Panel hears arguments on Flathead water pact

HELENA — A new report on the Flathead tribal water rights agreement did little to dampen controversy over the proposed pact, as water users from both sides Monday once again fiercely disputed the agreement’s effects.

Supporters of the proposed pact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes said the report shows how the agreement settles the tribes’ water rights and brings certainty to water-use issues on the Flathead Indian Reservation and surrounding area.

The report is receiving support among local businesspeople for the compact, said Ric Smith, a Polson real estate agent.

“We can have a known outcome today with the compact, or, with litigation, we can have decades of uncertainty with no known outcome,” he told the legislative Water Policy Interim Committee.

Yet opponents — many of them farmers and property owners near Flathead Lake — said questions remain about effects of the compact, that it needs more work and that the report glossed over those questions.

“This is a sell job, this is a one-sided deal, because everything here is presented as an advantage,” Bill Myers, the owner of a Bigfork marina, said of the report.

The committee spent 4 1/2 hours Monday listening to testimony and questions about the report and the compact, but took no action. Committee chairman Sen. Chas Vincent, R-Libby said the panel planned further discussions.

The proposed pact, negotiated by the state Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission over the last decade, would quantify the tribes’ water rights and calls for spending millions of dollars to improve the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project.

For the pact to take effect, the Montana Legislature, U.S. Congress and the tribes must approve it.

The 2013 Legislature last year refused to approve the compact as Republicans used their majority strength to kill bills to ratify the agreement.

Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat who supports the agreement, then directed the compact commission to prepare a report addressing some of the concerns raised about the pact during the Legislature.

John Tubbs, director of the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said Monday the Bullock administration continues to support the agreement and wants to move toward approving it at the 2015 Legislature.

The report is a midpoint in a long process, he said, and shows how the pact will improve the Flathead Irrigation District, settle the tribes’ water rights and provide more water for development in Northwest Montana.

“What we are trying to do is quantify that [tribal] right and minimize the impact to state-based water-right holders,” he said.

A number of irrigators appeared Monday to support the compact, saying the alternative of having the tribes settle their water rights in court will lead to costly, lengthy litigation.

Rhonda Swaney, an attorney for the tribes, also told the panel the tribes already are preparing claims to file with the Montana Water Court to define their water rights.

She also told the committee it’s getting “a lot of bad information” from opponents of the agreement.

Jon Metropoulos, an attorney representing the Flathead Irrigation District, said its members want an agreement and believe it contains some good things but can’t support the current proposed pact.

For example, irrigators have been assured that they’ll have the same amount of water as they did in the past, but aren’t getting verification of that assurance, he said.

Distributed by MCT Information Services