The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Fight for Quantified Federal Water Rights in Montana: A Contentious History

摘要

Establishing water rights without court involvement gives the parties flexibility to control the outcome and reach a negotiated agreement rather than have a result imposed on them by a court of law. Now that it is clear that the Water Rights Compact will not be adopted by the Montana Legislature, it is likely that the federal government and the CSKT will be forced to take action to address the "adequacy of the current interim instream flows, and the need to implement efficiencies and other measures within the fed-eral Flathead Indian Irrigation Project" (Mecham, 2013). Upon defeat of the Water Rights Compact, the CKST wrote an open letter thanking all legislators who had supported the compact.