Announcements:
- Linda Sauer reminded the group about the Last Chance Patriots speaker – The New World Order’s Crusade against Christians & Conservatives: Outlawed.” Presented by Shahram Hadian. Shahram will be speaking at the Ronan Community Center on Tuesday, September 14th at 6:30pm. Everyone is invited to join!
- Tracy Sharp – Tracy discussed what is going on with the Montana redistricting efforts. Tracy would like everyone to submit map proposals to the redistricting committee prior to September 15th. The maps should show an east/west split with Bozeman/Missoula in separate districts. We need to outnumber the Democrats in this effort. If we do not do our part, the Dems are using the opportunity to secure a Democratic seat in the United States Congress representing Montana. Do you want to end up like California? We need to ensure this process follows House Resolution 506 which will keep the east/west split.
- The next LCRW meeting will be Monday, September 11 at 12 noon. The speaker will be Linda Sauer. Linda will be discussing her ideas about how to get more of the younger generations to be part of the conservative movement and join the Republican party.
- Linda Reksten briefly discussed her efforts to get the local Montana State legislators and our County Commissioners to work closer together. The first meeting went well – working towards getting things done. Everyone is welcome to attend the meetings held on the first Tuesdays of each month at 10am.
Dr Catherine (Kate) Vandemoer was our guest speaker for the meeting. I have attached her supplemental notes on the presentation for you in addition to the notes that I took during the meeting.
Kate moved to Lake County in 2012 for a 6 month assignment and is still here!
We all agree it is important to protect Montana’s water. The Tribes have water rights.
We have lived through the biggest water issues since 1908. If the rest of the tribes in the Unites States get water rights, there will not be any water for non-tribal members!
Kate has worked with the tribes around water issues for 30 years.
It was not fair to Montana that the extent of the Compact was not known to the citizens of Montana.
Discussion occurring between 2015-2020. The Compact is called the Water Rights Protection Act but it isn’t. We need to make this work for Montana. We are now in a place for making it work for Montana! Indians have federal reserve water rights. The government also reserved enough water to go along with the land reserved for each reservation.
The origin of federal water rights was in Montana with the Winters Doctrine in 1908. The tribes have a reserved amount of water to fulfill the needs of the tribes. Senator Daines promised to eliminate the off-reservation water rights. The Unites States worked with each tribe to resolve all issues historically.
Flathead Reservation signed an agreement stating that all claims were done during the the Indian’s Claims Court. Flathead reservation went beyond their boundaries and agreements.
The map that Kate handed out shows the tribes subsistence area and the associated water rights with it which went across Montana.
In 1979 there was a Senate hearing and the tribe said they did not want any additional water rights. Montana should have used preclusions to prevent the tribe from extending their water rights.
Our enemy is not the tribe – it is the Federal Government
1855 – treaty was signed with the tribe
1871 – water control given to the states by the federal government
1904 – allotment
1908 – Flathead Irrigation – Winters Doctrine
1920 – Federal Power Act was signed – creation of Kerr Dam project
1924 – Indian Citizenship – tribes became citizens of the United States
1934 – Indian Reorganization act – set up tribes as Federal Corporations and brought back tribes – this protects irrigation rights.
1973 – ISDEAA -Indian Self Determination (PL-93-638)
Flathead Irrigation is a combined irrigation/hydro project. The compact broke this up and causing some fighting.
Obama began taking back the states water rights
In the compact there are capital “R’s” and small “r’s”. “R” is for the reclamation project.
“r” refers to any project.
Waters of the Unites states
– all water in the water shed is included.
Federal control over Montana’s water cracks away at the State Water Administration.The tribes have filed over 10,000 water rights claims. The state always owned water rights which has transitioned to tribal water rights.
Paragraph 1 of the compact states pursuant to the Hellgate Treaty, we the tribe reserve the right to the water. This raises a new type of water rights that is unique to the Flathead Reservation.
CSKT Compact is not an Indian settlement – went outside of Montana’s laws. The compact was incorporated into the Daines bill. Montana gave water rights to the Federal Government – gave up article 9 of the Montana State Constitution.
Today we do not go to the District Court for water issues – today we have not place to go. Tribal members lost their individual water rights in the compact.
HR133 – US Mexico Agreement – affects Western United States. The compact was discussed/heard in Congress in the foreign affairs committee under the US Mexico agreement. This is how it went through Congress.
Daines’ bill says we are implementing the compact
There are two gigantic mistakes:
1 – Federal recognition of water rights recognize state law – Montana can not give up their authority!
2 – This gives Montana an opportunity to fix the Water Compact issues.
Kate feels that Zinke will not help Montana. Dr Al can help Montana in partnership with Rosendale.
The Montana Water Court needs to hear the fight to fix this – the fight is not over.
If you have a problem, you can not solve it by using the same people who caused the problem. Our governor is pro-compact. IF this is not addressed by our Attorney General or our legislature it will go to the US Supreme Court. It is crucial that Congress takes responsibility- Kate feels it is possible to solve this.
This information must be publicized. We need to write letters to our Attorney General and write letters to our newspapers.
PL93-638 – Secretary of Interior is supposed to sign off on the compact. An agency is not able to change the law.
There is extreme corruption in the government.
PL638 contract enables the tribes to take over services that are specific for the tribes such as their medical care.
The group thanked Kate for speaking!
Frank announced the next speaker for the September 24th meeting will be Mark Clary – manager of the Lake County Office of Emergency Services
