Klamath shut-off different than Tribe’s Compact
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Editor,
Chris Tweeten’s Nov. 19, 2013 response to my letter called “A Closer Look at the Klamath” completely misses the point. In brief review, I noted that Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe’s Compact proponents have invoked the Klamath Basin water problems as a threat to irrigators on the reservation. The threat being that if they don’t sign the irrigator water use agreement, they will face certain expensive litigation and have junior water rights to the Tribes.
My letter focused on the Klamath’s arbitrary shut-off of non-Indian water users with senior water rights ahead of those non-Indians with junior water rights, and it didn’t matter if they had or had not signed the “Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement” — which, by the way, was not a water settlement but a restoration plan for the Klamath Basin. The arbitrary shut off of water and uncertainty created actually resulted in a more than a $2,500 drop in irrigated acreage property value, which I learned in speaking with realtors in the Klamath Basin.
Mr. Tweeten continues to suggest that if irrigators don’t sign the Compact’s water use agreement, they will face the same shutoff because of the Tribes’ senior water right. Well, the water shut-off in the Klamath Basin didn’t have anything to do with whether one signed an agreement or not, and had nothing to do with senior water rights. Contrary to Mr. Tweeten’s view, Montanan’s have never had any doubt that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes possess senior water rights.
The way to win the irrigation community’s support for a water compact is first, not to “negotiate” away the irrigator’s water rights, and second, not to divide irrigators into those who will versus those who won’t sign away their water rights in the water use agreement. That’s a useless and harmful activity that diverts from the real task and Montana’s constitutional and court decision mandate: to determine the federal reserved water rights belonging to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
David Passieri
Charlo
