© Concerned Citizens of Western Montana

Note:  we are not attorneys and this article is not intended to provide legal advice to anyone.  You may want to discuss any of your decisions pertaining to your water rights with an attorney.

This is a brief post that pertains to our recent article Do You Have an 1855 Water Right?

This article is directed to property owners living within Flathead Indian Reservation boundaries that has researched their property records back to the BLM general land office and discovered that their property is an original allotment.  As an owner of an original allotment, you are a successor in interest to an Indian Allottee and have a Walton water right with a July 16, 1855 priority date.

If you are a Secretarial Water Rights holder it is highly probable that you also have a Walton water right.

If your water right or rights are recorded on the state DNRC website with a more recent priority date, you may want to consider amending your water rights claim to update the priority date to July 16, 1855.

Please reference the document linked here to help you successfully amend your claim.  It includes a copy of the DNRC Pre-1973 Water Right Amendment form.

Amending a Pre-1973 Water Right

Even if you didn’t file an objection in the Flathead Decree proceedings you may want to consider changing your water right priority date. This is because if the Flathead compact decree is voided by the water court and the tribe must quantify their Federal Reserved Water Rights, their proper priority date will be July 16, 1855. 

That means you could have a water right just as valuable and important as the Tribes.  It will also help your position in the General Stream Adjudication for the water rights within basins 76L and 76LJ.

For more information on Walton Water Rights please reference the case noted below.

When a tribal member conveys allotment land to a non-member, the water rights appurtenant to the land transfer to the non-member. Walton, 647 F.2d at 50; Lewis, 124 Mont. at 496, 227 P.2d at 72 (“Upon conveyance of the land by an Indian the water right passes to the grantee as an appurtenance unless a contrary intention appears.”). Non-Indian successors to Indian allotment lands thus acquire “Walton” rights—a “right to share in reserved waters.” Walton, 647 F.2d at 50. As the non-Indian successor-in-interest to allotment lands conveyed by a tribal member, Scott Ranch possesses Walton water rights as appurtenances to the lands it acquired. 

Source:  Supreme Court of Montana. SCOTT RANCH, LLC, a Montana LLC Appellant. DA 17-0031 Decided September 19, 2017.  APPEAL FROM: Montana Water Court, Cause No. WC 2016-04