|
Blackfeet, state sign water addendum |
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 |
By Buck Traxler, I-O Editor
This last Tuesday, according to the Blackfeet Tribe and the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission, negotiations of a historic water eights compact was signed.
But not so fast. According to attorney John Bloomquist who, in a phone conversation with the I-O on Friday, said the compact is subject to ratification by the legislature, Congress, and tribal members. “For the compact to move forward with the Feds, it has to be approved,” he said.
The water rights have not been finalized, but a temporary agreement, the Birch Creek Addendum has. According to Bloomquist, the Pondera County Canal and Reservoir Co. is opposed to the Birch Creek addendum as it’s presently written.
The tribe’s rights will be gradually implemented with limited use for 15 years. There will be no new user supplies to down stream users from Four Horn Reservoir for an additional 10 years.
The state would pay the Tribe $14.5 million to defer drawing water from Birch Creek for the next 25 years.
The creek is used to irrigate more than 80,000 acres of non-tribal cropland with 500 customers.
In the interim, Four Horn Reservoir would be expanded to create a large water supply for both tribal and non-tribal users.
In the last legislative session, the state agreed to pay $14.5 million to help pay for the Birch Creek agreement.
While the full amount won’t be paid to the Tribe until there is full agreement of the compact from a lot of people; tribal members, the legislature, Congress and a State Water Court.
However, interest from that money, $425,000 was authorized and presented to the Blackfeet on Tuesday.
According to a story in the Great Falls Tribune, Don Wilson, the tribe’s water rights director, it will be up to the tribal council to determine how it wants to use the money.
Despite the tribe’s agreement to defer using more water from Birch Creek, non-tribal irrigators oppose the compact.
|
