letters or public comments. Article III, Section 3 of the Irrigator Water Use Agreement states:
“This Agreement and the Compact specify the terms under which the United States and the Flathead Joint Board of Control (FJBC) agree to withdraw and cease prosecution and defense of all claims to water arising under federal or state law, held in their names and filed in the Montana General Stream Adjudication, and whatever permits and other rights to the use of water recognized under State law that are held in their names for use on the lands served by the Flathead Irrigation Project.”
The agreement goes on to transfer those water rights to the CSKT, and that is what the people are correctly talking about in “letters and public comments.”
What law or ethical principle allows anyone to give up their neighbor’s water rights to another government?
Irrigator water rights exist under state law, and the evidence consists of the years of historic, beneficial use, the files of these water rights claims in courthouses across the region, and records of these rights in the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation files.
The Montana Water Court simply cannot award those rights to another government without breaking the law, unless the irrigators voluntarily give up their water rights.
And who in their right mind would do that?
David Passieri
Charlo
