Tribes to file claims: Placeholders sought until fate of compact is known

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will file water rights claims this week that cover nearly two-thirds of the state.

The tribes plan to file 2,815 water claims in Montana water court as part of the negotiated water-rights compact agreed upon between the state of Montana and the tribes in the 2015 Legislature. Tribal spokesman Rob McDonald said the claims are placeholders that will protect the tribes’ rights until Congress addresses the water compact. The Legislature, Congress and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal council must all approve the compact for it to become law.

The tribes’ filings on the water rights will put a hold on any action on water rights until the compact passes all three governing bodies. The issue of filing the claims was spelled out and agreed upon in the negotiated water rights compact, which was approved in April, McDonald sad.

The filing of these claims, he said, preserves the tribes’ water rights in the event that the compact is not approved in Congress.

McDonald said the 2,815 claims will be submitted for water rights on irrigation, stock water, springs and instream flows on and off the reservation.

About 39 percent of the water rights claims being filed are on the reservation, according to McDonald. The claims extend from the Montana/Idaho border to the eastern 1/3 of the state. The tribes began work on the water rights claims in 1982, McDonald said.

The claims will be filed at the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Helena. McDonald said about 1,100 of the water rights claims address instream flows that the tribes claim they have rights to under their 1855 treaty.