Use mediation to discuss irrigation project option
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Editor,
From 2010 to 2013, the irrigation project was managed by the Cooperative Management Entity with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Flathead Joint Board of Control each having four board members. In early 2014, following the late 2013 dissolution of the FJBC, the Bureau of Indian Affairs submitted to each of the three irrigation districts a proposal to maintain the CME but with a BIA chair having a tie breaker vote.
Jocko and Mission districts agreed but the Flathead Irrigation District board did not. Department of Interior then ordered BIA to reassume project management in 2014.
In July 2014 a reconstituted FJBC filed a lawsuit in the US District Court in Missoula seeking, among other things, to reverse that decision. In August 2015 the US District Court rejected the FJBC claims. In September the FJBC filed an appeal with the US Ninth Court of Appeals.
Before taking up an appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court provides plaintiffs (FJBC) and defendants (DOI) a mediation service to see if they can come to a mutual agreement and thus avoid litigation. The FJBC is considering a proposal to establish a Project Management Entity (PME) with an eight-member board with seven appointed by the FJBC and one appointed by the CSKT.
I doubt that DOI will find the PME board composition any more acceptable than similar proposals floated by previous FJBC boards over many decades. If the mediation process fails, the Ninth Circuit Court must decide whether to reject or take up the FJBC appeal. The latter would cost irrigators a lot of money, take a considerable amount of time and have a very uncertain outcome. Under both outcomes, BIA would continue to manage the project.
Many irrigators have told me that they were very satisfied with CME operations from 2010 to 2013, including CME’s initial repair of Crow Dam.
Thus, as Flathead Irrigation District Commissioner, Charlo-Moiese Division, I have proposed that the FJBC use mediation to discuss with DOI the possibility of adopting, as an interim step, the BIA proposal that the FID rejected. This approach does not preclude seeking CME modifications at a later time and it could restore CME as project manager in 2016.
Dick Erb
Moiese
