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CSKT water compact violates constitutional rights

by Sen. Verdell Jackson
| November 29, 2013 11:46 AM

This is a response to Rep. Daniel Salomon who used CSKT Water Compact Commission talking points instead of facts to rebut my recently submitted letter to the editor on the problems I see with the proposed Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes water compact.

Equal protection under the law is guaranteed in our Constitutional Republic by the Montana and U.S. Constitutions. This means that all the laws apply equally to citizens and does not mean, as Salomon states, “everyone is treated equally under the new Tribal Unitary Management Ordinance” that would control water administration on the reservation.

Montana manages river flows and administers water rights for the benefits of its citizens and is accountable to the rule of law developed by the legislature. Montana cannot turn over its constitutional and statutory responsibilities to a sovereign nation with its own constitution and different laws that have no accountability to the Montana legislature or its citizens. It violates the equal protection clauses of the U.S. and Montana Constitutions.

Private property rights are vigorously protected by the Montana and U.S. constitutions. Salomon acknowledges that under the proposed CSKT compact, private water rights belonging to irrigators are to be transferred to the federal government in trust for the CSKT.

The compact should protect individual irrigation rights, not take them away. It is a violation Article II of the Montana Constitution and the U.S. Constitution to take state-based water rights from citizens on the reservation and transfer them to the CSKT or the federal government

Under the proposed compact, the Tribes want more water for in-stream flow on the reservation based on a “robust river” standard, not on the survival of fish standard. The increased in-stream flow water will come from limiting each irrigator to 1.4 acre-feet of water for each irrigated acre, (now you know why the individual water rights are important) and from water efficiency measures, such as lining canals.

Under state law (which would no longer apply), transferring the use of water from irrigation to in-stream flow requires evaluation of the environmental and economic impacts before a change of use permit can be issued.

Salomon seems to forget that the CSKT’s off-reservation water rights are not federal reserved water rights. The Hellgate Treaty secured for the Tribes the “right to take fish in common with the citizens of the Territory,” not a water right; otherwise, a group of citizens could get a water right to protect their favorite place to fish. Off-reservation claims do not meet the definition of a federal reserved water right, which by law is restricted to the reservation land.

The purpose of a federal reserved water rights compact is to determine the amount of water needed to meet the purpose of the reservation. That has not been done. When the amount of water needed to fulfill the purpose of the reservation is quantified (justified), there is enough water in the Flathead Basin to meet those needs without taking water from people who grow our food. The Flathead Irrigation Project needs more water, not less.

The Montana Legislature at present does not have enough help to properly and responsibly review this proposed compact, 1,200 pages, and House Bill 629, 130 pages, because state government has provided no legal, environmental, regulatory or economic assessments to reveal the impacts of this compact on private property values, individual state based water rights or the environment. No legislator in good conscience could consider passing a document of this magnitude without this information.

Sen. Verdell Jackson, R-Kalispell, represents Senate District 5.