10,000 Claims

© 2020 Concerned Citizens of Western Montana

WHY DID MONTANA ALLOW THE CSKT “SETTLEMENT” TO COMPROMISE ITS WATER RIGHTS ADJUDICATION PROCESS?

….TO ENSURE THE RATIFICATION OF THE CSKT COMPACT!

In June of 2015, two months after the CSKT water compact was questionably ratified in the Montana legislature, the United States and CSKT made their threat of 10,000 claims a reality by filing them with the Montana Water Court.

To date, Montana has never disputed these claims, nor have they taken any action in the courts to have them dismissed.

Instead these claims sit out there and fester, sight unseen to the public.  The threat of these claims was effectively used to wield threats of future litigation in an effort to cram the overreaching and flawed Flathead Compact through the legislature.  The CSKT hired Mercury LLC, a lobbying firm associated with former Montana Representative Denny Rehberg, was used to create a phony  “grassroots organization” called Farmers and Ranchers for Montana, mailing out tribally funded postcards carrying their threats of litigation unless the Compact was ratified. 

Even Senator Daines used this threat in his testimony in support of  his water Compact legislation S3019 on June 24, 2020.

For as much as Montana neglected to dispute these fictitious “tribal reserved” aboriginal claims, they also have not entered them into the DNRC water rights data base.  That means that most Montanans have no visibility of them, and are not aware that these claims threaten their own water rights, claims that are located in basins that were “adjudicated” long ago.

To understand the scope and magnitude of what Montana allowed to happen, and what Montana citizens are unknowingly dealing with, we painstakingly went through each of the 10,000 claims and created a 28 page summary of them.

Let us repeat that: the federal and CSKT overreach is so massive, that it requires a  28 PAGE SUMMARY.

The claims filed were not made specifically against individuals, but instead the US and CSKT claimed time immemorial rights along all of the major rivers and waterways, for maximum control over Montana’s water.

Keep in mind, that if the CSKT or United States are able to achieve any inkling of a claim to these waters covering 2/3 of the state, federal or tribal jurisdiction over them via the CLEAN WATER ACT or other federal legislation will be a given, just as sure as we are sitting here typing this message.

In other words,  THIS IS ABOUT FEDERAL CONTROL OF MONTANA’S WATER.

Who will be the beneficiaries of this effort?   Certainly it is the United States in whose name all of the water will be held with a time immemorial priority date.

While the tribes like to believe they have a permanent seat at the table, they are secondary, and are little more than the Trojan Horse that was needed to restore the lands, resources and waters of Montana back to the feds.

Want to know what waterways the United States filed on in your neck of the woods?

Click on the photo below for a PDF copy of the “summary” of the federal overreach into the waters of Montana, under the guise of an Indian Water Settlement.

We’d appreciate it if you would share this document with your friends and neighbors.