BIA resumes control of Project management
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Editor,
Since March 2010, representatives of the Flathead Joint Board of Control and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have been managing the irrigation project under a Cooperative Management Entity. Improvements in project maintenance and water management were visible throughout the project. Given the dissolution of the FJBC in December 2013, the Bureau of Indian Affairs proposed that each irrigation district step in and enable the CME to continue to manage the project.
In an action that was reckless and irresponsible, the Flathead Irrigation District refused to join the Mission and Jocko irrigation districts and accept the BIA proposal. As a consequence, on March 11, the BIA announced that it must legally resume control over project management.
Having served on the FID-FJBC for three years before the CME was established, I know firsthand the costs and frustrations associated with the BIA’s costly bureaucratic procedures. Among other things, staff hiring will need to go through a complex and time consuming process and salaries will be increased to meet national market standards instead of local market standards. Equipment procurement will be subject to all kinds of federal bureaucratic hurdles. And the project will no longer be eligible for federal grants.
This list could go on, but bottom line: irrigators will pay higher operations and maintenance fees and again experience BIA bureaucratic inefficiencies in the daily operations of the project. This BIA action can be reversed. Thus I think it’s time for farmers and ranchers who want continued delivery of irrigation water and at a reasonable operations and maintenance cost to regain control over the Flathead Irrigation District.
Dick Erb
Moiese
