CSKT Compact is fiscally irresponsible choice
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
Editor,
Like most proponents of the CSKT Compact, Rick Hill’s recent letter to the editor is full of misconceptions and threats used to support the CSKT Compact because there is no legal basis for turning control of water use in western Montana over to the Tribe.
He first states that the Hell Gate Treaty grants rights to claim water for the CSKT both on and off the CSKT Reservation. The five page Hell Gate Treaty does not mention water or water rights. With the following language, Article III of the treaty gives: “the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with citizens of the territory.” This off reservation fishing right language is only found in the treaties in which Governor Isaac Stevens was involved. The Hell Gate and Judith River Treaties are the only “Stevens Treaties” in Montana. No settlement, litigation or case law has been able to stretch this language into an off reservation water right. The CSKT Compact would be the first and if successful the Blackfeet Tribe would likely be next. Their area of hunting and fishing is in the Judith River Treaty and covers about eight million acres in eastern Montana, starting at the main divide of the Rocky Mountains and stretching to the Muscle Shell River. Their Compact has not had final approval because it has been withdrawn from congressional consideration at the Tribe’s request.
Mr. Hill states that there is nothing in the Compact that affects property rights. There are thousands of irrigators both on and off the Reservation who would disagree with him. Irrigators on the Reservation lost their state based water rights and received a water allocation. A study just completed by Barry Dutton, a water expert, shows the Compact cuts the water for the irrigation project by at least 50 percent of the historic delivery. Also, off Reservation irrigators in 11 counties can be ordered to stop using water during low river flows via water rights made out to the federal government in trust to the CSKT. These irrigators lose property value because of the uncertainty of adequate water.
Verdell Jackson
Kalispell
