Compact supporters use avoidance tactics
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Editor,
What would happen if you had a well that pumped more water than the city of Polson and negatively impacted your neighbor’s well? Would state regulation of that well require you to control your pumping, pay for damages to other wells, or require a change in your permit? Well, and that’s a deep subject, you probably would have increased regulation of excessive pumping.
Now, what if there was an opportunity to eliminate state regulation of water, like the compact does, and cut a deal with the new boss — the tribes — to look the other way when it comes to your well? Isn’t that the nature of the “consensual agreement” allowed in the compact?
And, what if you could change the subject away from your well, and get everybody fighting over giving up their own surface water — not ground water — to the tribes, like the compact does? Wouldn’t that help you avoid the scrutiny of your own ground water pumping?
Ms. Lake’s denial of the obvious problem with her well pumping, when the city of Polson can’t even get a new well, and does not have the water to put out a fire in the city, is a nice tactic to avoid answering the questions I posed in my last letter. Instead of acknowledging the facts, she changes the subject.
The Montana Land and Water Alliance is not a political action committee, and I am not a “registered agent” as Ms. Lake claims, frantically trying to divert attention from her problem wells. The Alliance seeks to protect everyone’s property rights from the overreach of the federal government, and the irresponsibility of the state government and local individuals in pushing a very bad water compact down the throats of Montanans.
Jan Rogers
Polson
