In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark Winters v. United States case, ruled that the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation was entitled to water rights from the Milk River and adjacent streams in what is now Blaine and Phillips counties.
The 7-1 decision was precedent setting and is used by many tribes throughout the United States to justify their call for water rights.
The decision said that reservations were, in effect, more than places to put Natives, but a home where they could be economically self-sufficient. Water rights were more difficult than land rights to ensure, the court said, but were nonetheless an essential tribal right.
On Thursday, 111 years after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., introduced a formal compact that grants those long-guaranteed water rights to the Fort Belknap tribes.
The compact calls for clarifying water rights in the area and for making improvements to the Milk River irrigation project. The compact allocates $630 million for infrastructure repairs and economic development on the reservation.
The repairs and improvements to the Milk River irrigation system would benefit both the tribe and off-reservation farmers, supporters said. Much of the infrastructure in the Milk River Project, which irrigates land from Havre to Nashua, is more than 100 years old and in need of repair.
The compact was ratified by the Montana Legislature in 2001. Then-Sen. Greg Jergeson, D-Chinook, who represented the Hi-Line, recalled there was very little controversy about the compact, unlike the recent compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which left the Republican Party sharply divided. That pact was eventually adopted by the state and the Trump administration and both Montana senators are now pushing for U.S. Senate adoption for a revised agreement.
But Jergeson said many other pieces had to fall in place before the final Fort Belknap compact was signed.
“It took years of hard work and negotiation to get here, and I look forward to working with our tribal leaders, businesses and recreationists to preserve our state’s most valuable resource and get this bill signed into law,” Tester said in a statement.
To become law, the compact has to be ratified by the U.S. Senate and passed by a simple majority vote of the Fort Belknap Indian Community.
“The settlement will provide important water infrastructure on our Reservation, certainty for Montana water users, and economic opportunities that will benefit our Reservation and the entire region,” said Andy Werk, chair of the Fort Belknap Tribal Council.
Tester said the compact is supported by an array of wildlife and sportsmen groups. Other irrigators in the area are also on board, Tester said, since their rights are guaranteed.
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There seems to be widespread agreement on the water rights of the stakeholders, and a general belief that all sides will benefit from the agreement.
But there is still angst about settling a dispute over another natural resource on the reservation:
Gold.
The compact calls for return of forest lands in the Grinnell Notch to the Fort Belknap community, and that is apparently causing some concern to area ranchers.
More than a century ago, when gold was discovered in the lands that straddle the south end of the reservation, people of European descent coerced, some say stole, lands from the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes.
The Grinnell Notch, a massive area that juts up into the reservation, was ceded by the tribes.
Some of that land has since been converted into state and federal forest preserves, some for private ranching and some as an area for gold mining.
Chemical extraction of gold from the Zortman-Landusky mine created an environmental catastrophe, and water in the area is severely contaminated.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality says it will have to spend millions of dollars a year “in perpetuity” to remediate the pollution.
Supporters say that returning the lands to the tribes will resolve an injustice committed against the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre.
“The circumstances under which that land was taken were suspicious at best,” said Jergeson.
John Todd, deputy director of the Montana Wilderness Association, said, “The government … forced the tribes off of land that is sacred to the members of the tribes, land that had been part of their reservation until gold was discovered there.”
Returning the land to the tribes would be fair reparations, he said.
But ranchers in the area, some of whom have been there for generations, are reportedly wary of the proposal and want to discuss it further,
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., has been working with Tester on other Native issues as of late, but was not part of Tester’s announcement on the Fort Belknap compact.
A spokeswoman for Daines said she would look into the matter and get back to the Herald.
Email John Kelleher at [email protected]
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